Fearful Signs The New Pope And A Radical Homosexual Clergy Could Be The Force That Leads The Catholic Church Into Evil In The Days Just Before The Beast Comes

I’m going to say something from the very outset: my title is somewhat disingenuous.  I don’t have any evidence that the new pope is evil; after all, I don’t even know who he IS yet.

But I DO know that many Catholics and religion reporters are saying that right after the first pope to resign in over 600 years – which for the record is a very long time – we now need a younger, more aggressive pope who can take control of the Vatican administration and be part politician, part CEO.  The need for great theology is now largely deemed secondary to this Catholic Church facing so many crises.

VATICAN CITY — When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took the name Benedict XVI upon becoming pope, it was a nod to sixth-century St. Benedict of Nursia, who had lived for several years in a cave in Italy.

As Pope Benedict prepares to end his papacy this week, his critics say the challenges he’ll leave to his successor are the result of him living in a cave of his own.

Benedict’s intellect and successful role as a spiritual leader for the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics is not in doubt, say Vatican experts and observers. But recent blunders and the poor handling of festering scandals indicate Benedict may have been far too immersed in scholarship and theology over his nearly eight-year tenure when what the church needed was a CEO.

“There was a time when the pope was a kind of king, and then, more recently, a spiritual leader,” said Alistair Sear, a church historian in Rome. “Perhaps now we will see an age of the pope first and foremost as an administrator.”

And I can’t help but think of that incredibly fascinating prophecy about the papal succession.  Because it held that the very next pope after Benedict would be evil – literally “the Black Pope.”  And once the Catholic college of cardinals votes for such a young, energetic administrator who isn’t all that interested in Catholic theology, it’s not like they can change their minds and vote him out.

Many have wondered if the final pope who would come (i.e., this pope right after Pope Benedict) would be the False Prophet of Revelation if not the Antichrist himself.

And it could just be that he will be.  It’s certainly starting to look a whole lot more likely given Benedict’s bizarre resignation in the wake of such massive scandal of homosexuality at the very highest levels of the Church.

The resignation of Pope Benedict stunned the world.  And it is equally stunning that two of the cardinals who were to choose his successor are caught up in terribly depraved sexual scandals and the coverup of those depraved scandals.

And there is even very real speculation that Pope Benedict may well have resigned because of a report he had received detailing a cabal of homosexual cardinals right inside the Vatican itself.

And that report mentions that the still secret Vatican report on the damage caused by these homosexual cardinals – some of whom were apparently being blackmailed by people outside the Church itself – was preceded by another damning report about a profound and profoundly disturbing takeover of the Catholic Church in Poland by homosexual priests.

The fact of the matter is that a vast homosexual underground has been undermining the Church and undermining the Pope’s papal authority as well as his claims to both any kind of good leadership or even any kind of personal integrity.

I wrote about this issue – which has been a blatant plague on the Catholic Church for decades and possibly even centuries.  I said back in April of 2008:

I mentioned that the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests’ sexual abuse cases were homosexual in nature rather than cases of pedophilia.  Let me take a moment to document the homosexual subculture within the Catholic Church before I relate this to Bill Maher. I quote one paragraph from the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc1.htm).  I am including the footnotes in order to better document the following statements, and maintain the numbering of the footnotes as they are found in the article:

* Father Donald Cozzens wrote that several studies have concluded that about 50% of priests and seminarians are gay. 5 * David France of Newsweek, referring to St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, CA, wrote: “Depending on whom you ask, gay and bisexual men make up anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of the student body at the college and graduate levels.” 3 * Rt. Rev. Helmut Hefner, rector of St. Johns Seminary “accepts that his gay enrollment may be as high as 50 percent.” 3 * Gay journalist Rex Wockner commented: “When I was in the Catholic seminary in my early 20s (St. Meinrad College, St. Meinrad, Ind., 1982-1983; University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Ill., 1983-1984), at least 50 percent of the students were gay….At St. Mary of the Lake, the straight students felt like a minority and felt excluded from some aspects of campus life to such an extent that the administration staged a seminar at which we discussed the problem of the straight students feeling left out of things…” 6 * Author and sociologist James G. Wolfe estimated that 55.1% of seminarians were gay. 7

3   David France, “Gays and the Seminary,” MSNBC, 2002-MAY-20, at: http://www.msnbc.com/ 5   “Vatican threatens gay purge of priesthood,” The Data Lounge, 2002-MAR-6, at: http://www.datalounge.com/ 6   Rex Wockner, “The end of Catholicism in America,” PlanetOut, at: http://www.planetout.com/ 7   James G. Wolf, “Gay Priests,” Harper and Row, 1989, Pages 59-60. Cited in Father Donald Cozzens, “The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A reflection on the priest’s crisis of soul,” Liturgical Press, (2000), Page 99.

One of many supporting articles would be http://www.actupny.org/YELL/catholicpriests.html which begins, “Roman Catholic priests in the United States are dying from AIDS-related illnesses at a rate four times higher than the general population and the cause is often concealed on their death certificates, The Kansas City Star reported in a series of stories that started Sunday.”  The article goes on to describe the homosexual subculture within the Catholic Church.

I pointed out that Bill Maher was an abject moral hypocrite of the worst kind for on the one hand being a liberal and a champion of homosexuality while on the other hand damning an organization that is only guilty of doing what liberals like Bill Maher wanted in the first place and allowing homosexuals more power and influence.

But the major point why I recite that article is because it is a fact that over 80% of the “pedophile” cases of Catholic priests in fact involved postpubescant, teenagers, not little children.  The scandals destroying the Catholic Church so completely were blatantly homosexual in nature.

Now I state for the record that this scholarly priest named Fr. Dariusz Oko, Ph.D. said what I was saying a few years ago even more directly, if possible:

We should first expose the common lie presented by the media.   They keep talking about paedophilia among clergymen, while it is most often the case that the problem is ephebophilia, which is a perversion consisting in adult homosexual men being attracted not to children, but to pubescent and adolescent boys. It is a typical deviation related to homosexuality. Basic knowledge about that reality includes the fact that more than 80 percent of cases involving sexual abuse by clergymen reported in the U.S.A. were cases of ephebophilia, not paedophilia[4]! That fact has been carefully hidden and ignored, as it reveals particularly well the hypocrisy of the homolobby in both the world and the Church. It is all the more important that it be exposed.

In other countries, the situation is similar, it is therefore important to note that scandals involving sexual abuse which have shaken the global Church were mostly the work of homosexual clergymen. The Church has paid a very painful price for the tremendous offences which have been exposed, losing much of its credibility. This has caused dramatic difficulties both in spiritual and material terms in many dioceses, monasteries and seminars, with churches becoming empty in entire provinces of the Church.[5] It is estimated that the Church in the U.S.A. has had to pay more than one and a half billion dollars in damages so far[6]. None of that would have been possible without the existence of a significant underground, of which prosecutors usually reveal only a small part, the tip of the iceberg.   The scandals have also involved those holding the highest offices. In Poland, for instance, Archbishop Juliusz Paetz was dismissed from his office as Bishop of Poznan in 2002. In Ireland, so similar to Poland in spiritual and historical terms, so Catholic, several bishops have been removed from office in the recent years, including John Magee, Bishop of the Diocese of Cloyne, dismissed in 2010 on the grounds of covering up the offences of paedophilia and ephebophilia committed by 19 priests in his diocese. Before that, Fathers Paetz and Magee had worked together in Vatican for many years as part of the closest, most influential associates of the last three Popes.

The lengths to which militant homosexuals in cassocks can go can be observed in the behaviour of the particularly “liberal” and “open-minded” Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who ruled the diocese of Milwaukee, U.S.A., in the years 1977-2002. He openly admitted to being gay and to having had many partners in life. Throughout the term of his office – for 25 years – he continuously opposed the Pope and the Holy See on many issues, particularly criticizing and rejecting the teaching of the Magisterium on homosexuality. He supported and protected active gays in his diocese, helping them avoid liability for sexual offences they repeatedly committed. At leaving his office, he defrauded about a half million dollars to support his ex-partner.   One of the most influential people in the Church of his time, Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ, turned out to be bisexual and to have perpetrated serious sexual offences against many members and underage students in his own congregation, including even his own son…   All four went entirely unpunished for a long time, despite many complaints and charges against them sent to Rome for years. Only direct contact with the Pope or publications in the media finally helped. Otherwise, everything was blocked at lower levels of local or by the Vatican hierarchy. It was similar in many other cases. For instance, several years passed before Bishops Patrick Ziemann of Santa Rosa in California (1999), Juan Carlos Maccarone of Santiago del Estero in Argentina (2005), Georg Müller of Trondheim and Oslo in Norway (2009), Raymond John Lahey of Antigonish in Canada (2009), Roger Vangheluw of Bruges, in Belgium (2010), John C. Favalora of Miami (2010) and Anthony J. O’Connell of Palm Beach in Florida (2010) were removed from office for active engagement in[, or cover-up of,] homosexual paedophilia or ephebophilia. Similar steps had to be taken with respect to many other bishops who concealed or covered up such offences. The same applied to many, sometimes very influential priests. Not only the number of serious sexual offences proves the power of that underground, but also – to an ever greater extent – the degree to which the process of selecting candidate bishops has been disturbed, who were allowed to make a great “career” in the Church despite their having perpetrated such offences, despite leading a double life. This is further confirmed by the efficiency with which such cases were covered up and concealed, the often insurmountable blockade of all attempts made within the Church to protect the wronged, to strive for elementary truth and justice. It has been so difficult at times to take appropriate, self-evident measures against homosexuals, so many strange difficulties have arisen, and even any success in that area is limited, partial and temporary. We witness a terrible phenomenon – it turns out the comfort of homosexual offenders is more important than the fate of children and youth, the fate of the whole Church. If that was done deliberately, that would be high treason, the Church would be guilty of betraying the youth!

This can also be seen in the fear and confusion of the clergy, particularly in certain dioceses and congregations, when faced with that topic – they escape into silence, unable to articulate even elementary statements on the teaching of the Church on the subject. What are they afraid of? Where does that fear in entire groups of mature, adult men come from? And where do the neuroses, heart diseases and other complaints come from in priests who nevertheless try to oppose such phenomena, especially to protect children and youth? They must be afraid of some influential lobby which wields its power and which they may fall into disfavour with[7].   In order for such evil to be concealed and tolerated, it is necessary that the right people hold key positions, and that not only a homolobby, but a homoclique or a homomafia is created. Indeed, that is what the present Polish Minister of Justice, Jaroslaw Gowin, called that group when referring to the scandal of homosexual abuses perpetrated by priests in the Diocese of Plock, the offences of molestation against young people and seminarians, and the covering up of such facts. He said that when he intervened in the Church in the case of Archbishop Paetz, he had the impression he was dealing with a mafia, brutally negating even the most obvious principles and facts.[8]

John MacArthur boldly decried the Democrat Party as literally standing for as their platform all the depraved homosexual wickedness of Romans Chapter one.

That message of moral clarity sadly never reached the Vatican.  Homosexuals and the radical perversion of homosexuality OWNS the Catholic Church today.

One of the questions is, will the next young, aggressive pope immediately confront this massive homosexual underground that now owns the Catholic Church, or will he be the tool through which they seize total power?  Will the rule of the next pope confront, or accommodate, the homosexual lobby.

And I do not have very high hopes that we will see him confront and fight and destroy this massive homosexual cabal.

I have written elsewhere that the Catholic Church’s view of homosexuality is deeply theologically flawed.  On their view, homosexuality is a temptation – and the temptation to engage in homosexual sex acts is not a “sin” but only the actual act itself.  That is wrong.  Homosexuality is perversion; it is brokenness.  And if a man is having serious thoughts about having sex with other men, there is something very wrong inside the soul of that man.

Which is why St. Paul in Romans describes acceptance of open homosexuality being that final, warped act of degenerate perversion that brings the wrath of God.  You can’t go any further down the moral sewer of human depravity.

Just read St. Paul in Romans 1:18-32 and follow his argument:

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

We now have a Vatican and a Catholic Church and a White House and an America that is openly tolerating and even celebrating the radical homosexual lifestyle.  Which is moral rock bottom and which is the characteristic sin of a society just before God gets truly mad.

I look around and I see a Western Civilization – once the civilization called “Christendom” – has radically departed from God in an embrace of secular humanist liberalism and Marxism.  I see America, once “One Nation Under God” now having openly defied Him.  I see the Catholic Church – far and away the largest Christian denomination on earth – having become so perverted and so sick.  I see America and Europe so deeply in so much unsustainable debt that a complete financial collapse is a given to any with eyes to see.  I know that all of the last days prophecies have either already been fulfilled or are already present and merely await the Antichrist to fulfill them.  And on top of all of that I have a sense in my gut that something is deeply wrong with the world and there is a reckoning coming.

I know that we are in the last days just before the Antichrist, who is called the beast, comes.  I know that America will welcome the beast and worship him.  And I know that American liberals, American Democrats and yes, American Catholics will rush to take his mark as a sign of that worship.

When the beast comes, he will be the ultimate big government messiah figure, which the left’s worship of Obama has already proven that the coming Antichrist will be the fulfillment of leftist hopes and dreams.

And they will march behind him as he leads the world right into a hell on earth.

I sadly believe that it is very likely that this coming pope will be yet another false messiah of darkness on a world that has been given over to the coming beast by decree of divine judgment.

Hitler Wasn’t ‘Right Wing’, Wasn’t ‘Christian’; And Nazism Was Applied Darwinism

Glenn Beck’s program on Friday, September 24, 2010, was devoted to the subject of Adolf Hitler, Christianity, and the nightmare that ensues when big government seizes religion in order to legitimize, even divinize, its socialist and totalitarian policies.

I have written about this myself, mostly in responses to atheists who want to foist Adolf Hitler onto Christians and Christianity.  I have grown up reading that Nazism represented the threat of a conservative, right wing government.  It’s a giant load of bunk.

To put it briefly, the communist Soviet intellectuals – and all leftist Western intellectuals influenced by them – created a false dichotomy between fascism and communism.  Zeev Sternhall observed how study of fascist ideology had been obscured by “the official Marxist interpretation of fascism” [Sternhall, “Fascist Ideology,” in Fascism: A Reader’s Guide: Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography, p. 316].  Marxism simply redefined fascism as its polar opposite in order to create a bogeyman: If Marxism was progressive, fascism became conservative.  If Marxism was left wing, fascism had to be right wing.  If Marxism championed the proletariat, then fascism had to champion the bourgeoisie.  If Marxism was socialist, fascism needed to be capitalist.  And the fact that none of the above was even remotely true was entirely beside the point.

“Nazi” stood for “National Socialist German Workers Party.”

As Gene Edward Veith points out:

“The influence of Marxist scholarship has severely distorted our understanding of fascism.  Communism and fascism were rival brands of socialism.  Whereas Marxist socialism is predicated on an international class struggle, fascist national socialism promoted a socialism centered in national unity.  [And in fact, Both movements were “revolutionary socialist ideologies.”  Going on,] Both communists and fascists opposed the bourgeoisie.  Both attacked the conservatives.  Both were mass movements, which had special appeal for the intelligentsia, students, and artists, as well as workers.  Both favored strong centralized governments and rejected the free economy and the ideals of individual liberty.  [And finally,] Fascists saw themselves as being neither of the right nor the left.  They believed that they constituted a third force synthesizing the best of both extremes” [Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p. 26].

And if the Nazis didn’t represent the far left, they were at best the right wing of the extreme left wing.

Jaroslav Krejci demonstrated the inadequacy of the “unilinear imagery” of left wing versus right wing.  He pointed out that the metaphor derived from the seating arrangements of the French Parliament  following the Revolution.  Politically, those seated on the right side favored an absolute monarchy.  Economically, they favored government monopolies and a controlled economy.  Culturally, they favored authoritarian control of the people.  Those seated on the left favored democracy, a free market economy, and personal liberty [see Krejci, “Introduction: Concepts of Right and Left,” in Neo-Fascism in Europe, 1991, pp. 1-2, 7].

Gene Edward Veith points out that these models simply break down in 20th century politics [see Veith, Modern Fascism, p. 27].  In terms of the model above, American conservatives who want less government and trust the free market would be on the left.  Liberals who want more of a government-directed economy would be on the right.  And so, while the Nazis would be “right wing” on this model, so also would the American liberal.  Furthermore, the terms “liberal” and “conservative” are relative, depending upon what one has to conserve.  The classical liberals of the 19th century, with their pursuit of free-market economics and resistance to government control, became the conservatives of the 20th century as they sought to conserve these principles.

And, to quote myself:

And just what on earth do liberals who call Nazism a form of conservatism even think Hitler was trying to “conserve”?

Adolf Hitler was a violent revolutionary out to overthrow the current system and impose his own radically different system in its place.  He was hardly a “right wing conservative” in any way, shape, or form.  Rather, Adolf Hitler was, as Jonah Goldberg accurately described him in Liberal Fascism, a “man of the left.”

Further, many American leftists embrace communism as though that somehow precludes them from guilt – even though many of their ideas and actions have been objectively fascist in spite of their rhetoric.  But even aside from this fact, don’t forget that communism itself was the single most evil ideology in the history of human civilization.

Were Hitler and Nazism among the greatest evils in the history of the world?  Of course they were.  But actually, Hitler and his Nazism were only the third worse mass murderer in all human history, behind Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao, who were both communist leaders of officially state atheist governments.

With that said, let us discuss Hitler and Nazism in terms of Christianity.

Did Adolf Hitler package some of his public remarks as “Christian”?  There is no doubt that he did precisely that at different times his rise to power, and even during his regime.  But that hardly means that Adolf Hitler was a Christian believer.  Politicians often have had clear and obvious reasons to say things that they didn’t really believe for political expedience.  And it is obvious on its face that Adolf Hitler was a liar and the worst demagogic political opportunist in human history, and that Nazism was utterly evil and based almost entirely on lies. Thus, to cite the propaganda of such a regime as evidence that Hitler or Nazism were somehow “Christian” is itself both sick and evil.

Germany had at one time been the seat of the Protestant Reformation.  But by the late 19th century Christianity in Germany had devolved into a near meaningless official state religion.  And Germany was the LEAST Christian nation in all of Europe.  The most prominent German theologians embraced a form of theological liberalism that disconnected the foundational elements of Christianity from historical fact, in what amounted to a sustained attack on the Holy Bible.  The school of “higher criticism” attempted to undercut traditional views about the authorship, composition and legitimacy of the Bible.  This project weakened biblical authority by assuming that the Biblical text and the events described were to be explained entirely in naturalistic terms, and rejected completely the possibility of supernatural revelation.  And it was almost entirely an undertaking of German scholarship (just look at the names: Eichhorn, De Wette, Wellhausen).

The Germany that voted for Adolf Hitler was influenced by an academic elite that had a total hatred for orthodox Christianity.

Given the state of our own university intelligentsia, one of Hitler’s more terrifying comments is this:

“Nothing makes me more certain of the victory of our ideas than our success in the universities” – Adolf Hitler, 1930

And so, yes, Hitler tried to package his Nazism in a way that superficially “Christian” Germany would accept, just as the Marxist Sandinistas deceitfully packaged their godless communism into “liberation theology” in order to deceive the overwhelmingly Catholic population of Nicaragua to support them.  As to the latter, the Catholic church said from the start that it wasn’t legitimate Christianity; but that it was a heresy. And the Cardinal Ratzinger who went on to become Pope Benedict even called the movement “demonic”.

Quote:

“…it would be illusory and dangerous to ignore the intimate bond which radically unites them (liberation theologies), and to accept elements of the Marxist analysis without recognizing its connections with the (Marxist) ideology, or to enter into the practice of the class-struggle and of its Marxist interpretation while failing to see the kind of totalitarian society to which this process slowly leads.”
— (Author: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect, now Pope Benedict XVI; written in 1984)

Quote:

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.” — Pope Benedict XVI

And Hitler also packaged his hard-core of Nazism with a candy-coating of lies in order to fool the people. And the people were fooled indeed:

….Any opposition to Hitler is ruthlessly eradicated.  Tens of thousands are imprisoned.  Journalist Stephan Laurent dared to criticize The Fuehrer…..

“I am writing this from cell 24. Outside a new Germany is being created. Many millions are rejoicing.  Hitler is promising everyone precisely what they want. I think when they wake to their sobering senses, they will find they have been led by the nose and duped by lies.”

Soon, the next wave of profoundly anti-Christian German scholarship took the next logical step in their attack against Judeo-Christian ideals which had stood for two millennium.  Friedrich Delitzsch, a biblical scholar from the University of Berlin, published a work arguing that the Old Testament published a book arguing that the entire Old Testament was dependent upon Babylonian culture and mythology.  Delitzsch concluded that:

“the Old Testament was full of deceptions of all kinds – a veritable hodge-podge of erroneous, incredible, undependable figures, including those of Biblical chronology…. in short, a book full of intentional and unintentional deceptions (in part, self-deceptions), a very dangerous book in the use of which the greatest care is necessary.”

But it soon becomes clear that the reason that Delitzsch believed the Old Testament was “a very dangerous book” was because it was Jewish, and Delitzsch was an anti-Semite first, and a scholar second.  Delitzsch went so far as to argue the plain historical fraud that Jesus was not Jewish, arguing that there was some difference between “Jews” and “Galileans.”  He also maintained an equally bogus distinction between Jesus as a warm humanitarian versus Jewish moral intolerance.  Thus Delitzsch “de-Judaized” Christianity, and “contended that Christianity was an absolutely new religion, totally distinct from that of the Old Testament” [See Gene Edward Veith, Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p. 53-54].

And so it became an easy next-step for Nazi propagandists such as Ezra Pound (who is also known as the godfather of modernism) to state that the Jewish religion began when Moses, “having to keep a troublesome rabble in order, scared them by inventing a disagreeable bogie, which he called a god.”  And Pound concluded “the greatest tyrannies have arisen from the dogma that the theos is one, or that there is a unity above the various strata of theos which imposes its will upon the substrata, and thence upon human individuals.”

And Adolf Hitler could then state in his Mein Kampf that:

“The objection may very well be raised that such phenomena in world history [the necessity of intolerance] arise for the most part from specifically Jewish modes of thought, in fact, that this type of intolerance and fanaticism positively embodies the Jewish nature” [Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 454].

The chain began by German scholars was complete: Hitler argued that it was okay to be intolerant of intolerant people, and that the Jews literally epitomized intolerance.

And none of this was “Christian”; it was a project straight from hell.

Friedrich Nietzsche – a patron saint of Nazism – correctly pointed out the fact that:

“Christianity, sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only as a growth on this soil, represents the counter-movement to any morality of breeding, of race, of privilege: it is the anti-Aryan religion part excellence” [Nietzsche, “The Twilight of the Idols”].

And so, a good Nazi was a Gottglaubiger.  Rather than putting “Christian” on personnel forms they wrote down “Gottlaubig” – representing a “vague pseudo-philosophical religiosity” – to indicate that, while they were not “godless communists,” they were most certainly not “Christian.”

So Hitler publicly said what he needed to say in speeches to deceive a mass population who had been bombarded with anti-Christian heresy and anti-Christian anti-Semitism, to bend them to his will.  But to his inner circle he said very different things than what he said publicly.  Hitler described to them that “after difficult inner struggles I had freed myself of my remaining childhood religious conceptions. I feel as refreshed now as a foal on a meadow” (Ernst Helmreich, “The German Churches Under Hitler,” p. 285).

What else did those closest in Hitler’s inner circle say about his “Christianity”?

From Joseph Goebbels’ diary, dated 8 April 1941 (Tue):

“The Fuhrer is a man totally attuned to antiquity. He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity. According to Schopenhauer, Christianity and syphilis have made humanity unhappy and unfree. What a difference between the benevolent, smiling Zeus and the pain-wracked, crucified Christ. The ancient peoples’ view of God was also much nobler and more humane than the Christians’. What a difference between a gloomy cathedral and a light, airy ancient temple. He describes life in ancient Rome: clarity, greatness, monumentality. The most wonderful republic in history. We would feel no disappointment, he believes, if we were now suddenly to be transported to this old, eternal city.”

Goebbels also notes in a diary entry in 1939 a conversation in which Hitler had “expressed his revulsion against Christianity. He wished that the time were ripe for him to be able to openly express that. Christianity had corrupted and infected the entire world of antiquity.” [Elke Frölich. 1997-2008. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Munich: K. G. Sauer. Teil I, v. 6, p. 272].

Hitler also said, “Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.” [Hitler’s Table Talk, Enigma Books; 3rd edition October 1, 2000, p. 343].

Author Konrad Heiden quoted Hitler as stating, “We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany.” [Heiden, Konrad A History of National Socialism, A.A. Knopf, 1935, p. 100].

Albert Speer – another Nazi who worked extremely closely with Hitler – reports in his memoirs of a similar statement made by Hitler:

“You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” [Albert Speer. 1971. Inside the Third Reich Translated by Richard Winston, Clara Winston, Eugene Davidson. New York: Macmillan. p 143; Reprinted in 1997. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 96. ISBN 0-684-82949-5].

Adolf Hitler sounds like an atheist to me. Certainly, Hitler was absolutely not a Christian. He cynically used Christianity like he cynically used everything else that was good; he took ruthless advantage of it as simply another means by which to package his lies to the German people.

The fact of the matter is that Fascism and Nazism were quintessentially hostile to Christianity, and even to monotheism.

Hannah Arendt describes Nazi spirituality in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem:

When convicted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows, “He was in complete command of himself, nay, he was more; he was completely himself. Nothing could have demonstrated this more convincingly than the grotesque silliness of his last words. He began by stating emphatically that he was a Gottglaubiger, to express in common Nazi fashion that he was no Christian and did not believe in life after death” [p. 252].

One of the leading experts on fascism, Ernst Nolte, defined fascism as “the practical and violent resistance to transcendence” [Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism: Action Francaise, Italian Fascism, Nazi Fascism, 1965, p. 429].  Fascism was anti-God, anti-supernatural and anti-transcendence.

Gene Edward Veith says:

“It is particularly important to know, precisely, why the Nazis hated the Jews. Racism alone cannot explain the virulence of Nazi anti-Semitism. What did they see in the Jews that they thought was so inferior? What was the Jewish legacy that, in their mind, so poisoned Western culture? What were the Aryan ideals that the Nazis sought to restore, once the Jews and their influence were purged from Western culture?

The fascists aligned themselves not only against the Jews but against what the Jews contributed to Western civilization. A transcendent God, who reveals a transcendent moral law, was anathema to the fascists” [Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p. 13].

By killing the Jews, Hitler intended to kill the God of the Bible.

Of Protestant Christianity, Hitler wrote:

“Protestantism… combats with the greatest hostility any attempt to rescue the nation from the embrace of its most mortal enemy, since its attitude toward the Jews just happens to be more or less dogmatically established. Yet here we are facing the question without whose solution all other attempts at a German reawakening or resurrection are and remain absolutely senseless and impossible” (Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 113).

Hitler talked about solving the “church problem” after he’d solved the “Jewish problem.” He said:

“The war is going to be over. The last great task of our age will be to solve the church problem. It is only then that the nation will be wholly secure” (Hitler’s Tabletalk, December 1941).

Hitler boasted that “I have six divisions of SS composed of men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn’t prevent them from going to their deaths with serenity in their souls.”

Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery and private secretary of the Fuhrer, said pointedly:

“National socialist and Christian concepts cannot be reconciled. The Christian churches build on the ignorance of people and are anxious so far as possible to preserve this ignorance in as large a part of the populace as possible; only in this way can the Christian churches retain their power. In contrast, national socialism rests on scientific foundations” (cited in Ernst Helmreich, The German Churches Under Hitler, p. 303).

At a Nazi rally a speaker proclaimed: “Who was greater, Christ or Hitler? Christ had at the time of his death twelve apostles, who, however, did not even remain true to him. Hitler, however, today has a folk of 70 million behind him. We cannot tolerate that another organization [i.e., the church] is established alongside of us that has a different spirit than ours. We must crush it. National socialism in all earnestness says: I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Nazism was pagan to its very core. Carl Jung (a onetime fascist sympathizer himself) described Nazism as the revival of Wotan, who had been suppressed by Christianity but now was released. Germany was being possessed by its archetypal god. (Odajnyk, Jung and Politics, p. 87-89). The Farmer’s Almanac of 1935, published by the Ministry of Agriculture, replaced the Christian holidays with commemoration days for Wotan and Thor. And Good Friday was replaced with a memorial for those killed by Charlemagne in his efforts to convert the Saxons.

In addition, at the very heart of the Nazi’s race programs and at the center of the Holocaust was the belief in atheistic Darwinian evolution. The principle rationale for the Holocaust was that the Jews were biologically inferior, and interfered with the Nazi scientists’ efforts to aid evolution by creating a master race.

Listen to these words and tell me who wrote them:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

It was none other than Charles Darwin himself (Darwin, C.R., “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,” [1871], John Murray: London, 1874, Second Edition, 1922, reprint, pp.241-242).  Charles Darwin literally predicted that someone would come along and extend his Darwinism to its logical conclusion – and thus literally predicted both the Holocaust AND the motivations FOR the Holocaust.

Charles Darwin spake as a prophet, and Adolf Hitler was the messiah who fulfilled the demonic prophecy.

But it wasn’t just the Jew that Hitler was willing to exterminate as being “biologically inferior.”  Adolf Hitler – who had made the Holocaust of the “biologically unfit” and “sub human” Jew the centerpiece of his campaign to create a “Master” Aryan race – ultimately made his “master race” the victim of his hateful Darwinian views:

“If the German Volk is not strong enough and is not sufficiently prepared to offer its own blood for its existence, it should cease to exist and be destroyed by a stronger power.”

How is that not the World War II that Adolf Hitler started not being explained into a test of Darwinism that the German people had to pass to justify their existence?  The simple FACT of the matter is this: that Adolf Hitler thought in entirely Darwinian terms.  He decreed the Jew had failed the test of Darwinism, and believed that if the German people could not prevail in his war that THEY TOO should be exterminated.

Why is this so?

Gene Edward Veith points out that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection had implications far beyond biology.  What must be true for nature must likewise be true for the individual and society.  If nature progresses by competition, struggle, and the victory of the strong over the weak, then clearly all progress must come the same way (unless we are not part of the natural system, which would mean that we were the product of divine Creation).  According to Zeev Sternhall, social Darwinism in Nazi Germany “stripped the human personality of its sacramental dignity.  It made no distinction between the physical life and the social life, and conceived of the human condition in terms of an unceasing struggle, whose natural outcome was the survival of the fittest” [Sternhall, “Fascist Ideology,” in Fascism: A Reader’s Guide: Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography, p. 322].

Similarly, Sternhall pointed out how scientific positivism “felt the impact of social Darwinism, and underwent a profound change.  In the latter half of the [19th]century its emphasis on deliberate and rational choice as the determining factor in human behavior gave way to new notions of heredity, race, and environment” [Sternhall, 322].

“Nazism was ‘applied biology,’ stated Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess.”

Nazism was also a direct attack against Christianity and Christian humanity.

Friedrich Nietzsche blamed Christianity, which he described as a creation of the Jews, for the denial of life that was represented in Christian morality.  Gene Edward Veith points out that, in his attack on Judeo-Christian morality, Nietzsche:

“attacked the Christian value of love.  Notions of compassion and mercy, he argued, favor the weak and the unfit, thereby breeding more weakness.  Nature is less sentimental, but ultimately kinder, in allowing the weak to die off.  The ideals of Christian benevolence cause the unfit to flourish, while those who are fit are burdened by guilt and are coerced by the moral system to serve those who are beneath them” [Veith, Modern Fascism, p. 82].

Nietzsche, epitomizing the spirit of Darwinism as applied to ethics, wrote:

We are deprived of strength when we feel pity … Pity makes suffering contagious….  Pity crosses the law of development, which is nature’s law of selection.  It preserves what is right for destruction; it defends those who have been disinherited and condemned by life; and by the abundance of the failures of all kinds which it keeps alive, it gives life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect” [Nietzsche, “The Antichrist”].

In short, the Christian ethic of compassion is a kind of sentimentality that violates the laws of nature, in which the strong thrive and the weak die out.

Speaking of this new, Nazi, anti-Christian, Darwinian view of morality and ethics, Reichmaster Alfred Rosenberg said:

“Justice is what the Aryan man deems just.  Unjust is what he so deems” [Alfred Rosenberg, as quoted in Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism, 1989, pp. 205-206].

“Justice” for the Jew according to the Aryan mind possessed by Darwinism meant extermination as racially inferior and biological unfit to exist.

Thus, whatever you might want to say about whether Hitler was an atheist or not, his Nazism was inherently opposed to Judeo-Christianity, opposed to Judeo-Christian monotheism, and opposed to Judeo-Christian transcendent morality. The spirituality that resulted was intrinsically pagan, and inherently anti-Christ and anti-Christian.

And in stark contrast to Adolf Hitler’s big government totalitarian Nazi atheism, here’s what our religious founding father’s believed:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

A 1954 Air Force Training Manuel had this commentary on these great words which founded the greatest nation in the history of the world:

“The idea uppermost in the minds of men who founded the United States was that each and every human being was important. They were convinced that the importance of the individual did not come from any grant of the state, that the importance of the individual did not come from any position that he had achieved nor from any power he had acquired nor from any wealth he had amassed.

“They knew that the importance of man came from the very source of his life. Because man was made in the image and likeness of God, he had a destiny to achieve. And because he had a destiny to achieve, he had the inalienable right and the inherent freedom to achieve it” (FTAF Manual 50-1).

Thus the question, “If God doesn’t exist, who issues rights to man?” becomes profoundly important.  Because the answer is, “Whoever has the power to issue those rights.”

It becomes the State which issues rights to man. And, welcome to come and crush the human spirit, next dictator.

Postscript: you can go here to see how this question about who issues rights to man is becoming increasingly important right here in the USA.

‘One of the prettiest sounds on earth’: A Quarter Of Americans Now Think Obama Is A Muslim

Why do nearly one out of every four Americans now believe that Barry Hussein is a Muslim?

More Americans say Obama is Muslim
By Olivier Knox (AFP) – 13 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Roughly one in five Americans wrongly says President Barack Obama is a Muslim, according to two new US opinion polls out Thursday amid a furor over a planned mosque near New York’s “Ground Zero.”

And about 30 percent of Americans say followers of Islam should be barred from running for president or serving on the US Supreme Court, according to one of the surveys, published in Time magazine and available on Time.com.

The Time poll found 24 percent of respondents said Obama — a Christian church-goer who has repeatedly spoken out about his faith — is a Muslim, while 18 percent said the same in a study from the non-partisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

On top of the Americans who believe Obama is Muslim – including a hefty percentage of Democrats, for what it’s worth – is the fact that more than half of Democrats, and even more than half of African Americans, don’t believe that Obama is a Christian.  And less than half of all Americans think Obama is a Christian.

Two years into Obama’s presidency, the American people don’t know who or what the hell has his feet on the desk in the Oval Office.  Kind of strange coming from a man who promised unparalleled transparency.

So the question that matters is why Americans believe that Obama is not a Christian, but is in fact a Muslim.

Well, at least partly because OBAMA once actually said he was a Muslim:

Let’s not play games. What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you’re absolutely right that that has not come–

STEPHANOPOULOS: Christian faith.

OBAMA: — my Christian faith. Well, what I’m saying is that he hasn’t suggested–

We all know about Freudian slips.  All I know is that I have never been so confused about my Christianity that I had to be corrected as to which religion I sincerely and passionately held.

But that doesn’t explain why MORE Americans now believe Obama is a Muslim than at any time in the past.  You know what does?  The fact that the American people have had time to see Obama as he really is in his actual policies, rather than as a preening pretender saying whatever he needs to say.

Maybe Americans have finally digested the New York Times article that came out over three years ago:

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

And what was it that Obama recited, and called “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth”?

“Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet… “

Now, you see, as a genuine Christian, I DON’T happen to find that chant very pretty.  Because Allah is NOT supreme – even if you say it four times.  And I particularly find that “there is no god but Allah” part to be anything but ugly.

Because, unlike Obama, I actually AM a Christian, and take no artistic pleasure in claims which specifically deny Jesus Christ’s deity.

In fact, I believe that I would refuse to recite those words even with a gun pointed at my head.  Much less admire their beauty.

It’s remarkably sad that Barack Obama would find some of the most hateful blasphemy ever uttered to be “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.”

Maybe Americans believe Obama is a Muslim because they took the advice of their president and started giving Muslims’ beliefs more credit:

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that’s not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he’s a Christian, but they do not.

I mean, why is Obama so intolerant to so flagrantly deny the sincerely-held belief of Muslims?

And, given that converting to Christianity would make Obama an apostate subject to death under islam, Obama being a Christian would be the worst possible thing in terms of our relationship with Islam.  Why do we want a Muslim apostate for a president?

Maybe it’s because Obama – who routinely cites the “Holy Koran” as authoritative – mocks the Bible which he doesn’t bother to refer to as “holy”:

Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles.

For the record, I dealt with Obama’s profoundly un-Christian argument in another article.  Like everything else Obama says, it offers a candy-coating of truth over a big chewy mass of lies.

And a lot of Americans realize that no true Christian would think or argue that way.

Obama doesn’t believe the Bible is authoritative.  It’s just the words of a bunch of moldy old long-dead men who weren’t even particularly wise.  It’s a book filled with errors and inaccuracies.  Unlike the “holy Koran,” which Obama has repeatedly cited as being incredibly relevant to our times.

Maybe Americans realize that a guy who pisses on the Bible and yet seems to revere the Koran is a hell of a lot more of a Muslim than he ever will be a Christian.

Maybe Americans need to start hearing Obama start pissing on the Koran the way he’s pissed on the – dare I say it – HOLY Bible.

Maybe it’s because Obama tried to ban Christ from Christmas, but celebrates Ramadan.  Why is that?

Maybe it’s because of the way Barack Obama has repeatedly attacked Christians, calling them racist bitter clingers desperately hanging on to their implements of violence:

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Obama said:

“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked,” presidential hopeful Obama said.  “Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.”

Those are incredibly harsh words coming from the most polarizing and divisive president in American history.  If Obama actually bothered to give the Bible any real credit, he’d think about Jesus’ words about taking out the log in his own eye before attacking someone else for the speck in theirs.

Barack Obama has only managed to unite everyone once in his entire embarrassing career, during one of his myriad greed-sicking fundraising events in Los Angeles:

A two-mile drive on the Westside took 45 minutes. Frustrated drivers vented on the Los Angeles Times’ website, among others. No matter their politics, Los Angeles residents were united.

“It was a beautiful thing,” said Brentwood resident Myles Berkowitz, commiserating with his neighbors on Montana Avenue. “Young, old, black, white — everyone was pissed off.”

Maybe the American people find it bizarre that evangelical Christians are much more the enemy to Barack Obama than the terrorists who have actively murdered Americans.  Maybe Americans find it weird that Obama believes that evangelical Christians are more dangerous than terrorism (a label he banned until political pressure forced him to put the word back into use).

Maybe it’s because most Americans can’t understand why Obama pushed for the construction of the Ground Zero mosque but didn’t bother to assist the Christian church that was destroyed in the 9/11 attack and has never been allowed to rebuild.

Maybe it’s because of the weak, apologizing, appeasing stupidity toward Islam Obama has displayed again and again and again in his apology tour, in his asinine Gitmo policy, and other atrocities of moral reasoning.

Getting back to the mainstream media characterization of Obama as a “Christian church-goer.”  Really?

From ABC News:

If church attendance is one measure of a man’s faith, then President Obama may appear to have lost some of his. The first family, once regular churchgoers, have publicly attended services in Washington just three times in the past year, by ABC News’ count, even bypassing the pews on Christmas Day.

By the most recent count I could find, Obama has now gone a total of five times.  Out of 83 weeks.

I wonder if my boss would call me a “work-goer” if I strolled into the office once every three weeks and change or so.

It’s a shame we have a media that just will not simply tell the truth.

I’ve also got to laugh at the fact that 24% became “roughly one in five” as though 24% is closer to 20% than it is to 25%.

So maybe it would help Obama if he went to church.  And I mean a decent Christian church that disavows radical black liberation theology Marxism, too.

Pope Benedict correctly labeled liberation theology as a heresy of Catholicism, and said of Obama’s version of “Christianity”:

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much.  Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.” Pope Benedict XVI

And the Pope – who understands something about Christianity – got it right: “Demonic” is the right word to describe Obama’s Marxist apostate Muslim Christian heresy.

Because maybe the American people can’t see “Christianity” in Barack Obama’s Marxist collective (as in “collectivist”) view of salvation that is nowhere found in the Bible Obama has trivialized.

So unlike the mainstream media – which has just become psychologically unraveled over this poll – I understand why so many people think Obama is a Muslim.  And it is frankly incredible to me that so many supposedly smart people in the media don’t get it.

For the record, I am personally much more worried that Barack Obama worships himself than I am that he secretly worships Allah.

Pope Benedict: The anti-Maher, anti-Wright Christian leader

I was so pleased that Fox News gave the Pope’s celebration at St. Joseph’s Seminary full coverage. I am not Catholic, but I would have gladly kissed that ring today.

I think about Bill Maher’s recent comments against Pope Benedict (see my article, “Bill Maher vs. Pope Benedict: and the winner is…). I think about the remarks of Trinity United Church of Christ’s (and Barack Obama’s) paster, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In contrast to such bitter men, it was so inspiring to see a wise, gracious Christian giant demonstrate the true virtues of the Christian faith.

My home page is set to MSNBC. It really shouldn’t be, but I’m too lazy to change it. I am glad that their forecast (something like, “Pope Benedict is visiting America, but nobody cares”) was so completely dead-wrong.

The Pope, addressing an audience of mainly young people, was able to draw on his own experiences as a youth in Germany under the “monsters” of Nazi fascism. He said, “My own years as a teenager were marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers; its influence grew — infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion — before it was fully recognized for the monster it was. It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good. Many of your grandparents and great-grandparents will have recounted the horror of the destruction that ensued. Indeed, some of them came to America precisely to escape such terror.”

The Pope praised God for the strength of Democratic governments who finally stood up and removed the evil that marred his youth even as it marred the world, and called upon continued resolve to stand up for freedom. “Let us thank God for all those who strive to ensure that you can grow up in an environment that nurtures what is beautiful, good, and true: your parents and grandparents, your teachers and priests, those civic leaders who seek what is right and just,” he said. He urged the young people and the future priests in the seminary to faithfully carry on their Christian works while enjoying the liberties that they were blessed to have.

“The power to destroy does, however, remain. To pretend otherwise would be to fool ourselves. Yet, it never triumphs; it is defeated. This is the essence of the hope that defines us as Christians; and the Church recalls this most dramatically during the Easter Triduum and celebrates it with great joy in the season of Easter! The One who shows us the way beyond death is the One who shows us how to overcome destruction and fear: thus it is Jesus who is the true teacher of life (cf. Spe Salvi, 6). His death and resurrection mean that we can say to the Father “you have restored us to life!” (Prayer after Communion, Good Friday). And so, just a few weeks ago, during the beautiful Easter Vigil liturgy, it was not from despair or fear that we cried out to God for our world, but with hope-filled confidence: dispel the darkness of our heart! dispel the darkness of our minds!”

“The German-born pope lamented that what he called “the joy of faith” was often choked by cynicism, greed and violence. Yet he drew an analogy to show how faith can overcome distractions and trials. ‘The spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Manhattan skyline, yet in the heart of this busy metropolis they are a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God.'”

These words were as beautiful as they were inspiring:

“The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, tells us that God does indeed find a place among us. Though the inn is full, he enters through the stable, and there are people who see his light. They recognize Herod’s dark closed world for what it is, and instead follow the bright guiding star of the night sky. And what shines forth? Here you might recall the prayer uttered on the most holy night of Easter: “Father we share in the light of your glory through your Son the light of the world … inflame us with your hope!” (Blessing of the Fire). And so, in solemn procession with our lighted candles we pass the light of Christ among us. It is “the light which dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride” (Exsultet). This is Christ’s light at work. This is the way of the saints. It is a magnificent vision of hope — Christ’s light beckons you to be guiding stars for others, walking Christ’s way of forgiveness, reconciliation, humility, joy and peace.”

Pope Benedict did not turn a blind eye to the darkness that constantly threatens to eclipse the world. Rather he defines it, and describes the path to attaining victory over it:

What might that darkness be? What happens when people, especially the most vulnerable, encounter a clenched fist of repression or manipulation rather than a hand of hope? A first group of examples pertains to the heart. Here, the dreams and longings that young people pursue can so easily be shattered or destroyed. I am thinking of those affected by drug and substance abuse, homelessness and poverty, racism, violence, and degradation — especially of girls and women. While the causes of these problems are complex, all have in common a poisoned attitude of mind which results in people being treated as mere objects ? a callousness of heart takes hold which first ignores, then ridicules, the God-given dignity of every human being. Such tragedies also point to what might have been and what could be, were there other hands — your hands — reaching out. I encourage you to invite others, especially the vulnerable and the innocent, to join you along the way of goodness and hope.

The second area of darkness — that which affects the mind — often goes unnoticed, and for this reason is particularly sinister. The manipulation of truth distorts our perception of reality, and tarnishes our imagination and aspirations. I have already mentioned the many liberties which you are fortunate enough to enjoy. The fundamental importance of freedom must be rigorously safeguarded. It is no surprise then that numerous individuals and groups vociferously claim their freedom in the public forum. Yet freedom is a delicate value. It can be misunderstood or misused so as to lead not to the happiness which we all expect it to yield, but to a dark arena of manipulation in which our understanding of self and the world becomes confused, or even distorted by those who have an ulterior agenda.

Have you noticed how often the call for freedom is made without ever referring to the truth of the human person? Some today argue that respect for freedom of the individual makes it wrong to seek truth, including the truth about what is good. In some circles to speak of truth is seen as controversial or divisive, and consequently best kept in the private sphere. And in truth’s place — or better said its absence — an idea has spread which, in giving value to everything indiscriminately, claims to assure freedom and to liberate conscience. This we call relativism. But what purpose has a “freedom” which, in disregarding truth, pursues what is false or wrong? How many young people have been offered a hand which in the name of freedom or experience has led them to addiction, to moral or intellectual confusion, to hurt, to a loss of self-respect, even to despair and so tragically and sadly to the taking of their own life? Dear friends, truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others (cf. Spe Salvi, 28).

How then can we as believers help others to walk the path of freedom which brings fulfillment and lasting happiness? Let us again turn to the saints. How did their witness truly free others from the darkness of heart and mind? The answer is found in the kernel of their faith; the kernel of our faith. The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, tells us that God does indeed find a place among us. Though the inn is full, he enters through the stable, and there are people who see his light. They recognize Herod’s dark closed world for what it is, and instead follow the bright guiding star of the night sky. And what shines forth? Here you might recall the prayer uttered on the most holy night of Easter: “Father we share in the light of your glory through your Son the light of the world … inflame us with your hope!” (Blessing of the Fire). And so, in solemn procession with our lighted candles we pass the light of Christ among us. It is “the light which dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride” (Exsultet). This is Christ’s light at work. This is the way of the saints. It is a magnificent vision of hope — Christ’s light beckons you to be guiding stars for others, walking Christ’s way of forgiveness, reconciliation, humility, joy and peace.

At times, however, we are tempted to close in on ourselves, to doubt the strength of Christ’s radiance, to limit the horizon of hope. Take courage! Fix your gaze on our saints. The diversity of their experience of God’s presence prompts us to discover anew the breadth and depth of Christianity. Let your imaginations soar freely along the limitless expanse of the horizons of Christian discipleship. Sometimes we are looked upon as people who speak only of prohibitions. Nothing could be further from the truth! Authentic Christian discipleship is marked by a sense of wonder. We stand before the God we know and love as a friend, the vastness of his creation, and the beauty of our Christian faith.

Some more marvelous words that reveal the genuine transformational power of the Christian faith, as well as an incredible source of power to do good in the world:

“In the liturgy we find the whole Church at prayer. The word liturgy means the participation of God’s people in “the work of Christ the Priest and of His Body which is the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). What is that work? First of all it refers to Christ’s Passion, his Death and Resurrection, and his Ascension — what we call the Paschal Mystery. It also refers to the celebration of the liturgy itself. The two meanings are in fact inseparably linked because this “work of Jesus” is the real content of the liturgy. Through the liturgy, the “work of Jesus” is continually brought into contact with history; with our lives in order to shape them. Here we catch another glimpse of the grandeur of our Christian faith. Whenever you gather for Mass, when you go to Confession, whenever you celebrate any of the sacraments, Jesus is at work. Through the Holy Spirit, he draws you to himself, into his sacrificial love of the Father which becomes love for all. We see then that the Church’s liturgy is a ministry of hope for humanity. Your faithful participation, is an active hope which helps to keep the world — saints and sinners alike — open to God; this is the truly human hope we offer everyone (cf. Spe Salvi, 34).

Your personal prayer, your times of silent contemplation, and your participation in the Church’s liturgy, bring you closer to God and also prepare you to serve others. The saints accompanying us this evening show us that the life of faith and hope is also a life of charity. Contemplating Jesus on the Cross we see love in its most radical form. We can begin to imagine the path of love along which we must move (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 12). The opportunities to make this journey are abundant. Look about you with Christ’s eyes, listen with his ears, feel and think with his heart and mind. Are you ready to give all as he did for truth and justice? Many of the examples of the suffering which our saints responded to with compassion are still found here in this city and beyond. And new injustices have arisen: some are complex and stem from the exploitation of the heart and manipulation of the mind; even our common habitat, the earth itself, groans under the weight of consumerist greed and irresponsible exploitation. We must listen deeply. We must respond with a renewed social action that stems from the universal love that knows no bounds. In this way, we ensure that our works of mercy and justice become hope in action for others.”

I hear and read these great, wise, potent words, and then I compare them to the cynicism of Bill Maher and the bitterness and divisive racism of Jeremiah Wright. The gulf is astronomical. Such a beautiful description of such a beautiful worldview. Contrary to the sickness that has come out of the mouths of Maher and Wright, the first German Pope is the anti-Hitler, the anti-Wright. The light he offered to the young people at Yonkers contrasts dramatically with the darkness we have heard from others.

Daniela Rizzo brought her husband and their infant son from Connecticut. “You can feel the energy,” Rizzo said. “You can feel the faith.”

I felt it too.

Welcome to America, Pope Benedict. May your visit be as happy as the joy you are bringing to millions.

A full transcript of the Pope’s remarks at St. Joseph’s is available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/nyregion/19popeyouth.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5088&en=2a1a37f9f94e066d&ex=1366344000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Bill Maher vs. Pope Benedict: and the Winner is…

The too-often unfunny comedian Bill Maher’s comments about the pope deserve all the outrage and contempt that the self-righteous media could possibly dump on the man.  But it is very unlikly that he will receive more than the most mild criticism.

You think of Don Imus getting dumped over his “nappy headed hoes” comment; you think of the media universe literally coming unglued over Senator George Allen’s use of a single word – “macaca” which I still have never actually heard defined.  (Media narrative: “We don’t know what it means, but it just sounds racist to us, coming as it did from a Republican and all.”).  Actor Isaiah Washington was fired from his role on Grey’s Anatomy over an anti-gay slur.  But when Bill Maher viciously rips the pope and a billion-plus Catholics again and again, the media doesn’t seem to see any problems.  It’s a matter of one of their own targeting one of their targets.

Christians – and Catholics, especially – are fair game.  I guess when every other group has special protections, somebody has to remain on the “fair game” list.  Every propaganda machine needs a villian, after all. 

I’d like to say a few things about Bill Maher.  But first let’s let the man speak for himself:

According to Newsmax:

“The comments were made on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, Apr. 11. Maher went into a long monologue on his program comparing the Catholic church to a polygamous cult — the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — which was raided on Apr. 3 and whose founder, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year for being an accessory to the rape of a teenage girl. Bill Maher compared the Texas scandal and its latest alleged abuse with the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in the United States in 2002. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Pope_bill_maher_/2008/04/15/88028.html

These are a few of Maher’s remarks:

“I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult,” Maher told his audience. “Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he’s single.”

And again:

“If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘Pope.’ It’s like, if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat. But if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia — too big, too fat.”

First of all the man is a documented liar.  Pope Benedict XVI – like ALL German youth of the time – was conscripted against his will into a German youth organization, from which he fled as soon as he could.  He was not a Nazi.  He was never a Nazi.  If anyone is a Nazi, it is Bill Maher for using Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda tactics to maliciously brand an innocent man with the most despicable charge.

Bill Maher clearly doesn’t mind telling vicious, hateful lies.  So it isn’t surprising that he would also talk about the Catholic Church in this manner.  I did a little reading on the subject, and discovered that one of the most reliable sources available – the February 2004 research study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – found that 81% of the so-called abuse cases involved teen-age boys and up.  Stephen Rubino, a lawyer who has represented over 300 alleged victims of priest abuse, estimated 85 percent of the victims have been teen-age boys. And Catholic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, who has treated many victims and offending priests, agrees with that figure, noting that 90 percent of his patients are either abused teen-age males or their priest abusers.  These were cases of evil abuse against young men who were taken advantage of by certain priests in the worst way, but they were NOT cases of “child molestation” and/or pedophilia.  Rather, these cases were the result of a massive homosexual sub-culture within the Catholic Church taking advantage of their positions and the unequal-power-relationships they initiated to have homosexual intercourse with teens and young men.

It turns out that genuine cases of pedophila are MUCH more likely to occur in the public schools than in the Catholic Church.  And that the culture of cover-ups, transfers, and

other protective schemes to conceal abusive teachers are likewise FAR more likely to occur in the public school system than in the Catholic Church – especially today.  Public school abuses – including both the cases of sexual abuse by teachers and the covering up of such abuses by the administrators and unions – ought to be far more shocking and disturbing, because parents are forced to send their children to public schools whereas they are not so required to send their children to priests.  Why doesn’t Bill Maher charicterize public school teachers as pedophiles?  If you hate religion, don’t let facts get in the way of a good propaganda campaign.  The Catholic League has documented the points I made at:  http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm

Second, Bill Maher is a bigot.

That’s what he’d call him if he singled out ANY other group of people for such hateful remarks.  If I go on a comedic rant about blacks, or Muslims, or gays, or most anyone else, and I’m sure going to hear that label applied to me.  And from no less a personage than Bill Maher, to boot.

As a counterexample to Maher, I, along with the overwhelming majority of genuine Christians, would never use rhetoric like Maher’s to describe or ridicule homosexuals in spite of our beliefs about the nature of their lifestyles.  We recognize that they are human beings who deserve compassion.  So are the one billion Catholics that Maher calls deranged cultists.

Third, Bill Maher is a coward.

I’m sure in his little “yuk-it-up” elitist social gatherings, Maher is routinely praised for his “courage” in “taking on” the Catholic Church, Christianity, and organized religion.  But this atheist wouldn’t dare attack and insult and lie about Islam the way he so cavalierly does about Catholicism and Christianity.  why not?  Because they will go after him and kill him, that’s why.  And he won’t go after Jews or Judaism (or rabbis, who have about the same rate of sex-abuse as Catholic priests, by the way) the way he goes after Catholics and Christians, because that really would be “politically incorrect” (the title of his former show), and organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League would rightly make him pay.

Fourth, Bill Mayer is a bully.

Instead of taking on people and organizations that would go after him or undermine his popularity, Maher takes advantage of the fact that Christians believe in turning the other cheek.  He takes advantage of their goodness, graciousness, and self-restraint to attack them and hurt them.  He takes advantage of the fact that his core audience – which is as vile, as bitter, and as mean as he is – are the type of people who wouldn’t at all mind seeing Christians killed by the tens of thousands in the Coliseum just as they were in the Roman days.  He’s no different than the ringleader of a group of thugs in a school yard who single out a particular kid for torment.

Fifth, Bill Maher is a hypocrite.

I mentioned that the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests’ sexual abuse cases were homosexual in nature rather than cases of pedophilia.  Let me take a moment to document the homosexual subculture within the Catholic Church before I relate this to Bill Maher. I quote one paragraph from the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc1.htm).  I am including the footnotes in order to better document the following statements, and maintain the numbering of the footnotes as they are found in the article:

* Father Donald Cozzens wrote that several studies have concluded that about 50% of priests and seminarians are gay. 5
* David France of Newsweek, referring to St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, CA, wrote:
“Depending on whom you ask, gay and bisexual men make up anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of the student body at the college and graduate levels.” 3
* Rt. Rev. Helmut Hefner, rector of St. Johns Seminary “accepts that his gay enrollment may be as high as 50 percent.” 3
* Gay journalist Rex Wockner commented: “When I was in the Catholic seminary in my early 20s (St. Meinrad College, St. Meinrad, Ind., 1982-1983; University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Ill., 1983-1984), at least 50 percent of the students were gay….At St. Mary of the Lake, the straight students felt like a minority and felt excluded from some aspects of campus life to such an extent that the administration staged a seminar at which we discussed the problem of the straight students feeling left out of things…” 6
* Author and sociologist James G. Wolfe estimated that 55.1% of seminarians were gay. 7

3   David France, “Gays and the Seminary,” MSNBC, 2002-MAY-20, at: http://www.msnbc.com/
5   “Vatican threatens gay purge of priesthood,” The Data Lounge, 2002-MAR-6, at: http://www.datalounge.com/
6   Rex Wockner, “The end of Catholicism in America,” PlanetOut, at: http://www.planetout.com/
7   James G. Wolf, “Gay Priests,” Harper and Row, 1989, Pages 59-60. Cited in Father Donald Cozzens, “The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A reflection on the priest’s crisis of soul,” Liturgical Press, (2000), Page 99.

One of many supporting articles would be http://www.actupny.org/YELL/catholicpriests.html which begins, “Roman Catholic priests in the United States are dying from AIDS-related illnesses at a rate four times higher than the general population and the cause is often concealed on their death certificates, The Kansas City Star reported in a series of stories that started Sunday.”  The article goes on to describe the homosexual subculture within the Catholic Church.

I don’t point out that the maliciously characterized “pedophile priests” have actually been homosexuals in order to attack homosexuals or homosexuality in this context.  Most of these homosexual priests – in the overwhelming majority of casaes – have practiced their vows of abstinence.  The statistics demonstrate that a tiny minority of priests perpetuated all the abuses.  Rather, I bring this up in order to reveal what a hypocrite Bill Maher is.  This man, who has made so much of these abuse cases within the Catholic Church, is a hard-core liberal activist.  Homosexuals are very much one of the groups of people that he and people like him have shielded.  One of the main reasons people like Bill Maher have so vindictively attacked Christianity and Catholicism has been because Christians and Catholics have condemned homosexuality.  And for Maher to lay at the feet of Catholicism what more deservedly lays at the feet of people whose rights he defends is the basest form of hypocrite.

The Catholic Church could have done a much better job of dealing with the abuse cases by aggressively purging homosexuals from its priesthood – which would have brought the ire of liberals like Bill Maher.  Instead, they tolerated this massive homosexual presence within their midst for decades – and Bill Maher attacks the Catholic church for tolerating a group of people that he demand they tolerate!

Thus I conclude my case that Bill Maher – and quite frankly every one who agrees with him – is a lying, bigoted, hypocritical, bullying coward.

The Catholic Church is a flawed organization, without a doubt.  But when I look at all the good that Catholics have done in the world, and then look at the fruits of people like Bill Maher, it is not the Catholic Church that looks bad.