Limbaugh 'bewildered' by Pope Francis, Catholic teaching

I'm liking Pope Francis more and more. I mean, look at how his simple words -- they could be ripped right from the New Testament! -- make so-called "Christian" conservative commentators squirm in their seats! (Partly, this is because conservatives are much more susceptible than liberals to patriarchy and argument from authority, and you don't get much more patriarchal and authoritative than the Pope).

"Say what?" Rush Limbaugh seems to say (see below), "Jesus didn't believe in trickle-down economics? Really? Christianity doesn't teach that we should get a 'thrill' from empty consumerism; we can only find true joy in loving one another and God?"

Rush is the perfect example of a conservative who has put his Christian religion way, way, waaaay behind his politics (second) and his love of money and buying things (first).  I'm gonna quote him at length so you see what I mean [emphasis mine]:

You talk about unfettered, this is an unfettered anti-capitalist dictate from Pope Francis.  And listen to this.  This is an actual quote from what he wrote.  "The culture of prosperity deadens us.  We are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle. They fail to move us."  I mean, that's pretty profound.  That's going way beyond matters that are ethical.  This is almost a statement about who should control financial markets.  He says that the global economy needs government control. 

I'm telling, I'm not Catholic, but I know enough to know that this would have been unthinkable for a pope to believe or say just a few years ago.  But this passage, "The culture of prosperity deadens us. We are thrilled if the market offers us something new to buy.  In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle."  I have to tell you, folks, I am totally bewildered by this. 

Indeed, Rush is totally bewildered by Pope Francis's remarks, because Rush is completely ignorant of the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Oh, the smite the Sodomites stuff -- he got that memo from the Old Testament. But the entire New Testament seems to have zipped over his bald head. And he's not alone among U.S. Christians, especially Evangelicals.

Here's more. Take a look at these two statements from the U.S. Catholic Bishops [italics mine]:

7. In economic life, free markets have both clear advantages and limits; government has essential responsibilities and limitations; voluntary groups have irreplaceable roles, but cannot substitute for the proper working of the market and the just policies of the state.

8. Society has a moral obligation, including governmental action where necessary, to assure opportunity, meet basic human needs, and pursue justice in economic life. 

Sounds pretty leftist, doesn't it?  It's also True with a capital T! And the Catholic Church's teachings have been very consistent over the years in this regard.

Later, Rush goes into complete revisionist-history/nutjob land: he says modern-day U.S. Democrats are today's Evil Empire that the Catholic Church should be fighting.  

Never mind that there are actual, honest-to-God socialist and Communist political parties dotting Europe, supported by honest-to-God trade unions (they are nearly extinct in the U.S., by comparison), giving all those godless Euro-trash types "free" healthcare, education and old-age pensions... And the Catholic priests and bishops there gladly support all this leftism.... No, according to Rush, the Bishop of Rome should ignore Europe and concentrate on the real enemy: the U.S. Democratic Party. Or as I like to call them, 1990s Republicans.  Unbelievable:

Now, by the way, in fairness to the pope and in fairness to the Catholic Church, I will admit that communism years ago was much easier to see and identify than it is today.  And the obvious evil that was communism was easy to see.  Soviet-sponsored communism, the gulags, the First World military with the Third World economy, the blustery behavior of Soviet Communist Party bosses, the constant Soviet expansionism into Cuba and Sandinista land and Nicaragua and everywhere. 

Communism today is much more disguised. 

Communism today, in large part, is the Democrat Party.  Communism today is in large part the feminist movement. Communism today is found in most of the AFL-CIO-type unions.  As such, it seems just a political point of view.  It's just an alternative political point of view.  It's just the Democrats, and it's a much tougher thing to identify and target, because it can be your neighbor.  It's not some foreign country easily identified as "the Evil Empire." Communism has a much different face today. 

I have to tell you, what has been attributed to the pope here doesn't make sense, with 50 years of the Catholic Church.  It doesn't jibe.  But it sounds exactly like what your average, run-of-the-mill leftist would say each and every day:  unfettered capitalism, trickle-down doesn't work.  I don't know this pope, but I don't know that the bishop of Rome speaks in terms of trickle-down.

Rush and his ilk simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious truth of the New Testament that Jesus and his followers rejected the pursuit of wealth, and established as their primary mission love, aid and fellowship with society's poor and outcast.  This is nothing new.  Pope Francis didn't think this up in the shower one morning.  Rush refuses to understand that, indeed, Christian teaching is basically "run-of-the-mill leftist" thought: equality, tolerance, shared responsibility, multiculturalism, love the poor, etc.

UPDATE (03.12.2013): I'm getting lots of hits on this post so let me add a personal tidbit. I was in mass last year when the U.S Catholic Church was doing its big campaign against Obamacare from the pulpit. I hadn't been to church in a long time. The pipsqueak priest who was about 25 years old said that the Affordable Care Act was "socialism" and that the Church opposed "socialism." It totally infuriated me. I stood up and walked out. "What is this, a Tea Party meeting?" I said to the person next to me.  Never mind that "socialist" Europe has variations on Obamacare in every single country and the RCC priests in Europe aren't railing against it.... Suddenly the global RCC was coming out against it in the USA? It smacked of ignorance and parochialism. So the Church is not snow white, and there is a lot of variation.

It's Sad How Wrong Pope Francis Is (Unless It's a Deliberate Mistranslation By Leftists)

November 27, 2013 | The Rush Limbaugh Show

URL: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/27/it_s_sad_how_wrong_pope_francis_is_unless_it_s_a_deliberate_mistranslation_by_leftists

Obama 'closing' Vatican embassy because he can't stand left-wing Pope?

Just kidding. Seriously though, if President Obama were a true socialist then he should be doing everything he could to support Pope Francis' denunciation of trickle-down economics and unbridled capitalism.

Pope Francis understands economics better than most politicians

By Heidi Moore 

November 27, 2013 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3kyy4

Atheists should pray for Pope Francis?

Oh no! Sara Palin called Pope Francis, "kind of liberal." That changes everything! I'll have to re-think my support. Popes come and go, but the Tea Party is forever!....

Seriously though, in a widely read interview with an Italian Jesuit magazine, Pope Francis said, "I see clearly that the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle" [emphasis mine].

Funny, but as a liberal, that's kind of how I see the government's role: before anything, we must reach out and protect the neediest and most threatened. We must perform triage on a deeply wounded country. If we can't manage that, then what's the use of all America's power and highfalutin ideals about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  

Likewise, Jesus started by healing the sick, feeding the hungry and seeking fellowship with society's outcasts. Jesus had zero tolerance for rules-quoting pharisees -- he condensed everything those holier-than-thou needed to know in one Golden Rule -- and he had no patience for religiosity that prevented caring for and loving other people. It was a radical approach then, just as it is today, because Jesus was a liberal; and liberals are always viewed as dangerous. Thankfully, it seems the current pontiff is a liberal, too. Let's pray he keeps it up!

You can't get girls in a Ford Focus! But I guess the Pope doesn't care....

Why even atheists should be praying for Pope Francis

By Jonathan Freedland

November 15, 2013 | Guardian

That Obama poster on the wall, promising hope and change, is looking a little faded now. The disappointments, whether over drone warfare or a botched rollout of healthcare reform, have left the world's liberals and progressives searching for a new pin-up to take the US president's place. As it happens, there's an obvious candidate: the head of an organisation those same liberals and progressives have long regarded as sexist, homophobic and, thanks to a series of child abuse scandals, chillingly cruel. The obvious new hero of the left is the pope.

Only installed in March, Pope Francis has already become a phenomenon. His is the most talked-about name on the internet in 2013, ranking ahead of "Obamacare" and "NSA". In fourth place comes Francis's Twitter handle, @Pontifex. In Italy, Francesco has fast become the most popular name for new baby boys. Rome reports a surge in tourist numbers, while church attendance is said to be up – both trends attributed to "the Francis effect".

His popularity is not hard to fathom. The stories of his personal modesty have become the stuff of instant legend. He carries his own suitcase. He refused the grandeur of the papal palace, preferring to live in a simple hostel. When presented with the traditional red shoes of the pontiff, he declined; instead he telephoned his 81-year-old cobbler in Buenos Aires and asked him to repair his old ones. On Thursday, Francis visited the Italian president – arriving in a blue Ford Focus, with not a blaring siren to be heard.

Some will dismiss these acts as mere gestures, even publicity stunts. But they convey a powerful message, one of almost elemental egalitarianism. He is in the business of scraping away the trappings, the edifice of Vatican wealth accreted over centuries, and returning the church to its core purpose, one Jesus himself might have recognised. He says he wants to preside over "a poor church, for the poor". It's not the institution that counts, it's the mission.

All this would warm the heart of even the most fervent atheist, except Francis has gone much further. It seems he wants to do more than simply stroke the brow of the weak. He is taking on the system that has made them weak and keeps them that way.

"My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost," he tweeted in May. A day earlier he denounced as "slave labour" the conditions endured by Bangladeshi workers killed in a building collapse. In September he said that God wanted men and women to be at the heart of the world and yet we live in a global economic order that worships "an idol called money".

There is no denying the radicalism of this message, a frontal and sustained attack on what he calls "unbridled capitalism", with its "throwaway" attitude to everything from unwanted food to unwanted old people. His enemies have certainly not missed it. If a man is to be judged by his opponents, note that this week Sarah Palin denounced him as "kind of liberal" while the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs has lamented that this pope lacks the "sophisticated" approach to such matters of his predecessors. Meanwhile, an Italian prosecutor has warned that Francis's campaign against corruption could put him in the crosshairs of that country's second most powerful institution: the mafia.

As if this weren't enough to have Francis's 76-year-old face on the walls of the world's student bedrooms, he also seems set to lead a church campaign on the environment. He was photographed this week with anti-fracking activists, while his biographer, Paul Vallely, has revealed that the pope has made contact with Leonardo Boff, an eco-theologian previously shunned by Rome and sentenced to "obsequious silence" by the office formerly known as the "Inquisition". An encyclical on care for the planet is said to be on the way.

Many on the left will say that's all very welcome, but meaningless until the pope puts his own house in order. But here, too, the signs are encouraging. Or, more accurately, stunning. Recently, Francis told an interviewer the church had become "obsessed" with abortion, gay marriage and contraception. He no longer wanted the Catholic hierarchy to be preoccupied with "small-minded rules". Talking to reporters on a flight – an occurrence remarkable in itself – he said: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" His latest move is to send the world's Catholics a questionnaire, seeking their attitude to those vexed questions of modern life. It's bound to reveal a flock whose practices are, shall we say, at variance with Catholic teaching. In politics, you'd say Francis was preparing the ground for reform.

Witness his reaction to a letter – sent to "His Holiness Francis, Vatican City" – from a single woman, pregnant by a married man who had since abandoned her. To her astonishment, the pope telephoned her directly and told her that if, as she feared, priests refused to baptise her baby, he would perform the ceremony himself. (Telephoning individuals who write to him is a Francis habit.) Now contrast that with the past Catholic approach to such "fallen women", dramatised so powerfully in the current film Philomena. He is replacing brutality with empathy.

Of course, he is not perfect. His record in Argentina during the era of dictatorship and "dirty war" is far from clean. "He started off as a strict authoritarian, reactionary figure," says Vallely. But, aged 50, Francis underwent a spiritual crisis from which, says his biographer, he emerged utterly transformed. He ditched the trappings of high church office, went into the slums and got his hands dirty.

Now inside the Vatican, he faces a different challenge – to face down the conservatives of the curia and lock in his reforms, so that they cannot be undone once he's gone. Given the guile of those courtiers, that's quite a task: he'll need all the support he can get.

Some will say the world's leftists and liberals shouldn't hanker for a pin-up, that the urge is infantile and bound to end in disappointment. But the need is human and hardly confined to the left: think of the Reagan and Thatcher posters that still adorn the metaphorical walls of conservatives, three decades on. The pope may have no army, no battalions or divisions, but he has a pulpit – and right now he is using it to be the world's loudest and clearest voice against the status quo. You don't have to be a believer to believe in that.

Ted Cruz and his dad on the death penalty

Since Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a "good" conservative and a good son, we can be sure the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

If you want to know what this Canadian conservative nutjob really believes, just listen to his preacher dad Rafael Cruz.

BTW, if you have a problem with the concept of social justice, then you have a BIG problem with the Catholic Church. And liberation theology may be making a comeback in the Catholic Church... even though it never went away in Latin America, one of the last strongholds of the Roman Catholic Church.

Similarly with the death penalty: the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the National Council of Churches (representing 35 Protestant and Orthodox churches), the U.S Episcopal Bishops, the U.S Presbyterian General Assemblies, the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., the Unitarians, and the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish movements all oppose capital punishment on religious-moral grounds. [HT: Pew Research.]

The Southern Baptist Convention is just about the only mainstream church that still advocates the death penalty.  

So if you call yourself a believer, a Christian or a person of faith, then think twice about Ted Cruz, his dad, and the Republican Party. And if you're so-called "pro-life" and pro-death penalty, then you'd better think twice then twice again.  Are you choosing your religious beliefs a la carte, as it suits your politics? Are you putting politics before your religion?

P.S. -- Some of my conservative friends have misunderstood my conservative logic when I said that, "Ted Cruz is a 'good' conservative and a good son, [so] we can be sure the apple didn't fall far from the tree." Like a good Christian, I forgive them for their misunderstanding.

You see, Obama and the far Right taught us that one's beliefs are determined by one's associates. Share a ZIP code with Bill Ayers? You're left-wing, bomb-throwing radical. Go to Rev. Wright's church? You hate whitey.  Belief by association is even stronger when it comes to one's parents, like Obama's biological socialist dad. Therefore, conservative logic teaches us that, with absolute certainty, Ted Cruz shares his dad's beliefs. It simply couldn't be otherwise. I mean, he doesn't even try to renounce his father's beliefs. So we can rest assured that Ted Cruz is an Evangelical Dominonist just like his dad.

Ted Cruz's Dad Declares God Is Pro Death Penalty

By Shadee Ashtari

November 7, 2013 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/1bbeHpZ

What's really needed from the next pope

Yeah, sure, ex-priest Brian Frawley's lesson from corporate America is well taken: the Catholic Church needs a pope with "the vision thing," as George Bush, Sr. named it, dismissively, not just a competent insider who knows how the Church machine works.

Others are saying the Church needs an African pope, or a Latin American pope.

But Frawley and others are ignoring the elephant in the room: decades of sexual abuse by priests.  The Church's cover-ups in the U.S. have already irreparably harmed the Church's standing there. The scandal is just starting to be uncovered in Europe. And it is still under wraps in Latin America and the rest of the world. You can bet victims there will be coming forward for decades.

A recent Pew poll of U.S. Catholics found that 34 percent named sex abuse and pedophilia among priests as the Church's most urgent issue. No other issue even broke double digits. 

There are about 70 million Catholics in the U.S., about 23 percent of the U.S. population. Only Brazil (127 million), Mexico (96 million) and the Philippines (76 million) have more Catholics than the U.S. 

So this should be a wake-up call for the Vatican. The next pope should start by turning over to law enforcement authorities every bit of evidence it has about priests who engaged in sexual abuse, starting with the U.S.. The Vatican should adopt a zero-tolerance policy for abuse and a mechanism for easy reporting of abuse, proper follow-up, and outside/third-party reviews of all reports of abuse. Just for starters.

In other words, the next pope's top priority must be to clean out the Church's stalls. This is in the Church's own best interests, although the old guys in charge seem to believe just the opposite. In fact everything else is just window dressing. 

To pick a pope, learn lessons from business world

By Brian Frawley

March 8, 2013 | CNN

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/08/opinion/frawley-choosing-a-pope/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

What a Catholic priest must do to get noticed these days

Just in case you thought the premise of the hit TV show Breaking Bad was a bit far-fetched, here is yet more proof that truth is stranger than fiction. (I'm late to the game on BB; I'm only through Season 2 so far.)

Jeez, it looks like we're running out of places to hammer any more nails in the Catholic Church's coffin. 

(BTW, I have concluded, based on all available evidence, that for the Church to take action against one of its priests the first time he is caught committing a felony or molesting somebody, he has to be running buck naked, high on PCP, through a shopping mall on Black Friday on live TV while carrying a sack-full of kidnapped kindergartners and screaming, "I am Satan Claus, come and get me!" Talk about having somebody's back! And the job security! Man, even the Cosa Nostra isn't as tight-knit and loyal to its own as the Catholic Church.)

Cross-Dressing, Show-Tunes-Loving Connecticut Priest Busted for Selling Meth and Laundering Money Through His Sex Shop

By Neetan Zimmerman

January 18, 2013 | Gawker

URL: http://gawker.com/5977011/cross+dressing-connecticut-priest-busted-for-selling-meth-and-laundering-money-through-his-sex-shop

Paul Ryan is not a Catholic and he said so

Remember when the Right said that Obama had to repudiate Jeremiah Wright if he wanted to be President?  Remember how they doubt Obama's confessed Christianity, even to this day?

Why then is Paul Ryan, a self-proclaimed Catholic whose own parish priest has come out against him, and who is opposed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, getting a free pass by the media on his love for the atheistic philosopher of self-interest, Ayn Rand?  Imagine if the Mormon Church came out and said that Mitt Romney did not represent their beliefs!

Here's what Ryan said about his hero Rand in a 2005 interview:

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.... I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.  It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns.

Note that he didn't mention the Bible, Jesus, Catholic catechism, or anything religious at all.  Ryan said his value system was formed by a dead atheist who hated religion more than Karl Marx.  

Now that Ryan is a VP nominee he's trying to back-track, saying he rejects Rand's philosophy; he just likes her economic ideas.  But not so fast.  Rand's economic ideas are based entirely on a morality of strict self-interest that is in direct conflict with Catholic-Christian teaching.

So, I'm going on the record to say I don't believe Paul Ryan is a Catholic or a Christian.  Nowadays we don't have to take a politician's word for it -- the Right taught us that with Obama.  So I don't buy Paul's recent coming to Jesus.  He was a grown man and an elected Congressman with a wife and children when he said that in 2005, and it's not like he's changed since then.  He's simply telling us now what he thinks we want to hear.  Remind you of anybody?

Ayn Rand & Paul Ryan

August 29, 2012 | The Colbert Report

URL: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/418458/august-29-2012/ayn-rand---paul-ryan

Ryan's parish priest: 'He shouldn't wrap himself in Catholic teaching'

So here's what Father Stephen Umhoefer had to say about his hometown boy Paul Ryan:

Umhoefer also laments what he calls an excess of individualism in America that is sometimes abetted by politicians. He prepared for (Center for Media and Democracy) CMD a section of the church catechism, which states that the church "has refused to accept, in the practice of 'capitalism,' individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor." Umhoefer said that he doesn't mean to accuse Ryan of choosing individualism as a creed over community, but that Ryan's promotion of Ayn Rand to his staff and others is "an alternative universe of which he is a member.... What I call an excessive attitude of individualism is doing a great deal of harm to us as a society because we are forgetting society values," said Umhoefer.

"What I wish for Paul -- he is so smart and so articulate and has made this whole budget, which he can defend on his own view ... of how the economy and politics work. I wish he wouldn't bring in the Catholic church. He doesn't need to if his economic and political argument are strong, and I'm sure he believes that they are."

It's too bad Ayn Rand is dead, because then we could get quotes from her saying how Ryan is a "compromiser" who betrayed the absolute principles of Objectivism. Then we'd see how Ryan is neither Catholic nor Randroid, nor anything else at his core except a hyper-ambitious suck-up to the rich and powerful.

VP Role for Paul Ryan Has His Former Parish Priest Worried

By Jonathan Rosenblum

August 15, 2012 | PR Watch

URL: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11707/vp-role-paul-ryan-has-his-former-parish-priest-worried

'Neither Christian nor right'

Dr. Giles Fraser, a priest at St. Mary's Newington and former canon chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, shows succinctly how terribly afflicted by cognitive dissonance are America's so-called Christian conservative politicians:

[Paul] Ryan has now predictably backtracked [on his love of Ayn Rand]. "I reject her philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy. If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas." By the way, this is the same Thomas Aquinas who insisted that, "Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need," thus espousing the very collectivism that Rand so loathed.

Concludes Giles:

The trouble is that Christianity in the US has become so widely hijacked by the right that not enough people will actually notice.  As the Ryan case aptly demonstrates, the Christian right is neither: that is, Christian nor right.

Bravo, padre!

Paul Ryan's faith in Ayn Rand is a political problem for Romney

Mitt Romney's running mate may be Catholic but his admiration for an author hostile to Jesus's teachings risks losing him votes

By Giles Fraser

August 13, 2012 | Guardian

URL:  http://gu.com/p/39yf6

Catholic Church on the record against Paul Ryan

Has there ever been a similar situation when the U.S. Catholic Bishops went on the record against a Vice-Presidential candidate and questioned his Catholic values?

This is in addition to the letter sent this April to Rep. Paul Ryan by 90 faculty, including 12 Jesuit priests, from Catholic Georgetown University: "Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love."

It's called tough love, you papist pinkos!  And Jesus Christ would be all for it if he were here today!  U.S. Catholics, you'll just have to take Rush Limbaugh's word for it.  

The Paul Ryan Catholic Dilemma

By Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

August 11, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/PMqFaG

In 2012, vote for the Christian?

Just one of Mormons' weird beliefs; look it up

Maybe I'm being a bit rascally by posting this, but certain Bible-thumpers and confession-doubters deserve to hear it. After all, if they're going to doubt the confessed Christianity of our President, then they need to know that Mitt Romney is not a Christian.  

That's not an insult, that's a fact. Even Franklin Graham said so. Christianity is a club of sorts, and you have to believe certain things to be a member.  Mormons don't.  So they're not in the club.  They are their own religious sect.  (Or, "the fourth Abrahamic religion," if you want to be really generous.)  That doesn't make them bad people.  Just like Muslims, Jews, Hindus, agnostics and atheists are not necessarily bad.  They're simply not Christians.  On this point, Protestants and the Catholic Church agree.

So, our conservative Christian friends need to decide if they want a confessed Christian in the White House, or a confessed non-Christian.  (Or, gee whiz, maybe they'll come to the realization that one's religion, or lack thereof, doesn't matter?!...)  

Is Mormonism Christian?

By Matt Slick

Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

[ ... ] 

Conclusion

Why is Mormonism a non-Christian religion? It is not Christian because it denies that there is only one God, denies the true Gospel, adds works to salvation, denies that Jesus is the uncreated creator, distorts the biblical teaching of the atonement, and undermines the authority and reliability of the Bible.

CARM does not deny that Mormons are good people, that they worship "a" god, that they share common words with Christians, that they help their people, and that they do many good things.  But that isn't what makes someone Christian.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23, " Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (NKJV). Becoming a Christian does not mean belonging to a church, doing good things, or simply believing in God. Being a Christian means that you have trusted in the true God for salvation, in the True Jesus -- not the brother of the devil, not the god of Mormonism, not the gospel of Mormonism.  Mormonism is false and cannot save anyone.

Pope: Internet alienates everybody except pedophile priests

Ah, Benny Boy, what superb timing you have. The day before you issued your warning to today's youth about the alienating effects of technology and the Internet, one of your priests was arrested for having 21,000 child sex abuse images on his computer.

Leave it to Gentle Ben to condemn harmless iPod owners and Internet surfers for the specks in their eyes while ignoring the beam in his Church's eye: ordained sex predators on every continent where the Church operates.

If the Catholic Church had any sense they'd put this mean old fogey of a pope into the old priests' home, before he manages to alienate even more people than the Internet which he despises.

P.S. -- Hey, kids, don't forget to get your daily dose of "disorientation" on the Internet at: http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm. They even have a special section: "Abuse of Minors. The Church's Response." As per usual, the Holy See is working overtime issuing speeches, pastoral letters, communiques, and press releases to resolve this grave social ill that it created. (Pssst! Yo, Vatican! You might want to try to do something to stop all your priests screwing little kids though! Just a thought.)

BishopAccountability: 6-10 thousand pedophile U.S. priests

My God, this stat explains it all:

"In the U.S. there have been at least six thousand priests identified as pedophiles since bishopaccountability started counting in 2003, likely ten thousand will be the total number, since 1950, when research is done."

The Vatican couldn't afford to expose all the pedophiles in its ranks, because it would have destroyed the Church. Better to deny, delay, and make quiet civil settlements.

Face It: Catholic Church Now Not Credible on Any Issue re Sex, Marriage, or Children, after Hiding Pedophile Priest Crimes

By Kay Ebeling (Journalist and Adult Victim of Pedophile Priest Crime Survivor)

March 21, 2010 | AlterNet

URL: http://blogs.alternet.org/cityofangelsonalternet/2010/03/21/face-it-catholic-church-no-longer-has-credibility-on-any-issues-involving-sex-marriage-or-children-after-decades-of-hiding-pedophile-priest-crimes/

None of these nuns oppose HC bill

Now all we need to spice this story up is a YouTube video of teabaggers yelling at nuns to "get a job" and stop asking for "handouts."

Nuns Support Health-Care Reform, Defy Bishops
By Katie Connolly
March 17, 2010 | Newsweek

URL: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/03/17/nuns-support-health-care-reform-defy-bishops.aspx

Rev. Rausch: Is war the answer?

Are wars inevitable?

By Father John S. Rausch

May 8, 2008 | Spero News

The United States spends more on defense than all other nations combined. Considering the basic budget for the Department of Defense that covers salaries, operations and equipment and the supplemental budget that pays for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending bests the second military spender by nearly a factor of ten. The supplemental itself for funding the two wars looms larger than the combined military budgets of China and Russia.

In addition, the government has folded a variety of military-related expenditures into departments other than Defense. The Department of Energy FY 2008 will spend $23 billion on developing and maintaining nuclear warheads, and the State Department will distribute an additional $25 billion among allies as foreign military assistance.

Add in obligations with Veterans Affairs, military recruiting and Homeland Security, plus Military Retirement, the paramilitary activities of the FBI, outer space related security and interest for past debt-financed defense spending, and U.S. spending on its military establishment for the current year, according to Chalmers Johnson, professor emeritus at University of California, San Diego, reaches $1.1 trillion!

In a 2006 Angus Reid poll, 65 percent of Americans said the country has been "too quick to get American military forces involved" in conflicts. Instead, the American public supports more preventive security measures like diplomacy, nuclear nonproliferation, peacekeeping and foreign aid.

A 2007 World Public Opinion poll found 78 percent of Americans "believe that all countries should eliminate their nuclear weapons" through a well-coordinated international verification system. Yet, the military budget continues to grow and has more than doubled since the end of the Cold War.

Behind the expanded military budget lies certain structural reasons for this aggressive spending. Prior to World War II, the U.S. had no dedicated arms industry. In time of war, manufacturers would convert their facilities from producing consumer goods to military hardware. That changed after the war.

In his Farewell Address to the Nation in 1961, President Eisenhower confessed, "...we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions." Yet, later in the speech he issued his famous warning: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial-complex."

Eisenhower recognized the need for arms manufacturers, yet emphasized their dangers. Originally, his notable phrase read: "the military-industrial-congressional-complex," though he chose to drop the one term in the final draft of the speech.

Yet, Congressional representatives get reelected when they bring home federal money to their districts, and arms manufacturers make profit when they sell weapons to the government. Killing a weapons system becomes near impossible because of the economic and political impact. The F/A-22 "Raptor" fighter jet, for example, designed to counter a Soviet aircraft that was never built, has one thousand subcontractors in 42 states.

People of faith recognize morally troubling aspects of the military-industrial-congressional-complex. Plainly, the opportunity cost–what could have been purchased instead of military items–represents a matter of justice. The catastrophe of a bridge collapse in Minnesota and the levees' failure in New Orleans represent essential infrastructure problems overlooked while unnecessary weapons get funded.

Morally, opportunity costs represent choices: eradicate polio worldwide or do 3 tests of the missile defense system; vaccinate 10 million children worldwide or buy 6 Trident II missiles; provide health coverage for 7 million children or fund the nuclear weapons program for one year.

The words of Paul VI remain true today: "If you want peace, work for justice." Justice demands we rethink the military-industrial-congressional-complex that robs society of essential goods and services while raising the threat of more and longer wars.

Rev. John S. Rausch is a Roman Catholic priest serving the communities of the Appalachian region of the US.