The Dope on the Pope | Page 4 | INFJ Forum

The Dope on the Pope

[h=1]Paedophile Priest 'Exposes Satanic Vatican Rent-Boy Sex Ring'[/h] Huffington Post UK | By Sara C Nelson Posted: 28/06/2013 16:56 BST | Updated: 01/07/2013 13:27 BST


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...ent-boy-sex-ring_n_3517013.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

A convicted paedophile priest has claimed a gay prostitution ring has been operating within the Holy Roman Church, with clergymen hiring underage rent-boys for sex.
Don Patrizio Poggi, who served a five-year prison sentence for abusing teenage boys at his Rome parish, also told Italian authorities a former Carabinieri police officer recruited boys for nine clergymen, IBTimes reports.
Poggi told the police: “I decided to file this complaint and cooperate with the law after long reflection and after a painful history of abuse and misuse of power that I have overcome thanks to the faith that guides me.”
The 46-year-old, who has complained that the Vatican refused to reinstate him after he completed his prison sentence, added: “I feel obliged to protect the Holy Church and the Christian community since I am aware of grave facts that undermine their integrity and break canon and penal law.”
Poggi has reportedly handed the names of 20 alleged child abusers in the Roman clergy – including four serving priests and a Monsignor - to the authorities.
So far, four people have formally been placed under investigation by Rome magistrates, The Times reports.
The newspaper adds: "His allegations gained some credibility from the fact he was accompanied by Monsignor Luca Lorusso, an adviser to the Papal Nuncio to Italy, who is himself a confidante of Pope Francis"."
The former police officer is alleged to have procured mostly eastern European immigrant boys from gay discos, saunas and outside a bar near Rome's central rail station known as “Twink”, where he used a vehicle marked “Emergency Blood” to avoid parking fines.
Poggi accuses the same man of “selling consecrated hosts for satanic rites.”
The allegations are rejected by the Vatican, CathNewsUSA reports.
Cardinal Agostino Vallini, head of the Catholic Vicariate of Rome said Poggi’s claims were made from a desire for vengeance.
He said: “The cardinal expresses his full confidence in the magistracy and declares himself fully convinced that this slander will be demolished, demonstrating Poggi’s claims to be untrue.
“God will hold everyone accountable for their deeds.”
 
[h=2]Vatican monsignor arrested in 20M euro plot[/h]
http://www.mail.com/int/news/europe...ted-20m-euro-plot.html#.1258-stage-subhero1-2

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The plot involved an armed police escort, a wealthy shipping family and a plan to secretly transport $26 million (20 million euros) from a Swiss bank account into Italy aboard a private jet. At the heart of the story of greed: a silver-haired Vatican monsignor.
The latest corruption scandal to hit the Holy See unraveled in public on Friday as Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a Vatican accountant, was arrested in the customs-dodging Swiss bank case. He is also under investigation in a separate case of alleged money-laundering involving his Vatican bank account.


The developments came two days after Pope Francis created a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank to get to the bottom of the problems that have plagued it for decades and contributed to its reputation as an unregulated, offshore tax haven.
Francis has made it clear that he has no tolerance for corruption or for Vatican officials who use their jobs for personal ambition or gain. He has said he wants a "poor" church that ministers to those most in need. He has also noted, tongue in cheek, that "St. Peter didn't have a bank account."
With Francis' reform-minded hand now running the show, the Vatican said it was prepared to fully cooperate with Italian investigators, who described a remarkably detailed scheme allegedly spearheaded by Scarano to benefit some very wealthy friends. Prosecutor Nello Rossi identified them as the d'Amicos, one of Italy's most important shipping families from Scarano's hometown of Salerno in southern Italy.
Rossi declined to say if any of the d'Amicos were under investigation, but said developments were expected in the coming days. Three people were arrested on Friday: Scarano, a onetime banker who was recently suspended from his job in the Vatican's main finance office, Italian financier Giovanni Carenzio and Giovanni Zito, who until recently was a member of the Italian military police's agency for security and information.
According to wiretapped conversations, the three allegedly plotted to smuggle in some 20 million euros in cash that Carenzio held in a Swiss bank account without declaring it to authorities at the airport.
Scarano's lawyer described him as something of a middleman: The 20 million euros belonged to the d'Amicos, who had given the money to Carenzio to invest but wanted it back. Scarano was tasked with persuading Carenzio to hand it over.
Rossi said the d'Amico money was presumably being held in Switzerland to avoid paying Italian taxes. An email seeking comment from the family's Rome-based company, the d'Amico Societa di Navigazione SpA, wasn't immediately returned.
According to prosecutors, Zito, the Carabinieri agent, called in sick to his job one day in July 2012, rented a private plane and flew with Carenzio to Locarno, Switzerland, to pick up the money. The plan was for Carenzio to withdraw the cash from his bank account and hand it over to Zito to bring back to Italy. The arrangements were so detailed there was even to be an armed police escort waiting at the airport to bring the money to Scarano's home in Rome, Rossi said.
"This operation was meticulously planned in all its details," the prosecutor said, noting that Zito was chosen to be the mule because his high-ranking position in the Italian police agency would have enabled him to pass through the airport customs area without being stopped.
The money could have been transported relatively easily because euros are issued in high denominations. If the cash had been withdrawn in the largest denomination — 500 euro notes — it would have weighed 97 pounds (44 kilos) and fit into a suitcase.
But at a certain point in Locarno, the deal fell through. Carenzio, who had been increasingly balking at handing the money over, made excuses that the Swiss bank couldn't come up with the money, Rossi said.
He declined to identify the bank and it's not clear where the money is. But this isn't the only investigation looking into Carenzio's financial dealings: Rossi noted news reports in the Canary Islands that authorities there are investigating Carenzio for alleged fraud, misappropriation of funds and concealment of assets. He is alleged to have operated a Ponzi scheme, the reports say.
After the aborted transport flight, Zito returned to Rome empty-handed. But he still demanded from Scarano his fee of 600,000 euros for the operation. Scarano cut him one check for 400,000 euros which he deposited. He gave him a second check for 200,000 euros, but in a bid to prevent the check from being deposited, reported it as missing, the prosecutor said.
That put a block on the check and resulted in Scarano being accused of slander for filing a false report knowing that the check was in Zito's hands, Rossi said. Scarano, as well as the other two, are also accused of corruption. If they are indicted and convicted, they could face up to five to six years in prison, prosecutors said. Rossi said investigators were also looking into the source of Scarano's wealth and his real estate holdings.
Asked how his client responded to the accusations, Scarano's attorney, Silverio Sica, said the monsignor would respond to prosecutors' questions. "As far as I know, Father Nunzio was only trying to help some friends and then entered a mechanism that later revealed to be dangerous for him too," he said in an interview. "I believe he did it with naivety".
The Vatican bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, is cooperating with Italian authorities and its lay board has launched an internal investigation, spokesman Max Hohenberg said. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Scarano was suspended more than a month ago and that the Vatican was taking the appropriate measures to deal with his case.
He said the Vatican hadn't yet received any request for information from Italian authorities, but said it was prepared to offer its "full cooperation." Rossi, the Italian prosecutor, described the operation as one branch in a "mosaic" of investigations targeting the Vatican bank, which has long been a source of scandal for the Holy See.
Rossi's team of prosecutors in 2010 placed the top two Vatican bank officials under investigation for allegedly violating anti-money laundering norms during a routine transaction involving an Institute for Religious Works account at an Italian bank. They ordered the 23 million euros in the transaction seized. The money was eventually unfrozen but the two men remain under investigation.
The Swiss investigation didn't immediately appear to directly involve the Vatican Bank, but both Rossi and Vatican officials said there could be further developments. Rossi noted that the d'Amicos were frequent contributors to Scarano's charitable account at the Vatican Bank, known as the "Fondo Anziani," a fund purportedly aimed at helping out the elderly.
Rossi's team is also working with prosecutors in Salerno on a separate money-laundering investigation involving Scarano and his Vatican bank accounts. According to Sica, Scarano took $729,000 (560,000 euros) in cash out of his Vatican bank account in 2009 and carried it out of the Vatican and into Italy to help pay off a mortgage on his Salerno home.
The money had come into Scarano's Vatican bank account from donors who gave it to the prelate thinking they were funding a home for the terminally ill in Salerno, Sica said. To deposit the money into an Italian bank account — and to prevent family members from finding out he had such a large chunk of cash — he asked 56 close friends to accept 10,000 euros apiece in cash in exchange for a check or money transfer in the same amount. Scarano was then able to deposit the amounts in his Italian account.
The lawyer said Scarano had given the names of the donors to prosecutors and insisted the origin of the money was clean, that the transactions didn't constitute money-laundering, and that he only took the money "temporarily" for his personal use.
The home for the terminally ill was never built, though the property has been identified, Sica said. On Wednesday, Francis named five people to head a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank's activities and legal status "to allow for a better harmonization with the universal mission of the Apostolic See."
 
[h=1]Pope's bank clean-up man 'found stuck in lift with rent boy'[/h]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ound-stuck-in-lift-with-rent-boy-8721296.html

As the man charged with cleaning out the stables at the scandal-struck Vatican bank, Monsignor Battista Ricca will need Machiavellian cunning, good fortune and a whiter-than-white record to have even a fighting chance.
But Pope Francis’s new banker appears to possess none of these attributes after it was reported yesterday that he was found stuck in a lift with a rent boy. Msgr Ricca, as Francis’s new primate with responsibility for the troubled financial institution, known officially as the IoR (Institute for Religious Works), is supposed to usher in new transparency and badly needed reforms after years of financial scandal.
Earlier this month, a major report from finance police and magistrates warned that a lack of checks and controls by the IoR and the Italian financial institutions it had dealings with made the Vatican’s bank a money-laundering hot spot.
It is claimed that Msgr Ricca, 57, impressed Francis with the way he ran three key residences used by cardinals, bishops and priests visiting Rome. But detailed claims have emerged detailing how in 1999, Ricca took a Vatican diplomatic posting in Uruguay and moved his lover, Patrick Haari, a Swiss army captain, in with him, to the outrage of church figures and locals in the conservative South American nation. Captain Haari was forced out by the hardline Polish nuncio Janusz Bolonek in 2001.
But there were more problems for Ricca when he was attacked in a cruising ground that year, and soon after firemen had to rescue him from a broken lift, in which he was trapped with a youth known by local police. The weekly news magazine L’Espresso claims that Msgr Ricca was able to get the position as IoR prelate because the supposedly powerful “gay lobby” in the Vatican airbrushed his colourful CV.
Gay sex scandals at the Vatican have made the headlines before. In 2010 it emerged that one of Pope Benedict’s ceremonial ushers and a member of the Vatican choir were involved in a gay prostitution ring.
Vatican spokesman Padre Federico Lombardi sought to dismiss the claims about Msgr Ricca’s private life. “What has been claimed about Msgr Ricca is not credible,” he said. Msgr Ricca himself has not yet responded to the allegations. But La Repubblica noted that the Vatican had emphasised that his appointment as prelate for the IoR was technically an interim one, thus raising the possibility that the job might not last long.
 
http://itccs.org/2014/05/25/itccs-b...ement-as-he-stands-trial-in-absentia-for-cri/

[h=1]Welcome to ITCCS.ORG and The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State[/h] [h=2]Our Mandate: (1) To legally prosecute those people and institutions responsible for the exploitation, trafficking, torture and murder of children, past and present, and (2) To stop these and other criminal actions by church and state, including by disestablishing those same institutions.[/h]
[h=1]ITCCS Breaking News – May 25, 2014 : Accused Child Killer resigns from top Vatican office: Jesuit head Adolfo Pachon makes startling announcement as he stands trial in absentia for Crimes against Humanity[/h] Posted on May 25, 2014
Rome:
Amidst rumours that Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, may step down from his office because of his public prosecution for child trafficking and murder, one of his fellow defendants has just done so.
Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Nicolas Pachon announced suddenly this week that he will resign from his office at the next General Congress of the Jesuits.
Along with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Bergoglio and Pachon are primary defendants in an historic criminal lawsuit being conducted by the International Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels that commenced on April 7, 2014. Several eyewitnesses who have given their deposition to the Court claim they witnessed Welby, Bergoglio and Pachon participate in child rape and sacrifice rituals connected to the notorious Jesuit-run Ninth Circle cult, during 2009 and 2010.
In a statement generally unreported by the world media, Pachon announced on May 20 that he was stepping down from his office without giving a reason.
The Italian TV news agency Rome Reports called Pachon’s resignation “unusual … for one of the leading prelates in the church”.
Pachon is the third top Vatican official to resign while in office after being prosecuted by the ICLCJ for crimes against humanity. Former Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, abdicated on February 11, 2013, barely two weeks before the ICLCJ jury found him guilty of complicity in child trafficking and murder. Another primary defendant in the same case, Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, also resigned after the verdict.
ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett commented today from Canada,
“This is yet another huge admission of guilt by some of the most powerful men in the papacy. Obviously they are not untouchable, and their whole corrupt criminal syndicate is coming down. We should all take hope from this, and see that the law in the hands of the people can topple the worst tyrants.”
A recent interview with Kevin Annett about the ICLCJ trial and other news is posted at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCX_oujvuMg&feature=youtu.be . It can be accessed (below) at the www.itccs.org, May 24, 2014 posting.
Further updates from the Court will follow.

Issued by The ICLCJ Directorate, 25 May, 2014 (GMT)
www.iclcj.com

This entry was posted in Action: What to Do, Canada, Canon Law, Catholic Church, Charges Laid, Child Trafficking, Chuch of England, Church of Rome, Coventry Common Law Court, Crimen Solicitationas, Crown of England, England, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Genocide in Canada, Historical Background, Holy See, Jesuits, Jorge Bergoglio, Joseph Ratzinger, Kevin Annett, Legal Background, Mass Graves in Canada, Media, Occupy the Vatican, Papal Deception, Pope Benedict, Pope Francis the First, Public International Court of Justice, Public Summonses, queen Elizabeth, Rev. Kevin Annett, Ritual Murder of Children, Ritual Rape, Ritual Rape and Torture of Children, Roman Catholic Church, Satanic Ritual Torture, Testimonies of Survivors and Eyewitnesses, The International Common Law Court of Justice, Toos Nijenhuis, United Church of Canada, Vatican by admin. Bookmark the permalink.
 
Stu said:
David Icke Says
on his blog

It does seem strange that the main dogma enforcer of the church under the last Pope (the guy who defanged the Liberation Theologists) should be the first Pope in 600 years to not die as Pope.
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I dont like the practices of peadophilia and work in child protection but I also dont like people who decide to use it in the construction of their private ideologies and as a pretext to sectarian anti-catholicism, a lot of the liberal, secular establishment's attacks upon roman catholicism have a long history, there's posters warning the public about Jesuitical plots and perfidy as far back as the beginnings of America at an independent nation, its an ideology which is justified in a whole range of ways in which anti-semitism or even attacks upon other christian denominations couldnt be sustained. In part I think its because it is seen as an attack upon an institution rather than an attack upon a community of people.

What is meant, for instance, by "defanged" liberation theology? Liberation was a product of its time and I'm glad in some ways it has been diminished because it ran the risk of becoming just another fragment or splinter from the RCC proper, something as easily exploited by friend and foe alike as a bogey like political islam.

I also wonder about why anyone would want to perform such an attack of misdirection as focusing upon the historic abuse and its legacies rather than the fact that the present Pope is acting to do what is possible to prevent its perpetuation and address its legacy as positively as is possible.

The liberal and secular institutions and authorities have as much to answer for when it comes to historical abuse enquiries and cover ups, in the UK Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, a host of TV and radio personalities have been discovered as being responsible for such things or are suspected of the same, this has demonstrated the horrible truth that this kind of thing can not be minimised or dismissed as the result of a plot by the rich and powerful in their disgusting perverted depravity but a more pervasive cultural problem. In contrast the conspiracy theory version or rationalisation of this is nothing more than a comforting lie.
 
I got so excited about this I did a search to find the news statement....and cannot find one...other than sites all quoting the same one...ITCCS.org.

Do you think it's not allowed over here across the pond? Or it's not been publicized in main stream media? Or it's a hoax of sorts?
 
Kgal said:
Man......things over here in the US just keep getting weirder and weirder.... Do you think the Catholics are running scared?
Boston College threatens action in condom giveaway
Updated 4:58 am, Wednesday, March 27, 2013

NEWTON, Mass. (AP) – Boston College is threatening disciplinary action against a group of students who distribute condoms out of their dorm rooms.

University officials sent a letter on March 15 demanding an end to student-run Safe Sites, a network of dorm rooms and other locations where free contraceptives and safe-sex information are available.

The university says the distribution of condoms is a violation of the school's Roman Catholic values.

Lizzie Jekanowski, chairwoman of BC Students for Sexual Health, tells The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/10ds28a ) the administration has known about the condom distribution for two years yet has never before threatened action.

An attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says Boston College may be violating student rights, and the group is prepared to bring legal action.
Click to expand...

I wonder would anyone be able in good conscience to post something like "I wonder are the Jews/Queers/Blacks/etc. running scared?"

Do you see what you're doing there?

Of course the university institution is opposing this activity because it is not in accordance with the faith and morals of the RCC and this is an RCC institution, there is no totalitarianism or anything akin to that in play here, the institution has not declared that there ought to be prohibition completely of contraceptives but that this is clearly a case of "not on out patch".

Personally, I would question if actions such as this activism, carried out I am absolutely sure in good conscience by a lot of individuals who have thought a little but not a lot about culture and consequentialism, are socially beneficient. A lot of feminist theorists and activists have had to question, for instance, whether or not their roles in sexual revolutions and liberalisation have served to empower or rather perpetuate patriarchy, social pressure and sexual violence but they have not been able to reconcile these second thoughts with other earlier social critiques of permissiveness and power largely because of their acceptance of dichotomies such as "bad" tradition and "good" innovation or modernity.
 
Kgal said:
I got so excited about this I did a search to find the news statement....and cannot find one...other than sites all quoting the same one...ITCCS.org.

Do you think it's not allowed over here across the pond? Or it's not been publicized in main stream media? Or it's a hoax of sorts?
Click to expand...

David Icke?

David Icke is the conspiracy theorist of six foot owl worshipping blood sacrificing alien lizards ruling the world through masonic minions.
 
Kgal said:
Continuing the saga....

I find it interesting that Jesuits think practicing Safe Sex goes against the sanctity of life. I also find it interesting that this comes up now after 2 years - and now that a Jesuit is a Pope.

This is insane...
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You dont need to be a Jesuit or even a believer to know that the cornerstones of the ideology behind practices such as those being challenged by the authorities in this instance are questionable.

That sex is always and everywhere available, easy, cost free and inconsequential, as recreational as a morning in the gym, is factually inaccurate, just take a stroll through the relationships section of this forum or any other online forum and you'll discern that without difficulty, often those are relationships which have not even been complicated by sexual aspects. Its extremely naive to suppose the only and biggest problem in relation to sexual behaviour anyone is going to have is the availability of contraceptives to perform the act, its the sneaking suspiscion of every date rapist there's been, it leads to sexualised behaviour and bullying among and by individuals who're often not ready or dangerously conflicted about the sexual acts they're likely to become involved in.

All that has been ably stated by faith communities and faith leaders but often its been an internal only dialogue which secular or other elements alienated from and antagonistic towards faith orientations have ignored or dismissed altogether. There have been few secular equivalents of this kind of social critique. However there is absolutely no need to accept any of the doctrines of theist or non-theist faith communities in order to know this all makes sense and it also makes sense to be unambiguous and unambivalent about it also as its immanently reasonable.
 
Kgal said:
I got so excited about this I did a search to find the news statement....and cannot find one...other than sites all quoting the same one...ITCCS.org.

Do you think it's not allowed over here across the pond? Or it's not been publicized in main stream media? Or it's a hoax of sorts?
Click to expand...

It's not a hoax but it is not a government court...it is a court set up by civilians

However i originally PM'd the OP info to Stu and he started this thread with it which i've then added stuff to; i was telling Stu why the pope did the unprecidented thing of stepping down and it was because of his involvement in child abuse cover ups

This stuff is not 'conspiracy theory'

Also @Lark has mentioned celebrities in the Uk being exposed as part of the police 'Operation Yewtree' which has been set up with the stated task of exposing the peodophile rings associated with Jimmy saville who was found after his death to have raped hundreds of people (protected by the police while he was alive)

But what Lark doesn't yet understand is that the reason such a fuss is being made about celebrity child abusers is because the operation is to distract the public from the top level peodophiles who are in the government, banks and financial industry and even the royal family

The celebritys are just scapegoats...that's not to say that they are not guilty but rather that they are not the higher ups

The occultists who are in the secret society network most definately DO use sex magick and blood sacrifice and they have been doing this in the UK since before this land was called the 'UK'....going way way back hundreds of years and beyond

Yewtree is really a cover up

As for Jimmy Saville he was BLESSED BY THE POPE and he was KNIGHTED BY THE QUEEN and he was a good friend of Prince Charles (see pic below). Jimmy Saville was a fullblown PSYCHOPATH who acted as a procurer of young people ie he went out and got vulnerable children from childrens homes for the secret society groups to then use ritualistically

I know this is horrific stuff BUT if people can really grasp this reality in large enough numbers (as they must if we are to end this behaviour) then we can bring the whole rotten network down

People might be watching the string of (generally older) celebs being sacrificed in the mainstream media right now to the public glare and think that justice is being done, but this is the tip of the iceberg.....the abuse is not just carried out in the media....

They are not going to stop this awakening and they WILL be exposed and they WILL be brought to justice in time

img_panel_1350912774.jpg

You can see saville here almost telling the prince something as if he is an equal; i believe saville was quite high up in the illuminati and was if i had to guess a Knight of Malta

Oh and concerning david Ike...he was the only person with the balls to publically accuse saville and others whislt they were alive and he is still outing people now....so don't be misslead by people like Lark who don't know what they are talking about

Ike on the other hand DOES know what he is talking about
 
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[video=youtube;1oGaYIyv40Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oGaYIyv40Q[/video]
 
[video=youtube;HIhrSePimB0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIhrSePimB0[/video]
 
Lark said:
I wonder would anyone be able in good conscience to post something like "I wonder are the Jews/Queers/Blacks/etc. running scared?"

Do you see what you're doing there?

Of course the university institution is opposing this activity because it is not in accordance with the faith and morals of the RCC and this is an RCC institution, there is no totalitarianism or anything akin to that in play here, the institution has not declared that there ought to be prohibition completely of contraceptives but that this is clearly a case of "not on out patch".

Personally, I would question if actions such as this activism, carried out I am absolutely sure in good conscience by a lot of individuals who have thought a little but not a lot about culture and consequentialism, are socially beneficient. A lot of feminist theorists and activists have had to question, for instance, whether or not their roles in sexual revolutions and liberalisation have served to empower or rather perpetuate patriarchy, social pressure and sexual violence but they have not been able to reconcile these second thoughts with other earlier social critiques of permissiveness and power largely because of their acceptance of dichotomies such as "bad" tradition and "good" innovation or modernity.
Click to expand...

Well...for years and years the Catholic institutions here largely ignored the Vatican especially with regard to birth control and other rules. I grew up as a Catholic. I thought this action was breaking with past history and wondered if they may have been "threatened" somehow by the ruling authority. Possibly like "tote the line or we will yank your funding".

It would seem to me "such action" as was carried out on the university was a community response to the needs of their peers which is largely ignored by the church. The Catholic church and our government needs to stay out of contraception and birth control and the rights of a female and males to choose the course of their lives.
 
Isnt that the choir boy?
 
Kgal said:
Well...for years and years the Catholic institutions here largely ignored the Vatican especially with regard to birth control and other rules. I grew up as a Catholic. I thought this action was breaking with past history and wondered if they may have been "threatened" somehow by the ruling authority. Possibly like "tote the line or we will yank your funding".

It would seem to me "such action" as was carried out on the university was a community response to the needs of their peers which is largely ignored by the church. The Catholic church and our government needs to stay out of contraception and birth control and the rights of a female and males to choose the course of their lives.
Click to expand...

Why?
 






Is Pope Francis the New Champion of Liberation Theology?

In attacking “the structural causes of inequality,” he is reviving that great movement’s “preferential option for the poor.”

Harvey Cox

When Bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, of Buenos Aires was inaugurated as the 266th pope this past March, one of his first acts was to call 85-year-old Father Gustavo Gutiérrez of Lima, Peru, to invite him to Rome for a conversation. The two concelebrated Mass, then ate breakfast and talked. It was a short meeting, but with enormous significance. In 1968, Gutiérrez wrote a paper, “Toward a Theology of Liberation,” whose ideas were embraced by the Latin American bishops at their historic meeting that year in Medellín, Colombia, where they issued a series of documents that became the Magna Carta of one of the most influential theological movements of the twentieth century: liberation theology. At the 1979 conference in Puebla, Mexico, the bishops affirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s “preferential option for the poor,” which had become the leitmotif of the movement, inspiring both laypeople and clergy to wade into the struggle against political and economic injustice.
The official response to these efforts by Latin American dictatorships and their allies was a violent repression that cost many thousands their lives. Among the victims was Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, who was assassinated by a death squad while saying Mass in 1980, and four North American churchwomen later the same year, including two Maryknoll sisters. Despite the repression, liberation theology lifted the spirits of millions of impoverished Latin Americans, while its message spread to Korea (Minjung theology), India (Dalit theology) and all around the world. Soon Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and evangelical liberation theologies appeared. It was an idea whose time had come.
But the Vatican was not happy. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, publicly censured liberation theology, disciplined some of its principal advocates and silenced Father Leonardo Boff, the Franciscan editor of Brazil’s principal theological journal. Both pope and prefect stalled the efforts of Catholics to beatify Romero, the first step to sainthood. But now, with croissants and cappuccinos in Rome, the Vatican’s war against liberation theology seems to be over. As if to make that message clear, Pope Francis restarted the process for the beatification of Romero. Is this, then, a second act for liberation theology—which many had dismissed as yesterday’s stale trend—only on a much larger stage? And is Francis its unlikely champion?
As head of the Jesuits in Argentina and then as a bishop, Francis never joined in the attack on liberation theology—but he was never a forceful defender of it either. As a bishop, he claimed that he favored it, but not in an ideological way. When debates about the movement split both the church and the Jesuits, Francis tried to patch up the divisions. He has subsequently conceded that he often did it with a heavy hand, which he now regrets. After Argentina’s return to civilian rule in 1983, then-Bishop Bergoglio was dogged by rumors that he had done little to oppose the military dictatorship, under which some 30,000 people had been killed. Some even suggested that he had been involved in the arrest and torture of two of his priests, who were putting the message of Medellín into practice by organizing slum dwellers. Subsequent investigations have cleared him of any complicity. The consensus of informed opinion on this affair was best summed up by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the left-wing Argentine writer and activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980: “Perhaps he didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated.” In any case, Bergoglio has told friends that he wishes he had acted differently and will try not to make such a mistake in the future. But now, as the first South American pope, just where does he stand on the most important theological contribution ever made by his continent to Christian theology?
What Bergoglio has said and done since his selection indicates that the message of Medellín and the example of Romero have indeed shaped him and could inform his papacy. Choosing the name Francis—in honor of the saint who was a friend of the poor and a critic of the wealth and worldly power of the church in the thirteenth century—sent a clear signal. His first trip outside Rome was to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, where refugees from hunger and poverty in Africa wade ashore seeking something better in Europe. The pope welcomed some, expressed condolences to the families of several others whose bodies had recently washed up on the beach, and celebrated Mass on an altar shaped like one of the flimsy boats in which these refugees make the dangerous voyage. The principal currency of the church is symbols, and these made a tangible impact. But in addition to rituals, Pope Francis has also made splendid use of words. And whatever his ambivalence about liberation theology in the past, his first Apostolic Exhortation, issued in November, eloquently reveals his thinking today.
* * *​
The first thing to notice about this 50,000-word document is its title, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). To those familiar with church teachings, it calls to mind the most groundbreaking document of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), which reversed centuries of papal rhetoric against modernity by stating, “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted,” are also those of “the followers of Christ.” John Paul and Benedict, while never openly questioning Vatican II, did little to advance its far-reaching recommendations. Now Francis has revived its spirit and language, but he has also revived the message of Medellín.
The Exhortation touches on a wide range of topics. But the thing that may be most striking to non-Catholics is the upbeat evangelical tone of the document. Francis is a master at bringing individual spirituality and social justice together, something the earlier liberation theologians rarely did well. Like a Baptist preacher, he invites people to a “renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ,” and he says that God “never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy…. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew.” This conviction “enables us to maintain a spirit of joy in the midst of a task so demanding and challenging that it engages our entire life. God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us.” After these lines, I can picture a blue-robed black Pentecostal choir singing a loud “Amen!”
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http://www.thenation.com/article/177651/pope-francis-new-champion-liberation-theology#
 
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muir said:
Yes its insane

There isn't a day that goes by at the moment where at some point i'm not drawn to ponder quite how insane things are

The proof is mounting amongst circles who discuss these matters that the most heinous of crimes are being carried out everyday by people in power. The picture of what is going on becomes clearer and clearer all the time

I'm not sure what is more insane though...that these people behave like that or that the rest of humanity allow them to

Im verging on disbelief

I think the problem is that many people simply are not aware of what is going on....but is that in itself not insane?

Any way you cut it its all insane

If we are one consciousness then we have some serious issues!
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Conspiracy theorists quoting other conspiracy theorists - and their web-sites, and self-appointed conspiracy theorists' courts - without any sources outside the conspiracy theorist community.

Sounds insane to me.
 
Flavus Aquila said:
Conspiracy theorists quoting other conspiracy theorists - and their web-sites, and self-appointed conspiracy theorists' courts - without any sources outside the conspiracy theorist community.

Sounds insane to me.
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"...when the main accent lies on the subjective process...the other kind of thinking arises which is opposed to extraverted thinking, namely that purely subjective orientation which I call introverted. This thinking is neither determined by objective data nor directed to them; it is thinking that starts from the subject and is directed to subjective ideas or subjective facts."
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Jung, General Description of the Types [Abridged] CW Vol p Par 579
 
Flavus Aquila said:
Conspiracy theorists quoting other conspiracy theorists - and their web-sites, and self-appointed conspiracy theorists' courts - without any sources outside the conspiracy theorist community.

Sounds insane to me.
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Go back over the thread and see the various articles by various people looking at the crimes of the vatican...this is not 'conspiracy theory'

The vatican has been implicated in widespread child abuse...wake up man
 
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