More Evidence that the Catholic Church is Evil

U of S used to have an excellent undergrad history course in Latin American history.  The professor was great and we studied liberation theology quite extensively but that was 15 years ago.  Hopefully the same course has been updated and is still being taught.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

U of S used to have an excellent undergrad history course in Latin American history.  The professor was great and we studied liberation theology quite extensively but that was 15 years ago.  Hopefully the same course has been updated and is still being taught.

I had a professor in my undergraduate that knew quite a bit about liberation theology, but that was never really incorporated into the formal learning experience.

As for Lib. Theology today I know that there is still the Institute of Bartolome de Las Casas, and I recently met a representative of Centro de Estudios y Publicationes (CEP) in Peru, which publishes Liberation Theology materials. Unfortunately most of this is in Spanish.

ElizaQ wrote:

 Fidel,  I agree with most of this post except that Beck is a careful and methodical liar. At least not in the way that he knows what he is saying is completely bogus and intellectually goes through the process of changing it to what he ends up saying.  He's just not that intelligent.

He doesn't have to be intelligent or deal in facts all of the time. Beck is just another Limbaugh clone. And they are legion in America, and they have control of the radio station microphones and expensive CATV broadcast time. Robert kennedy Jr said that somewhere more than 90 percent of radio and CATV broadcast stations, news print etc are privately owned and controlled, and that takes money. And Americans are bombarded by the rightwing message 24-7/365.25 non-stop. There are few real leftwing points of view competing for space in the minds of Americans. Like it was for US car and other industries in the years immediately after WW II with Germany and Japan devastated by bombs and massive loss of life, rightwing propagandists have zero competition today for the hearts and minds of Americans. The financial system favouring a relative handful few billionaire oligarchs makes it easy for them to own and monopolize "the truth."  Capitalism is about monopolizing more than just entire industries - it's also about monopolizing the news media and people's minds.

As it was for very many people who had little else to tune-in to than Lord HawHaw and Tokyo Rose and Goebbels, they tell just enough truth to gain the confidence of their listeners. They are confidence men and women.  They don't care if you think they are full of baloney, because they have captive audiences of millions and we don't. The premise of the big lie, according to Hitler and Goebbels, is that if it's a large enough lie and repeated often enough, people will believe it. Right now the rightwing radio and TV propagandists are agreeable with the average person in the US that the kleptocracy is appallingly greedy but that there are no valid alternatives to plutonomy.

It's a way for propagandists like Beck to gain the confidence of Americans who listen to his propaganda. Americans are not always conned so easily, for example with being propagandized against Obama's "socialist healthcare" proposals. Most Americans have fallen for that propaganda. But the right has a much more difficult task with brainwashing Americans into believing that socialism for Wall Street is necessary and good for America. Most Americans aren't buying into that propaganda. And so the propagandists like Beck have to concede a little territory to the average American wrt the obscenity of Wall Street financing their own bailout money with taxpayers on the hook for it. Every con man knows how to gain the confidence of his mark in order to pull the wool over their eyes. Beck is a con man extraordinaire. He knows exactly what he's doing. There is a saying that this or that person is crazy like a fox. Beck works his audience like a fox for sure. Very many Americans trust what Beck has to say, because in very many instances his opinions are their's and vice versa. When he needs to put the big lie to Americans, they've been prepared well beforehand to accept it.

[url=http://historyday.crf-usa.org/2815/]Communicating Through Anti-Communist Propaganda For American Youth: A Key to Understanding the American Perspective During the Cold War[/url]

That's great. If only right-rightists would take permanent unpaid holidays, the world would be a better place.

I was the student representative for the Ecumenical Forum of Canada in 1978, and I was responsible for bringiing the esteemed Liberation Theologian Jose Miguez Bonino to give the J. Lovell Murray Memorial Lecture at Innis College on February 21, 1978. Bonino is the author of Doing Theology In A Revolutionary Situation (Fortress Press, 1975) and Christians and Marxists: The Mutual Challenge to Revolution (Ecclesia Books, 1976).

By the way, here is an interesting article on Pope Benny: Edge of reason: The lonely reign of Benedict XVI

Interesting quote from: Edge of reason: The lonely reign of Benedict XVI

For millions of liberals in the Church who had desperately hoped, after nearly three decades of conservatism, for a change of direction - for a return to the spirit of Vatican II -it was a deeply dispiriting result. "Electing Ratzinger after John Paul," an American Catholic said to me in St Peter's Square immediately after Ratzinger came out on the balcony to acknowledge the crowd, "is like electing Rumsfeld after George Bush." And in the five years since then, Benedict XVI has run true to form.

Apparently the problem with the Catholic Church (yes, capital Cs) is not that it is evil, it is that it is understaffed. It's in the New York Times, it must be true. I am sure that once they have "corrected" the problems with allocating bureaucratic resources, all will be fine again.

Fidel, I know how you feel about the issue, but when the Vatican is saying, "it is unfair to single out the Church for child abuse, which also occurs in secular institutions" ([url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR201003... report[/color][/url]) - do you think you really should be saying the same thing here?

We don't need any more evidence lets put these monsters in jail and not just throw money at victims.

j.m. wrote:

Fidel wrote:

 Catholics produced a report describing the actual incidence of child abuse by Church officials compared to secular institutions, and I do think that the Church receives a disproportionate amount of attention compared to all of the other perpetrators of child abuse.

They have not protected the victims but rather the perpetrators of these abuses. The level of morality and trust involved in their work is a stark contrast from these abuses. The criticism is heavy and it is fair. I am sure it would be lessened if they actually gave a damn about the people they hurt.

I could start a thread about children's rights being violated every day in Liberal Ontario according to UNICEF. And we could count the number of babblers commenting in the thread on about two or three fingers. Child abuse and women's rights violations right here in Canada isn't all that interesting a subject for very many people I'm afaid. Mention the word Catholic, and the anti-Catholic bigots come out of the woodwork. And for the good of the children, of course.

Fidel wrote:

Mention the word Catholic, and the anti-Catholic bigots come out of the woodwork. And for the good of the children, of course.

That's a heavy statement, Fidel. Who's an anti-Catholic bigot in this whole piece? People who viscerally hate the Vatican and the Pope and the whole army of child abusers that they protect? There's no longer any woodwork in the world big enough to house all those "bigots".

Fidel: Actually many participants have not launched scathing attacks on the Catholic Church. In fact, there are heavy criticisms of certain aspects of the Church. Also, if you have been readnig there is a lot of voiced sympathy for Liberation Theologists and their organizations on here. They fall under the Catholic Church.

j.m. wrote:

Fidel: Actually many participants have not launched scathing attacks on the Catholic Church. In fact, there are heavy criticisms of certain aspects of the Church. Also, if you have been readnig there is a lot of voiced sympathy for Liberation Theologists and their organizations on here. They fall under the Catholic Church.

I'll have to go back and read the start of the thread, because I don't even think Glenn Beck was talking about the Church with respect to child abuse. In fact, I think we aren't even talking about Glenn Beck's specific beef with the Church anymorem which seems to be that he thinks that terms like social justice and social democracy are part of a much larger communist-fascist plot to steal the world dominos champeenship, or something.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant to say. The Catholic Church led by opus dei is the third tine on the devil's trident of evol. Hot-hot bar-be-que!

Jesus. And I really mean that.

Okay people.

Caissa and remind. You both do a lot of one-liner drive-bys. And not just at each other. I have no idea why, since when it happens it pisses people off, derails threads and is generally unhelpful. Maybe consider, um NOT doing it anymore? Just a suggestion.

Fidel, it would be great if you didn't throw around words like anti-Catholic bigot. Acting all surprised that your poke achieved its desired results isn't cute either. Back off.

kropotkin, WTF? The direct personal insult in this thread was done by you. Knock it off.

I'm really not sure what this thread is about anymore. 

Fidel, I hear you regarding child sexual abuse. It's the same for sexual violence against women. If it involves a celebrity, or it's particularly violent, it makes the news. And most sexual violence against women is done by intimate partners, or former intimate partners.

Nonetheless, it's all bad and the institutional responsibility for organizations like the church (not just Catholic), other religious institutions, Boy Scouts, some sports coaches, and many other places in which predation on children, boys and girls, happens by adult men. And of course, family members. 

Such crimes are awful, all of them. Comparing which crimes get more and less emphasis rarely goes anywhere good and inevitably comes off as minimizing. Let's not go there.

So I'm thinking this needs to be closed, which I'm going to do now.