I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Catholic.
During my last visit to Rome I had mixed feelings about the Catholic Church. For the first few hundred years of their church, they were the underdog--I stood in a small room in a catacomb that once held the remains of 5 popes. Of course, the popes back then bore no resemblance to what popes eventually became--they were just the head of the church in Rome. Still, I have a soft spot in my heart for underdogs.
Then they got power, and Western Europe had a millenium and a half of domination by the Catholic Church. Historically they often destroyed what they didn't assimilate--the only reason the Pantheon still exists is because it was converted to a Catholic church. There are ancient Egyptian obelisks scattered throughout Rome, and Roman (Empire) ceremonial columns--that have crosses on the top, so the Catholics could tolerate the heathen history in their capital city.
And to be charitable, the history of the Catholic Church isn't one of peace, love, harmony, and tolerance.
So yes, I have mixed feelings about the Catholic Church. But when I went inside St. Peter's Basilica, I was so in awe that I briefly entertained the thought of converting.
When I was 11 I saw Pope Paul VI. He was standing in a window in the Vatican, blessing the throng below in St. Peter's Square. I was a bit young to know anything about him other than he was some form of celebrity.
I liked JP2 and Benedict, I'm not much of a fan of Francis. Then again, I didn't get to vote for any of them.
All of that serves as a lead-in to this article: Who Hated Pope John Paul II More — Sinead O’Connor or the Jesuits?
Fr. Mankowski is in full force in “Liberal Jesuits and the Late Pope,” an essay in Jesuit at Large that was originally published after the death of John Paul II in 2005. In it Fr. Mankowski unmasks the raw hatred that leftist Jesuit priests had for John Paul II. Fr. Mankowski describes the 1992 Saturday Night Live show where singer Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of John Paul II and cried out, “Fight the real enemy!”
Most people who saw the incident, Fr. Mankowski writes, were shocked. “I wasn’t. I’m a Jesuit, you see.”
I haven't fact-checked any of this, but it was a shocking read.
I am a Catholic, and I agree with your opinion about the current Pope, and his two predecessors. You might not remember/be aware that Pope Francis came from the Jesuits. I tend to be wary of them, based on their publications and some of the more prominent ones.
ReplyDeleteCradle Catholic/Lapsed Catholic here. The Jesuits have always been the political strong arm of the Vatican. Like the CIA, they are highly trained in statecraft and highly educated. Their missionaries go into Third World countries and promote a far more radical political view than the remaining American and European Catholics. They have been this way for centuries. They were in charge of the Inquisition. During earlier times the Church was often a powerful placement for the second and third sons of landed gentry, which is why they also became political brokers. If you look at their mother house of Il Gesu, you'll notice that like the order itself, there's few windows and it almost seems a closed society. It would not surprise me to find politics at play in the Vatican-it would not be the first time. I think the current Pope is a placed imposter and the legitimate pope was deposed and removed to a monastery.
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