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archived: 24 - 30 Apr, 2005 Back Next UPDATED: April 26, 2005 DIVINE INTERVENTION One week ago, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger was elected Pope. The College of Cardinals had convened in Conclave only the day before and the leading Vaticanologists were all predicting that the election of the next Pope would take two weeks. Thus, the smoke out of the chimney over the Sistine Chapel was expected to remain black for a fortnight. Surprisingly, on the second day of their Conclave, the smoke turned white signaling that a new Pope had been elected by the necessary two-thirds majority. The breathtaking speed with which the Cardinals had elected the new Pope was arresting. Why the haste? The rush to judgment swiftly paled. The Cardinals had chosen Cardinal Josef Ratzinger as the successor to Pope John Paul II, and that peculiar decision – for he is regarded as an extremist - hit like a thunderbolt. Exactly what has been hit with such a jolting shock is only now becoming clear. Today, it seems that the future of the Roman Catholic Church has been placed in critical jeopardy by the precipitous decision of the Conclave to elevate such a controversial reactionary to the papacy at such a precarious time in the Church’s history. Josef Ratzinger had become well known as the arch-conservative in the curia of John Paul II. Serving as the Prefect of the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith which had prosecuted The Inquisition, Cardinal Ratzinger consistently defended the most reactionary doctrines of what was actually a very conservative papacy. Commentators have excoriated Pope John Paul II as one of the most disappointing world leaders of modern times. The doctrines he advocated are being cited as the cause of the epidemic of AIDS that is now sweeping across the globe and has already devastated major portions of Roman Catholic Africa. By denying the Roman Catholic flock the use of adequate levels of hygiene (i.e. condoms) Pope John Paul II is now facing condemnation by a growing number of critics who equate his ‘crimes’ with the mass-murders of Hitler and Stalin. At every step of the way, Pope John Paul II’s most controversial doctrines were justified by his chief enforcer and his Inquisitor General, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. Another huge and dubious question mark hovered over the head of Cardinal Ratzinger. He has long been associated with the extremist and reactionary sect known as Opus Dei. Founded by St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer who notoriously supported the fascist regime of Francisco Franco, Opus Dei has been linked to the doctrine of self-mortification – a medieval practice which includes self-flagellation, self-inflicted wounds and the wearing of the hair shirt, known as a cilice, as a form of penitential sacrifice. Opus Dei received massive unwanted publicity through the work of Dan Brown, whose bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code, features a penetrating probe of the peculiar and obnoxious practices of the cult. Rumors linking Cardinal Ratzinger to the flagellation cult and its suspicious excesses have been in circulation for more than a decade. In recent years, the cult has been linked to two of the most conservative members of the United States Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the latter converted to Roman Catholicism at the repeated behest of Scalia. While the membership list of Opus Dei is maintained in secret, it is broadly believed that Scalia, Thomas and Mel Gibson are members. The influence of the cult on the Supreme Court is the subject of a growing body of research that concerns a large number of Americans who support the separation of church and state. In addition to his power bases in the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith and Opus Dei, Cardinal Ratzinger is now known to have at least two more important political credentials. He took what many now believe to have been decisive action in backing the re-election campaign of George Bush last year, and he is the primary Vatican functionary involved in the official cover up of the mushrooming scandal of pedophilia by thousands of members of the Roman Catholic priesthood. When George Bush visited John Paul II in June of last year, he asked the Pontiff for a political favor. Shortly thereafter, Cardinal Ratzinger issued a letter to American bishops that essentially threatened to excommunicate all Catholics who voted for John Kerry. Upon receipt of the letter, five prominent Roman Catholic bishops held an unprecedented press conference to proclaim their preference for George Bush over his rival, John Kerry. Bush received 6% more Roman Catholic votes last year than he did in 2000, even though his opponent was a lifelong Catholic who had served as an altar boy. Ratzinger’s political intervention had worked wonders for neoconservativism, and it is now being recognized as one of the most decisive factors in Bush’s electoral strategy. On the day of Ratzinger’s enthronement as Pope Benedict XVI, European news organizations published analyses of his controlling role in the Vatican cover up of what may be hundreds of thousands - and possibly millions - of cases of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. According to a report published by the Vatican itself, at least 4,450 Roman Catholic priests have committed child sexual abuse in the United States of America. Experts on the sex crimes of Catholic pedophiles say that the figures should be higher, far higher. With over one million Roman Catholic priests ministering to the world’s one billion Catholics, experts suggest that the numbers could be tens of millions of cases. The financial implications of this scandal are astronomical and potentially ruinous even for the rich church. According to reliable reports, the Roman Catholic Church has already agreed to pay over $1 billion in reparations to victims of priestly child sexual abuse. At the same time, it is now estimated that the ultimate figure for the Roman Catholic Church’s payments to victims of priestly pedophilia may gust upwards to $5 billion or even more. The enormity of the grisly child sexual abuse scandal is still unfolding. One of the most egregious cases involves the founder of the Legion of Christ, Marcial Maciel. Now over 80 years of age, Maciel is being bombarded by charges of child sexual molestation going back over six decades. Cardinal Ratzinger personally organized a very private probe into the charges swirling around Maciel. In other words, the new Pope’s solution to the problem of priestly sexual abuse of minors is to sweep the entire body of evidence under the carpet in a series of star chamber proceedings that will keep the public in the dark and prevent the evidence from exposure to the glaring light of publicity. Yesterday, at his ritual enthronement, Pope Benedict XVI was seated on his throne where he was approached by supplicants who knelt down and kissed his papal ring. Without any question, the most evocative image from this ritual came when Florida governor, Jeb Bush, swiftly approached Benedict’s throne, knelt down, kissed the papal ring and – with a curiously ecstatic expression on his face – he began to speak fervently, passionately and unashamedly into the face of the new pontiff. Whatever the trivialities of their self-serving confabulation, it is clear that this political pontiff will not hesitate to intervene on behalf of the candidate he prefers in the next US presidential election. It is very likely that candidate will be Jeb Bush. The new pope is a seasoned political interventionist, and he will not hesitate to support the Bush Dynasty and its best interests, politically, ecclesiastically and ‘spiritually’. This appalling political situation underscores the absurdity running through much of the post-election posturing of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and their candidates including: Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Harry Byrd, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Nancy Pelosi and many others. Every time one of them genuflects toward the pro-life position, or flaunts their religiosity, or panders to the religious right, they are taking another decisive step toward their own political destruction. Last week, Josef Ratzinger’s wartime membership in the Hitler Youth made headlines in Britain. More, Ratzinger had served as a soldier in the German military during the war. At the same time that Ratzinger was goose-stepping in the ranks of the Hitler Youth, the grandfather of George and Jeb Bush was raking in the profits from his day job – an American banker for Hitler’s Third Reich who helped to arrange financing for the rearmament of Nazi Germany. This is an indelible bond between the house of Bush and the papacy of Benedict XVI. The world was treated to a surrealistic tableau upon the death of John Paul II. Two former presidents, George H. W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton, along with the current president were photographed leaning on the dead Pope’s casket and praying solemnly. Bush, Sr. has never been known to be a religious man, however, shortly after his defeat for the presidency in 1993, he appeared at a huge evangelical rally for the Reverend Sun Myung Moon that was held in Latin America. Bush, Sr. gave his testimony for the evangelical mission and the spiritual message of The Reverend Sun Myung Moon. To his horror, Bush’s appearance as a Moonie was filmed by the BBC and broadcast to the shock of huge audiences in Europe. The religious conversions of George Bush into born again Christian that was personally mediated by Billy Graham, and Jeb Bush into born again Roman Catholic suggest that the Bush family has become publicly zealous and probably fanatical concerning its religious political commitments. Now, the Bushes have a Pope who shares their enthusiasm for the covering up of collaborations with the Nazis. It is not difficult to predict that they will share his enthusiasm for covering up the millions cases of priestly sexual abuse of millions of American children. The political scene is now perfectly set for divine intervention in American politics for years to come, and the murky mystery surrounding of the amazingly swift selection of Cardinal Josef Ratzinger as the new Pope has become clarified. Fearing a tsunami of negative publicity that could last for decades, the College of Cardinals voted for the man whom they deemed to be the most capable of covering up the growing global scandal of the priestly sexual abuse of Roman Catholic children. In that decision, the Cardinals did what they deemed to be the work of the Lord, their god. Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris. Free us, we beseech, Lord, from all evils, past, present, and future. Sources Polly Toynbee, Not in my name - How dare Tony Blair genuflect on our behalf before the corpse of a man whose edicts killed millions? Sidney Blumenthal, Holy warriors - Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic vote. Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision? __________________ Since 1968, Michael Carmichael has been a professional political consultant. Beginning as a Student Coordinator for Robert F. Kennedy, he has worked in five US presidential campaigns as well as over 100 major American political campaigns for federal and state offices. In 1985, he founded The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs in the United Kingdom. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC, European Business News, NPR and many European television broadcasts examining American politics and culture. In addition to his column for The Political Junkies, he is a regular contributor to the Moving Planet weblog. See: www.planetarymovement.org and http://planetmove.blogspot.com/
Last Update: 03/23/2006 |
