Traditional Auto-de-fe
The heretics weren’t burned till after the ceremony
Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism.
The older rite’s prayers calling on God to ‘lift the veil from the eyes’ of the Jews and to end ‘the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ’ – used just once a year during the Good Friday service – have sparked outrage.
The Pope also sparked bewilderment when he made no mention of anti-Semitism, or the fact that the Nazis killed millions of people because they were Jewish, in a speech last year at Auschwitz. He also failed to acknowledge that there might be some degree of collective responsibility of the German people.
I could care less how any organized superstition cares to manage their ideology. But, when their politics pander to elitism and ethnic hatred, that must be recognized and opposed. Within and without.
Leave the Germans alone. And it wouldn’t hurt the Jews to convert to Christ because submission and service to someone other than yourself goes a long way towards buffering pride which is needed for personal growth. I like this hard-nosed pope almost enough to convert. Not quite but almost.
Yeah, that Pope and the Catholic Church are the main enemies for Jews in the world today.
You would have thought that a German Pope would have left this little issue alone. I mean…damn…. Hitler Youth member becomes Pope (what a crazy friggin’ world we live in) and then reinstates a prayer to convert all the Jews.
LOL. Atheisim. The worst religion.
Proclaim to not believe in God. Then go on to tell everyone else how they should serve their God.
Proclaim that people shouldn’t push their religion on them. Then go on to tell the church how they should believe.
Pathetic. Love the tech blog, and the humorous religious posts. But it’s only funny until you realize how sad atheists are.
Whatever the leader(s) of any organized superstition say, I’ll waste none of my time or effort to oppose them. It’s like killing weeds by slowly pulling one leaf or blade at a time. Ultimately ineffective and frustrating to boot.
That effort is better spent on devising and implementing a plan of universal education for children, in order to immunize the next generation from indoctrination. This is the only way to root out the dysfunctional, destructive and regressive influence of irrational beliefs and the irrational acts those beliefs give rise to.
“…until you realize how sad atheists are.”
Yes, it’s so sad, disillusioning and depressing for scared, insecure people like you to contemplate living in a world without comforting fairytales, having to have the maturity and courage to face reality without some all-purpose Daddy to magically make everything OK.
He also failed to acknowledge that there might be some degree of collective responsibility of the German people.
Good, because you know what..? That’s bullshit. Most of the people who were involved are dead, dying, or at least compose a small minority of the population. Even the citizens at the time are pretty damn old now.
1933 was 74 years ago. Even rounding down to 70 that means that people who were able to do anything constructive (18+) are at least 88! At least!
Most of the German people are haunted by the spectre of their history, that is good, because it prevents repeats in the future, but to blame them? To say they have more responsibility than the rest of the world in remembering and stopping crazy power-hungry leaders from killing people needlessly and starting wars against ethnic groups?
That’s just wrong, irresponsible, and quite possibly dangerous…
#4
Atheism is not a religion. And if you’ve not figured it out yet, religion is mainly about mindshare, control and profit… The various Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist etc denominations are just corporations competing to sell you the same thing… an invisible friend who will “save you” from something. If you open your mind, you’ll realize that there’s not one thread of evidence for anything these corporations are selling you. So why do you believe in something that can’t be proven? Could it be because you were indoctrinated as a child to believe in a deity that is watching over your shoulder at all times?
Sad? Except for the really stupid bits – like killing heretics and heathens – religion and defenders of the faith (whichever is supposed to be in charge that week) are downright laughable.
Always good for a chuckle when they’re not busy ordering folks about.
#7. right on – neither virtue nor sin are hereditary.
#7
Also I think this has more to do with Catholicism than to do with ethnic origin…
The Catholic church did turn the eye and whisted into the air during the holocaust. And they knew about it…
Jason, Jason, Jason, we know. It’s okay. The atheists are poking at your balloon and you feel threatened. That’s understandable, but don’t be afraid. We don’t want in… we want to help you get out. I know you are uncomfortable with all the poking, but the age of religion is getting shorter and shorter. Sooner or later a prick is going to burst your balloon. You don’t want to be inside when that happens.
So Jason, please think about this and answer truthfully… religion is the belief in and worship of a god or superhuman controlling power. You have described Atheism (your friend) as a religion. What god is it that Atheists worship? … you see how your mind plays tricks on you when you terrified?
Come out Jason. We who stand firmly in reality await you with open arms as we have the homosexuals who ventured out of their closet.
The oxygen in there is low. if you start seeing visions it will be to late to save you. It’s better for you if you can break away on your own.
Don’t be afraid of death. It’s the natural order of life. live your life to the fullest and then make way for another. Yes there it life after death… someone else’s life. The particles of you will go on forever. Forever, Jason… think about it.
Try to look on the positive side of this people. Only Catholics that will celebrate the Latin Tridentine mass and that understand Latin will be able to notice the insults.
This pope is a jerk. He’s gonna cause lots of problems.
Uh, Lauren, your concepts of Universal education have been excercised in the recent past. You know, Hitler Youth, Maoist communism, etc. Been there, done that. Doesn’t work.
And sorry guys, atheism is a religion. What you’re confusing it with is agnosticsm, which is a more honest form of non-belief. At least those people can say with conviction and without rancor, “Is there a God? I don’t know”.
#2, MikeN, FUN-NEE!
Now, being a Catholic, I do have to sometimes scratch my head over some of the things Pope B has said. I blame it on his age. There ought to be a younger guy in charge, really.
Weeeellll, I dunno. When you compare it with suicide bombers taking out a hundred people at a pop in the name of Allah, calling for God to remove the veil from the eyes of the Jews to deliver them from their darkness doesn’t seem all THAT evil. Kind of on par with “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”. Amen. And it’s in fucking LATIN. How many people speak Latin these days, and would even know what they’re saying? Res ipsa loquitur.
#4: how sad atheists are
and
#15: atheism is a religion
By definition, athieism isn’t a religion.
And athiests sad?
How many wars have been fought in the name of atheism? How many millions of people have been killed in the name of atheism? How many bigoted, murderous, narrow-minded, ignorant atheists insist on imposing their “religion” on others?
#1 Leave the Germans alone.
Agreed. And Gregory states it very well in #7
#1And it wouldn’t hurt the Jews to convert to Christ because….
What?
And it wouldn’t hurt the Christians to convert to Islam because…
Why would anyone “convert to Christ”, when Christians can’t even agree on what it means to be Christian? How do you know which sect is the correct one to convert to?
Heck, I don’t know of any religion that doesn’t have internal disagreements about the “one, true faith”.
Jew – orthodox, ultra-orthodox, reform, etc.
Christian – baptist, presbyterian, catholic, southern baptist, pentecostal, mormon, eastern orthodox, etc
Islam – sunni, shiite, etc
Off topic: I know Mormons consider themselves Christians, but do other Christians consider Mormons Christian, or does that whole “Book of Mormon” thing rankle?
Why is it, if the Pope is infallible, that things like this keep changing? Wouldn’t the first one get it right the first time, and that would be the end of it?
It really is confusing you know.
Peter, Peter, Peter, ignore the echo and read #12. By definition, atheism is not a religion, you poor lost particle mass.
Ummm,
Isnt this the basic ideal that the muslims are useing??
ALL the world must be 1 belief? OR DIE??
I was hoping this had stopped in the 14th-16th century and during WWII..
Who cares about the Damn’d.. If they choose it, its Theirs..
And I’m not leaving out WHICH side may be Damn’d from any side.
“which includes prayers calling for the Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism.”
That explains why these dirty old jews like it when I tell them I spend all my childhood at a Catholic school.
#4
I’m not an Atheist, I just don’t believe in YOUR God.
tkane – rewriting the dictionary to suit your sophistry really isn’t acceptable to anyone other than companion fools:
religion – • noun – the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
— ORIGIN originally in the sense life under monastic vows: from Latin religio ‘obligation, reverence’.
You’re stuck with it, dude. No luck at sharing the ignorance.
What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful, Benedict wrote.
But “all of a sudden” happened almost 40-years ago, didn’t it?
Benedict was acting in a bid to reach out to the followers of an excommunicated French ultra-traditionalist, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who split with the Vatican over the introduction of the new mass and other Vatican II reforms.
With a choice between pleasing some excommunicated Catholics, or pissing-off non-Catholics, he made the obvious choice. 🙂
#20, JimR
I thought Peter in #17 is on the same page as you. It appears you made a very good argument in #12 and, in my opinion, Peter is only reinforcing it.
#16, MM,
You raise a good issue of perspective.
Christianity is a higher religion than Judaism. The circle of love in Christianity is larger than Judaism. Yet, christians derive from jews.
One thing that people lose sight of is that the Jews were a remarkable people that set them apart from other Western peoples. They were the first group of westerners to love their children. Yesterday, I saw an orthodox Jew lovingly pushed his young son forward who was lagging behind him on the sidewalk. Children have a chance to grow up healthy. But then look at the way poor black women treat their kids on the subway. My heart cries out from the treatment that some of those innocent children have to bear. So many times I have seen kids hit in front of many other new yorkers and there’s not a thing we can do. Nobody interferes.
However, Jews can only hold trust out to other Jews based on ethnicity. Christianity holds out trust to other christians even if they are of different ethnicities or even race. That’s a huge step forward which makes christianity a higher religion than judaism.
Budhism goes even further than both because it extends the circle of love to all sentient beings which is why buddhist monks are vegetarian. Buddhism can also accept reason which both christianity and judaism (and islam) cannot. Buddhism is much higher. Buddhism has to deliver the christians from the darkness.
Every year in NYC there is a group that call themselves Jews for Jesus and hand out pamphlets around town. Last year, I got ticked off and went straight to a Kinko’s and printed out my own pamphlet, “Christians for Buddha” and competed with them at Times Square Station handing them out to passersby. It made a lot of people’s day.
How best to curtail/defeat the pernicious effect of religion is an interesting issue. Europe can teach us. What have they done to effectively remove the importance of Religion? Why is it so strong in Muslim world, GOUSA, and the rest of the World??
Leading atheists say its man’s inherent fear of the unknown and therefore the comfort taken in the certainty of faith—but it is still a taught behavior, so the tendency can be overcome.
I’m think it can’t be fought directly–ie, a religion of science if you will. No, probably a judo move is needed. Maybe a religion of “Mother Earth” or renewable/sustainable energy which would only be a stalking horse for science as the underlying principle. Yes, that could work. I can see hourly ads on TV with Elizabeth Taylor saying “Yes, come join me in la-la land where everything is green and the electricity is carbon neutral.” Heh, heh.
27,
Ummm,
I wish you to look at the Christian history Before and after, the new testament time period…about 1890…
Consider you didnt have ANY of the New testaments…You only had the Old Jewish texts..
NOW explain all the FUn that was had in the 1400’s-1600’s…To all the devisions of groups in Christianity…
Go for it…
I really don’t see what the fuss is about here. I mean the German comments are kinda stupid in my opinion. But on the actual concept of the complaint, about Catholics Praying for Jews to become Catholics I don’t get what the problem is.
Jesus was a Jew. He preached largely to Jews. He (as Catholics and other Christians believe) is their messiah. Its a very logical point that people who believe that Jesus is said Messiah that they would want the Jews (i.e those who knew the Messiah was coming) to believe that.
(no I am not a Catholic sticking up for the Pope.. in fact i am surprised i am sticking up for the Pope. Someone must have slipped something into my coffee..)