Infallible = Inflexible ?

Quote of the Day:
"I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?"
~ Homer Simpson ~

There's a new pope in the Vatican. The College of Cardinals have elected Joseph Ratzinger as the new pontiff. When I saw this news on TV there was a huge dark cloud hovering over St. Peter's Basilica. There also seem to be a few dark clouds in the new pope's past.

On April 16, 1999 the National Catholic Reporter ran a story entitled 'The Vatican's Enforcer' which detailed Ratzinger's Inquesition of liberal theologians in the Catholic Church. At that time they said, "At the most basic level, many Catholics cannot escape the sense that Ratzinger’s exercise of ecclesial power is not what Jesus had in mind."

The UK Guardian ran a story with PDF documentation in August of 2003 which stated:

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.

They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.'

Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.

Last but not least, another story from The National Catholic Reporter. This time Ratzinger says that only Catholics can receive "salvation."

"Aiming to stop a new movement in Catholic theology in its tracks, the Vatican issued a major document this week emphatically denying that other world religions can offer salvation independent of Christianity and insisting that making converts to Catholicism remains an “urgent duty.”

The push within Catholicism to accept other religions as vehicles for divine revelation and saving power is often called the “theology of religious pluralism,” and is most closely linked to theologians and bishops in Asia. One consequence of this view is that dialogue with members of other religions, rather than attempts to convert them, becomes the focus of interreligious exchange.

The new document, titled Dominus Iesus, or “The Lord Jesus,” and presented by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in a Sept. 5 news conference, firmly rejects this stance."

The 'My gods better than your god" song is becoming so popular some people just can't get it out of their head. Ratzinger has added a new chorus to his version. "The Inquisition is alive and well. If you don't become a catholic you can all go to hell."

I wonder what the 'man' in the White house and his fanatical Fundie followers have to say about that? Maybe he'll dial up the Jesus on the hotline.

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