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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (17131)	6/19/2001 8:31:39 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Steven, I don't think there's anything particularly unique about the Philippines when it comes to the Catholic Church and sexual politics. From a year ago review of a Gary Wills book, partners.nytimes.com In 1864, Pius IX denounced those who dared assert that ''the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself to, and come to terms with, progress, liberalism and modern civilization.'' Lord Acton -- like Wills, both a distinguished historian and a scholar quite able to meet the Vatican's theologians on their own ground -- realized that Pius was making Catholicism look ridiculous. So Acton did everything he could to persuade the First Vatican Council not to give Pius what he most wanted -- ratification of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Acton lost that fight, but only after Pius had used every trick in the book to whip the conciliar fathers into line. Pius IX is, Wills says, ''a presence in the Vatican to this day.'' Present-day papal deceitfulness and arrogance are, for Wills, most vividly illustrated by Paul VI's taking the question of birth control out of the hands of the Second Vatican Council. Paul, he says, was terrified that the fathers would repudiate the anticontraception pronouncements of Pius XI, who in 1930 had announced what Monty Python called the ''every sperm is sacred'' view. (''The Divine Majesty,'' Pius XI wrote, ''regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime,'' that is, spilling one's seed upon the ground, or into a condom.) So Paul decided that it would be better to make life miserable for further generations of Catholics than to allow the Council to admit that a predecessor had goofed. Wills says that ''Humanae Vitae,'' Paul's 1968 encyclical reaffirming the ban on contraception, ''is not really about sex. It is about authority. Paul decided the issue on that ground alone". The current Pontiff's apparent approach to his predecessors' various pronouncements on the subject is to canonize them all, and fix the various goofy doctrines as firmly in concrete as possible.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (17131)	6/19/2001 8:43:39 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?), Steven, the Catholic Church doomed itself by the Doctrine of Infallibility. They are only marking time and waiting for the end. http://www.population-security.org/phil95.htm "...The eminent Catholic theologian, Hans Küng, best described the situation when he wrote: we cannot solve the problem of contraception until we solve the problem of infallibility. What is infallibility? What did Dr. Küng mean? Infallibility is a Catholic dogma—a Catholic teaching—a principle. As you know, according to Catholic dogma, the pope is God’s representative on earth and God guides him as he cares for his flock. When the pope formulates a teaching, he is simply transmitting this teaching on God’s behalf. Therefore, the teaching cannot possibly be in error. Thus, his teachings are infallible. This principle was not created until 1870, the very year when the pope lost all temporal power with the creation of the country of Italy. Up to that moment, the Vatican was still executing so-called heretics, people whom it viewed as posing a threat to papal power. But suddenly this source of power was gone. The Vatican urgently needed a new source of power. It could no longer control the laity by means of its governance, as it had in the papal states which would later become Italy. But it could control the laity directly by adopting a policy of psychological coercion founded on a new doctrine—that of papal infallibility. This was a brilliant concept—and it worked—for a century. But at its introduction in 1870, the Catholic intelligentsia, among them theologians, historians and bishops, recognized that at some point in the future, this principle would lead to self-destruction of the institution. Why? Because they recognized that times were certain to change—and in unpredictable ways. This principle would lock the Church into an inexorable course—teachings that could not be changed without destroying the principle of infallibility itself. These thoughtful Catholics foresaw that this principle would immediately become the fundamental principle of the Catholic Church, upon which all other Catholic dogma would rest—the very foundation of the Church. They understood that if this principle were undermined and destroyed at some future date, all Church teachings would collapse around the eroded foundation and the institution itself would be devastated..."

To: Dayuhan who wrote (17131)	6/20/2001 8:55:48 AM
From: Solon	Respond to of 82486

YES. INFALLIBILITY IS INFALLIBILITY. population-security.org "...To understand what really brought about proclamation of the dogmas of papal primacy and infallibility, we must take a close look at the man himself. Hans Küng describes Pius IX as follows: "Pius IX had a sense of divine mission which he carried to extremes; he engaged in double-dealing; he was mentally disturbed; and he misused his office."118 Hasler describes Pius IX in detail. In 1850, Pius IX branded freedom of the press and freedom of association as intrinsically evil. He determined that liberalism (out of which American democracy grew) was the mortal enemy of the Papacy and the Church. His rule was reactionary and dictatorial. His followers' practices bordered on papolatry. The most eminent bishops of the time viewed him as a great disaster for the Catholic Church.119 He struck "many people as dangerous above all because he wished to dogmatize a teaching which, from a historical standpoint, was worse than dubious and which overturned the Church's basic organization."120 In their eyes, these dogmas "would deprive the Catholic Church of the last shred of credibility."121 In the end, it looks as if this assessment of these bishops is proving to be correct. (More on credibility later.) According to Hasler, Pius IX had surrounded himself with mediocre, unbalanced, sometimes even psychologically disturbed people.122 His fury in private audiences would become so violent that older prelates might suffer heart attacks. He was described as having a heart of stone and at times normal feelings of affection, gratitude, and appreciation would be totally absent -- heartless indifference.123 Hasler describes a series of bizarre incidents: "In all these episodes Pius IX showed quite clearly how out of touch he was with reality.124 Many bishops had the impression that the pope was insincere, that he was striving to get infallibility approved by the use of trickery and cunning. In the presence of many witnesses, one bishop called him false and a liar.125 The historian Ferdinand Gregorovius noted in his diary, "The pope recently got the urge to try out his infallibility....While out on a walk he called to a paralytic: `Get up and walk.' The poor devil gave it a try and collapsed, which put God's vicegerent very much out of sorts. The anecdote has already been mentioned in the newspapers. I really believe that he's insane." 126 Hasler states, "Some, even bishops, thought he was mad or talked about pathological symptoms. The Catholic Church historian Franz Xavar Kraus noted in his diary: `Apropos of Pius IX, Du Camp agrees with my view that ever since 1848 the pope has been both mentally ill and malicious.'"127 The most distinguished bishops viewed Pius IX as "the greatest danger facing the Church...." They felt powerless struggling with a pope who was possessed by his monomania and not accessible to rational arguments. "'Oh, this unfortunate pope,' wrote Felix Dupanloup in his diary. `How much evil he has done!...I mean, he has delivered the Church into the hands of these three or four Jesuit professors who now want to inflict their lessons on him!...This is one of the greatest dangers the Church has ever known.'"128 Hasler asked the question: Was the pope mentally competent during Vatican Council I? "Many of his personality traits suggest that this was not the case. The unhealthy mysticism, the childish tantrums, the shallow sensibility, the intermittent mental absences, the strangely inappropriate language...and the senile obstinacy all indicate the loss of a solid grip on reality. These features suggest paranoia."129 THE LEGACY OF PIUS IX - Index The leadership entrusted the future of the Church to this man. But as we continue to permit papal influence in public policy-making to spread worldwide, we are allowing Pius IX's legacy -- the legacy of an unbalanced man -- to determine the future of our planet even as we approach the end of the 20th century. In significant ways, our behavior today is being determined by the actions of Pius IX of 125 years ago. Furthermore, the dogmas of infallibility and papal primacy ended any semblance of democracy in the church, and no self correction can be expected, no matter how insane the Church policy on overpopulation has become. ..." __________________________________________________ THE CHURCH POSITION ON CONTRACEPTION IS FIXED AND UNCHANGEABLE Address to the Midwives. Pope Pius XII. "This precept is as valid today as it was yesterday; and it will be the same tomorrow and always, because it does not imply a precept of the human law but is the expression of a law which is natural and divine." ________________________________________ Humanae Vitae trosch.org Consequently, if the mission of generating life is not to be exposed to the arbitrary will of men, one must necessarily recognize unsurmountable limits to the possibility of man's domination over his own body and its functions; limits which no man, whether a private individual or one invested with authority, may licitly surpass. And such limits cannot be determined otherwise than by the respect due to the integrity of the human organism and its functions, according to the principles recalled earlier, and also according to the correct understanding of the "principle of totality" illustrated by our predecessor Pope Pius XII.21 The Church, Guarantor of True Human Values 18. It can be foreseen that this teaching will perhaps not be easily received by all: Too numerous are those voices - amplified by the modern means of propaganda which are contrary to the voice of the Church. To tell the truth, the Church is not surprised to be made, like her divine founder, a "sign of contradiction,"22 yet she does not because of this cease to proclaim with humble firmness the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical. Of such laws the Church was not the author, nor consequently can she be their arbiter; she is only their depositary and their interpreter, without ever being able to declare to be licit that which is not so by reason of its intimate and unchangeable opposition to the true good of man.