Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis

Thursday April 07, 2005 07:37

by Enrique Munoz - Reearch Specialists Mexico

Internacional at becouz dot com

Martyred Archbishop Romero to Be a Saint - John Paul to Be Tried for War Crimes/Genocide

Only by acknowledging these crimes - crimes that the Pope did admit to some degree in his trip to Mexico, can the church reclaim its mission and that of Christ for a preferential option for the poor. If the church does not move immediately to recognize Oscar Romero as a saint and the true leader of the church then all Catholics, and all people should boycott and attack this decrepit and evil institution."

your web site is hard -aalt PHOT o

Special on Pope John Paul

As seen on NYC Indymedia Features

Titled:

Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush ]

Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero to Become a Saint - John Paul to Be Tried for War Crimes and Genocide;

Having watched the PBS Special on the Pope - and Knowing (seeing) the atrocities committed by the US financed Death Squads of Central America (during my visits in 1998 and 1989) - I copied the transcript for the show and was searching around the internet when i found this report on indymedia - Wow - It is true...

I believe that in order to understand the crisis of the church and of politics in Latin America that we need to identifiy the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the church and its Pope (s) ... !

Pope II
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/4/151259/0345
http://publish.nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/rate/147249/index.php#147249

http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/147242/index.php

http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/update/index.php

Pope Was Right But Did Wrong

“Wealth should not be accumulated for its own sake. It should not be gained by injustice or oppression. Wealth often leads to covetousness. It belongs to God, not to us; we are simply stewards. We sin if we do not use it to help the poor, the weak, and the oppressed (Ezek. 22:29)"

Most people in wealthy countries are raised to be fully middle class and materialistic - even most activists and people who think or pretend to be poor......

The Pope understood more about human development and long-term needs than almost any one who has ever lived. His great mistake was in underestimating capitalist materialism and the Evil of GW Bush (and almost all Americans!)

Pope John Paul did and said many great things. However, his experiences in Poland under the Nazis and Communists (stalinists) did warp his perceptions of the spiritual and also the real battles raging across the planet.

He thought that if he vanquished communism that the Church could deal with the excesses of capitalism. In this ONE VIEW ONLY was he wrong. But this was a terrible blunder that will doom him to be regarded as an evil influence, especially in Latin America.

HIS VIEWS ON MORALITY AND THE EVILS OF MODERNITY were nearly perfect: homosexuality, birth control, abortion and women's roles in the church. This is quite hard for the narrow-minded left of the US or Europe to understand - though they matter little now that Bush has taken over the West and the Pope has deformed Latin America.

The Pope opposed these social-moral diseases because he knew that to accept them meant to embrace band-aids rather than truth. He wanted a spiritual life for all instead of a life mediated by technology and vices.

From the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19- 31
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal…”

Jesus asked his followers to sell everything, give their money to the poor and follow him. It is a time-honored tradition in India for a man who has completed his working life to give away his possessions and retreat to the forest to pray. The focus of Islamic life is devotion and surrender to Allah. Theravadan Buddhist monks take a vow of extreme poverty as they dedicate themselves to realizing the Buddha's teaching. The world's prophets knew that the material world offered limited satisfaction and directed us to look beyond it.

“The message of the Christmas tree is that life is always green if you give, not many material things, but of yourself through friendship and sincere affection, through help and forgiveness, by spending time together and listening to each other," said Pope John Paul, December 19, 2004. (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041219/325/f8uy9.html)

“Wealth should not be accumulated for its own sake. It should not be gained by injustice or oppression. Wealth often leads to covetousness. It belongs to God, not to us; we are simply stewards. We sin if we do not use it to help the poor, the weak, and the oppressed (Ezek. 22:29)
--- “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed” (Luke 12:15

"The church in Latin America has much to say about humanity.

It looks at the sad picture portrayed by the Puebla conference:
faces of landless peasants mistreated and killed by the forces of power,
faces of laborers arbitrarily dismissed and without a living wage for their families, faces of the elderly,
faces of outcasts, faces of slum dwellers, faces of poor children who from infancy begin to feel the cruel sting of social injustice.
For them, it seems, there is no future – no school, no high school, no university.
By what right have we cataloged persons as first-class persons or second-class persons?
In the theology of human nature there is only one class: children of God." - Oscar Romero

The Pope's Economics
He probably hoped for a type of Christian Socialism, but never could describe it. John Paul II was no follower of neo-liberalism. For him, markets and profits were not a solution to human problems, but a mechanism to be used for moral purposes. Indeed, we often forget that both Adam Smith and Herbert Spencer’s reasoning are very similar. Both of them – the two greatest thinkers that promoted the idea of the free market – were also moral philosophers. For them, as for John Paul II, the free market and profits were ways to improve humanity. They were sometimes naive, as when Spencer hoped that rich citizens would nearly automatically be good citizens and thus find it natural to help those who were not so successful. John Paul II might have been naive, too, but only up to a point.

Everything depends on our idea of human nature. If we believe, as the Catholic Church believes, that human beings bear the burden of original sin, but are perfectible; that human beings can understand what is good and bad and can choose between them because we have free will, then approval of the free market is understandable and not naive. By this one encyclical, John Paul II moved Church teaching from the Middle Ages to modernity.

The debate the Pope began on the relationship between the free market and moral problems remains unfinished. Eliminating the abuses that accompany capitalism and harnessing it for the benefit of society and human morals still needs to be tackled. John Paul II had the courage to raise the fundamental questions that needed asking. Will we continue to ask them without his leadership and prompting?

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0404-33.htm
- Archbishop Oscar Romero, March 2, 1980

Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush by Enrique Munoz
internacional@ becouz.com 04 Apr 2005

"It was a tragedy what the Pope did in Central America and Latin America in the 1980's." The PBS show goes on to cite a number of observers who question whether the pontiff's judgment was clouded by his personal experience with communism in Poland.

http://publish.nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/update/index.php

Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero to Become a Saint - John Paul to Be Tried for War Crimes and Genocide?
; By Enrique Munoz, Mexico City

The defining moment in John Paul's legacy was his unjust and disrespectful treatment of Arch Bishop Oscar Romero in 1980. Romero thought that the church's place was with the poor and to back radical social change to end the suffering and repression.

After meeting with the Pope, Romero said to an aide: " Help me to understand why I have been treated so badly by the Holy Father." The Pope had told Romero to get along with the government of El Salvador that with US money training and moral support was frantically killing priests, peasants and organizers by the tens of thousands yearly. Romero himself called the Pope's response to his pleas and the situation in El Salvador as "Unjust."

One month later the Arch Bishop was assassinated while saying mass. Romero's funeral turned into a bloody riot as the US-backed death squads (the Salvadoran Government) opened fire on the crowds.

From a 1979 letter to US President Carter by Oscar Romero:

"You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people."

http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/rom ero.html

Pope John Paul made similar statements to GW Bush before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Millions of people all across Latin America call for sainthood for Oscar Romero.

Next the Pope turned his attention to destroying the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the many priests who supported the revolution in the sprit of Romero, particularly Ernesto Cardenal. The Pope put the unity of the church ahead of the salvation of the world and its role to defend the poor.

As a US PBS television special on the Pope stated: "It was a tragedy what the Pope did in Central America and Latin America in the 1980's." The show goes on to question whether the pontiff's judgment was clouded by his personal experience with communism in Poland.

The Pope continued his right wing purge of Church officials, seminaries and Liberation Theology activists throughout Latin America until his death, though he also increased his attacks on capitalism and the imperialist designs of the US and its hero GW Bush.

Since 1990 the Pope had intervened in Mexico - especially in Chiapas - installing conservative Bishops and seeking to discredit or silence Bishop Ruiz and others who supported the Zapatista revolution and called for an end to oppression and oppressive structures in Mexico..

The torment of the Pope - or else a grand act of hypocrisy - can be seen in the pope's focus on the Culture of Death: Modernity. He opposed birth control, abortion, homosexuality and women in the church because he (Unlike anyone we know of on the left or right) understood that these were band-aids seeking to cover up or justify a society promoted by the US, one of materialism and self-centeredness. He said that a self-centered concept of unlimited freedom allowed no place for solidarity and that this drew attention away from the violence done to millions forced into poverty. This freedom to him became a Culture of Death... a new holocaust. He rightfully saw only darkness in modernity and he was appalled at the betrayal of humanity exhibited in his native Poland with their sex shops, McDonalds and materialism.

The Pope changed Eastern Europe and single handedly destroyed the Stalinist communist system and yet he ultimately saw this as a terrible failure as he witnessed materialism grow there.

In Latin America he stopped the change that was so necessary and surely went to his death knowing the evils that he spawned.

"We agree with almost every single thing that that John Paul wrote or said. He was the greatest and most powerful person to live in at least 100 years and probably ever again - given the weakness and illrepute that the Catholic Church suffers today because of sex scandals.

But what the Pope did was one of the greatest evils in all of history. His systematic destruction of the popular church and Liberation Theologists constitutes a war crime, a crime against humanity and genocide. he should be tried in absentia and all of the church's property and wealth should be transferred to the poor people of Latin America that he persecuted and betrayed so utterly.

Only by acknowledging these crimes - crimes that the Pope did admit to some degree in his trip to Mexico, can the church reclaim its mission and that of Christ for a preferential option for the poor. If the church does not move immediately to recognize Oscar Romero as a saint and the true leader of the church then all Catholics, and all people should boycott and attack this decrepit and evil institution."

- Anamaria Salvedra, speaking for underground remnants of Liberation Theology in Central America.

Remembering Oscar A Romero: http://www.stpetersnottingham.org/saints/romero.ht ml

One priest, Fr. Rutilio Grande, was particularly outspoken in denouncing the injustices against the 30,000 peasants working thirty-five sugar-cane farms in his area. Archbishop Romero defended Fr. Grande against official criticism:
"The government should not consider a priest who takes a stand for social justice, as a politician, or a subversive element, when he is fulfilling his mission in the politics of the common good".

In March 1977, Fr. Grande and two companions were murdered. Archbishop Romero was summoned to view the bodies - a hint of what happens to meddlesome priests. This and the lack of any official enquiry convinced him that the government employed - or at least supported - people who killed for political convenience. He responded by prohibiting the celebration of Mass anywhere in the country on the following Sunday except at his own Cathedral, a celebration to which all the faithful were invited - and came - overflowing in their thousands into the plaza outside. The event served to unite the faithful and remove any doubts about Romero's commitment to justice. The government of course was furious, even more so as the church began to document civil rights abuses and seek the truth in a country governed by lies. Visiting the Pope in 1979, Archbishop Romero presented him with seven dossiers filled with reports and documents describing injustices in El Salvador.

New pastoral letter blasts economy
Despite the conservative turn of the Mexican hierarchy ecclesiastically, the bishops released a new pastoral letter which denounces the structures of the Mexican economy for being "poverty-generating." The letter, entitled, "From the encounter with Jesus Christ to solidarity for all," calls on all the people of Mexico to engage the struggle "to build a more just society" (IPS, Mar. 24).

The product of a year's worth of dialogue, input from many social sectors, sharply divided debate, writing and re-writing, it is said to be the broadest and most "consensus-driven document in the last 30 years, [according] to Archbishop Luis Morales, president of the [Mexican] Conference of Bishops."

With Ruiz's departure, Mexico loses one of its last remaining exponents of liberation theology. Bishop Arturo Lona of the Diocese of Tehauntepec in Oaxaca, the last of this line of bishops, turns 75 later this year. In a recent interview, Lona said that the impact of liberation theology will remain at the grassroots, in base communities and among the poor. It is the poor, he said, who "evangelize us and help us awaken the message of Jesus" (IPS).

He also criticized the "official" church and "my superiors" for their "obsession...with obedience and authority, which I believe is authoritarian at times. The church is hierarchical, but it really must be democratic, which is not a contradiction."

Former nuncio Prigione (retired 1997) has left a staunchly conservative imprint on the hierarchy in Mexico, having overseen the replacement of 86 of Mexico's 100 bishops over his 19 year tenure. The country's newest nuncio, the recently-named Leonardo Sandri, is also a staunch conservative, opposed to the liberationist line.

The bishops, responding to these economic realities, proclaim that an economic model that prioritizes the market as "the central factor in development," "is unstable and immoral." The bishops also critique the problems of democracy in Mexico, saying the country must develop alternatives to "anti-democratic and fraudulent structures that are obsolete and unjust, and deteriorated by corruption, impunity and authoritarianism."

http://www.rtfcam.org/report/volume_20/No_2/articl e_12.htm

-- IRENA ALBERTI, Editor, "La Pensee Rousse," (Friend of the Pope):
"The Pope believes that the 20th century is the most evil of all of mankind's history."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pope/etc/script.html

http://www.rtfcam.org/report/volume_20/No_2/articl e_12.htm

Comments Re: Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush ]

See interesting Intro at (Above link)
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/4/151259/0345

From the April PBS Special on Pope John Paul:

JAMES CARROLL, Author, "American Requiem," Former Priest:

"Well, the man is nothing but contradictions. He's the most political Pope in modern history, but he won't allow priests to be in politics. He is the great protector of the church, yet seems blind to the way the priest sex abuse scandal under minds the spiritual and financial health of the church... He's contemptuous of contemporary consumerist culture and yet he's the master of the consumerist media and has become a world celebrity because of it."

" John Paul's victory would not last. With the fall of communism, Poland, his heroic country, his Christ of nations, would change, and soon the Pope would come to feel betrayed.

Liberation Theology