04/19/2005
Separated at Birth: The Catholic Edition
Via M@ comes the eerie suggestion that new Pope Benedict XVI is really Star Wars' Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine. Help us Obi-Wan, you're our only hope!
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 3:12 PM EST by Andy in Film & TV, Religion | Permalink
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"I find it hurtful to see him described as a hard-liner. People are too quick to say that, it's not an accurate reflection of his personality."
Rev. Thomas Frauenlob, who heads the seminary in Traunstein where Ratzinger studied and regularly returns to visit
Posted by: david | Apr 19, 2005 3:17:29 PM
to be fair that was a Fishering observation that I coopted.
Posted by: M@ | Apr 19, 2005 3:18:13 PM
Viva il Papa! How many of you have actually read the whole 'twelve-page' document or any of Raztinger's 40+ books? Benedict XVI will be a magnificent Pope and just what the Church and the world needs.
Posted by: DREADNOUGHT | Apr 19, 2005 3:29:25 PM
(raises hand)
I've read plenty. He's bitter, hate-filled, and by all accounts quite a charming conversationalist. Although most people talking to him are "afraid of getting excommunicated," - I say BFD. Reagan was charming, too, though a nitwit, and his idle handsitting cost us thousands and thousands of lives; JP2 cost us millions and PB16 isn't going to exactly reach for the hand-brakes.
This isn't to criticize your faith, just the leader of it.
Posted by: david | Apr 19, 2005 3:50:08 PM
Yeah our "only hope" is presumably to hope that the pope gets assasinated by Obi-Wan or someone else.
Reminds me of Tom DeLay threatening judges.
This site is more fun when it doesn't keep bashing religious leaders (the new pope is against gay marriage, i am devastated!!) and returns to giggles about Ashton Kutcher's penis size. The political "awareness" and "activism" here never rises above that level anyway.
Posted by: Tom DeLay | Apr 19, 2005 4:04:29 PM
Obi-Wan was sort of a last resort. If you'll remember *giggle* it was *giggle* Darth Vader who *giggle* threw the Emperor down the ubiquitous bottomless *giggle* tunnel.
I don't want anyone to kill judges, the pope, or anyone else, actually. I do wish people would stop legislating against me, though.
*giggle*
Posted by: david | Apr 19, 2005 4:08:04 PM
Well the pope won't be writing any legislation. He's free to express his views and so are you. No need to advocate throwing him down a bottomless tunnel or killing him with a light saber.
Posted by: Tom DeLay | Apr 19, 2005 4:15:57 PM
Good to see you're taking the ego-centric view of history David. Reagan and JPII liberated millions in Eastern Europe and yet you only care about their perceived impact on homosexuals.
If that's not bitter or at least wildly selfish not to mention contentious at best, I am the new Pope!
Posted by: DREADNOUGHT | Apr 19, 2005 4:19:28 PM
How appropriate to get a new Pope who was once a member of the Hitler Youth. And on Hitler's birthday.
Posted by: Alan | Apr 19, 2005 4:20:54 PM
Did they vote for the one in the prettiest dress?
All hail Pope Nazinger. The Dark Ages have surely returned. He's the perfect choice for that fascist pedophile mafia.
On the bright side, other denominations are going to see their ranks grow from deserting Catholics.
Pat Buchanan, of all people, got it right: John Paul 2's doctrinal positions without JP2's charisma is a recipe for implosion.
Posted by: Lonnie | Apr 19, 2005 4:33:20 PM
Alan, he was a member of the Hitler Youth involuntarily as a teenager when it was required of all German male teenagers. He was never a Nazi and he and his family were firmly opposed to the Nazi's from the beginning. He was drafted involuntarily at 16 but deserted the German army at a time when he would have been shot on the spot or hung in public as an example.
Posted by: Tom DeLay | Apr 19, 2005 4:33:29 PM
Is this "DREADNOUGHT" poster a real person?
I happen to be in Buenos Aires today and the mood here regarding the new pope bounces from a shrug (I interpret as "who cares?") to disappointment that the choice was not someone from Latin America and someone more open to the realities of the world today. When I asked what the realities of the world are, almost in unison the response was - poverty. Very interesting to American ears, especially since this was over a very expensive lunch at the Four Seasons hotel in a very expensive part of town.
While I will certainly give this guy an opportunty to fulfil his role as leader of the church (not my church necessarily), in the end, I am not sure any of this actually matters. His own devout and faithful still pick and choose what to believe and practice.
Posted by: HoyaBoy | Apr 19, 2005 4:41:37 PM
Hey Tom Delay, I mean Dreadnought (that's you posting under another name isn't it?) read this. He's a Nazi all right, Tommy:
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail.asp?id=15708
Posted by: Alan | Apr 19, 2005 4:45:57 PM
Tom Delay, if that is your real name...you're quite the plagarist! You made it appear that those were in fact your own comments, when you only stole them, word for word, from news articles posted all over the Internet...good for you. Glad to see you've got opinions of your own.
I lived in Traunstein for the past 3 years, and they HATE this man! I just returned to the States last weekend, and their biggest fear was that this man would be the next Pope. The Germans blame him for dividing the country...which, by the way, has seen a huge resurgence of the Nazi party and skin heads. And if you do your homework a little better, instead of copying someone else's work, you'll find that he was forced into the Hitler Youth Group, but joined the army of his own accord, then served time as an American prisoner of war when he returned to Traunstein.
Get your facts straight, get over your superior attitude, and lighten up a little...he's the Pope, not God.
At least the real Tom Delay has his own thoughts and opinions...you seem to only have those that you can steal from others.
Posted by: Wayne | Apr 19, 2005 4:46:04 PM
Alan and Wayne,
The Nazi comments were not plagiarized or taken "word for word, from news articles posted all over the Internet." If you are so sure of this, please post some links to articles with the "word for word" matches to mine.
I read an article on the Nazi aspects a few minutes earlier and summarized the parts I remembered. The original article is here:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8230142&type=worldNews
The Advocate article you cite does not even include the word Nazi or any mention of the issue as far as I can tell.
I've posted here anonymously (like many others) but I am not the same person as Dreadnought. You have absolutely no basis on which to make that conclusion. I can't prove it but maybe Andy could tell you if our IP addresses or whatever are different.
Wayne if you read Der Spiegel today (yes I can read German and know a bit about the country) you can see the Germans are split on Ratzinger but generally proud to have a German pope and politicians on all sides, from Greens to CSU, have issued statements of congratulations and expressed their pride the new pope is German.
Posted by: Tom DeLay | Apr 19, 2005 5:03:26 PM
I am a real person, I am not Tom Delay and I am not the person commenting under the name 'Tom Delay'.
There are 1.1 billion+ Catholics, perhaps at least two of them found their way to Andy's site today.
Posted by: DREADNOUGHT | Apr 19, 2005 5:03:53 PM
Oh, we posted at the same time! Spooky!
Posted by: DREADNOUGHT | Apr 19, 2005 5:05:16 PM
Dreadnought, you have yet to explain, so I will ask politely. How do you justify the new Pope's extensive anti-gay comments and actions with being gay yourself? (As outlined in that very looooong Advocate article mentioned above).
I am honestly interested. I am not baiting you. It just seems to me like, well, I hate to use Hitler again but...like a Jew who loved Hitler. I know the new Pope isn't Hitler, but you get the idea. Please explain.
Posted by: david | Apr 19, 2005 5:06:15 PM
>> Oh, we posted at the same time! Spooky! <<
Oh, puh-leeze, like that proves anything except you opened two pages at once, typed in each one and then submitted them within seconds. I think Tom Delay is DreadNOT, too.
Posted by: Pappa | Apr 19, 2005 5:08:14 PM
From THE ADVOCATE web site:
advocate.com
New pope on homosexuality: "Intrinsic moral evil"
In July 1999, the National Catholic Reporter delineated what was already a staunchly antigay stance posited by Cardinal Jospeh Ratzinger of Germany, who was elected Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday. At the time, Ratzinger had imposed a lifetime ban on pastoral work by pro-gay Salvatorian Fr. Robert Nugent and School Sister of Notre Dame Jeannine Gramick. The move was just the latest step in an effort by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to prevent evolution in church teaching toward acceptance of openly gay and lesbian people, the paper reported. Here is the Reporter's review of key moments:
May 1984: Ratzinger orders the imprimatur lifted from Sexual Morality by Fr. Philip S. Keane, published in 1977 by Paulist Press. Keane argues that homosexual conduct cannot be understood as "absolutely immoral."
September 1986: Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen in Seattle announces that he has transferred final authority in five areas, including the pastoral care of gays, to Auxiliary Bishop Donald Wuerl in accord with Vatican instructions. The action follows a written critique by Ratzinger, citing, among other flaws, Hunthausen's decision in 1983 to permit a Mass for Dignity, a Catholic gay group, in his cathedral.
October 1986: Ratzinger publishes a document titled "On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons." The letter warns of "deceitful propaganda" from pro-homosexual groups. It instructs bishops not to accept groups that "seek to undermine the teaching of the church, which are ambiguous about it, or which neglect it entirely." The letter refers to homosexual orientation as an "intrinsic moral evil." In the wake of the letter, many Catholic bishops bar Dignity from using church facilities.
October 1986: Acting on instructions from Ratzinger, the head of the Jesuit order informs Jesuit Fr. John McNeill that he must either abandon pastoral ministry with gays or be expelled from the order. McNeill chooses not to give up his work. McNeill had been silenced by the Vatican in 1977 for his book The Church and the Homosexual, which argued that stable homosexual relationships should be judged by the same moral criteria as heterosexual relationships. The book was originally published with the permission of McNeill's Jesuit superiors.
November 1986: Ratzinger directs Bishop Matthew Clark of the Rochester, N.Y., diocese to remove the imprimatur from Parents Talk Love: The Catholic Family Handbook About Sexuality, written by a priest and a high school teacher. According to the priest, Ratzinger objects to the lack of a clear condemnation of homosexual conduct.
January 1987: After prolonged debate, the Catholic University of America fires Fr. Charles Curran, a moral theologian known for his dissent from official church teaching on sexual ethics. On homosexuality, Curran has written: "Homosexual acts in the context of a loving relationship that strives for permanency can in a certain sense be objectively morally acceptable."
December 1988: Dominican Fr. Matthew Fox is silenced by Ratzinger, citing his failure to condemn homosexuality, among a host of other issues. Fox is expelled from the Dominican order in 1992.
February 1992: Canadian theologian Fr. Andrew Guindon is notified that he is under investigation by the doctrinal congregation for his book The Sexual Creators. Ratzinger demands that he clarify his views on homosexuality, birth control, and premarital sex. Ratzinger's 13-page critique is published in L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.
July 1992: Ratzinger sends a letter to the U.S. bishops supporting legal discrimination against gays in certain areas: adoption rights, the hiring of gays as teachers or coaches, and the prohibition of gays in the military. In such situations, Ratzinger writes, "It is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account."
November 1992: The new Catechism of the Catholic Church is published. Though the text acknowledges that homosexual persons "do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial" and forbids any disrespect or failure of compassion for gays, the Catechism repeats the position that the homosexual orientation is "intrinsically disordered."
December 1996: Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the doctrinal congregation, publishes an article in L'Osservatore Romano asserting that certain church teachings must be considered infallible even in the absence of a formal declaration to that effect. The bans on homosexuality and contraception are among the teachings mentioned by Bertone.
February 1997: Following a warning to the Society of St. Paul from Ratzinger, the Vatican imposes a new leader on the order. The Paulines' flagship publication, Famiglia Cristiana, published an article in 1996 suggesting that parents should not force their moral views on a gay child. Bishop Antonio Buoncristiani is appointed the society's temporary leader and charged with ensuring that Pauline publications better reflect church teaching.
July 1998: The Committee on Marriage and Family of the U.S. bishops' conference reissues its letter to parents of homosexuals, "Always Our Children," after making several changes demanded by Ratzinger. They include referring to homosexuality as a "deep-seated" rather than "fundamental" dimension of personality; suggesting that homosexual acts by adolescents may not indicate a homosexual orientation; adding a footnote describing homosexuality as "objectively disordered"; and deleting a passage that encourages use of terms such as "homosexual, gay, and lesbian" from the pulpit in order to "give people permission" to discuss homosexuality.
September 1998: Clark removes Fr. James Callan from his position as pastor of Rochester's Corpus Christi Parish. Callan asserts that Clark is acting under pressure from Ratzinger. Among other things, Callan is criticized for blessing same-sex unions.
December 1998: Ratzinger, other curial officials, and a group of Australian bishops put out a document citing problems in the Australian church resulting from a "worldwide crisis of faith." Among other deviations, the document cites a moral view in which "heterosexuality and homosexuality come to be seen as simply two morally equivalent variations."
Posted by: Alan | Apr 19, 2005 5:14:07 PM
So does one good act then cancel out one evil act? Wouldn't it have been lovely if RR and JP2 had not so actively and/or passively acted against me personally? And the same goes for B16.
I'm not bitter, Mr. Valiant. Non-plussed, maybe, but never bitter.
I don't think anyone should be thrown down a bottomless shaft. I just think they shouldn't encourage or write legislation against me and my ilk. Why can't they just stick with fighting poverty and child-abuse, war, greed, etc., and leave the homos alone?
Posted by: david | Apr 19, 2005 5:21:52 PM
David,
I don't agree with the old or new pope's view of homosexuality. But that does not mean I think he should be bashed childishly and compared to a stupid Star Wars character, or branded a Nazi based on incomplete or incorrect facts.
I think gay rights will advance through mutual respect, through open and constructive dialogue all types of groups and all types of voters, including the millions of Catholics in the USA who don't necessarily agree with a lot of the pope's teachings either. I want results. Militants and their diversions do not deliver results, it turns many otherwise neutral people against us.
I think like any institution there is good and bad in the church. Right now the church is doing more to combat poverty in many parts of the world than any other group. And I give the last pope some fair credit for democracy in Eastern Europe which liberated and improved the lives of millions. Including thousands or millions of gays, by the way.
I don't look at the world through a 100% gay agenda. And I don't expect an 80 year old lifelong theologian to support gay marriage so I guess it does not upset me too much to be honest.
And I am NOT Dreadnought.
Thanks
Posted by: Tom DeLay | Apr 19, 2005 5:28:23 PM
Ah - it's the mutual respect I find lacking Mr. Not Tom Delay. How can I express that I have respect for people of all faiths and still retain my (childish, ego-centric) sense of humor? Perhaps it's being called "evil," when I'm hardly even "naughty" half the time, that makes me think - oh, just this once I can see the passing resemblance to the Star Wars Emperor.
You're right about the Nazi thing. It was compulsory, etc., and he deserted, etc.
I don't look at the world through a gay agenda, either, although in this instance it really does have an impact on me, my partner, and many of my friends.
One might argue that - in this - I haven't criticized you, Dreadnought, or Catholics in general. But I've been called bitter, childish, etc., along with Andy, other posters, etc.
Posted by: david | Apr 19, 2005 5:44:37 PM
I'm with Andy. When there's a great disturbance in the force, you gotta call it like it is. This Pope seems capable of an organizational about-face, Emperor-like. One can only stand next to the Chair of Infallability for so long before wanting to sit in it himself and purr, "Precious, Precious."
No surprises if we see him issue a Jesus-Is-Love rebuke similiar to B.Bowers joke e-buke:
There are plenty of verses in the Bible that reveal what Jesus plans to do to people like you who ignore 99% of His Word in favor of emphasizing the two or three verses that, when taken completely out of context, create a soft, cuddly Jesus that more reflects your childish need for an imaginary friend straight out of a Disney cartoon than it does the authentic Jesus who shall sit on the White Throne of Judgment of the Bible.
Besides, BushCo. and his J-Dog Lovers could use an ally (or a billion).
Posted by: aaron | Apr 19, 2005 5:54:15 PM
Impacts me as well. I want results. Too much of the fight for rights today is turning neutral or persuadable voters against us.
In terms of mutual respect, we are the underdogs here and we are asking to change a long history whether that history is right or not. So maybe we could be the ones who invest more upfront in being civil. A lot of Catholics support gays - look at any survey. It's the in-their-face tactics they don't like. We could seriously debate whether the SF marriages handed Ohio to Bush as well as all the anti-gay propositions. Senator Feinstein, a long time gay rights supporter, dared raise that argument and she was awarded by SF Pride organizers with their insulting pink brick award normally given to some right wing freak like Tom Delay ;)
Admittedly this is a tangent from the pope-bashing but I hope you see my point.
In terms of criticism, I have not criticized you or anyone else in my postings. But I have been accused of plagiarism and of being Dreadnought ;)
Posted by: Tom DeLay | Apr 19, 2005 5:57:37 PM