Before we travel any further down this rabbit hole, it should be expressly understood that I have no animosity whatsoever against any member of the Catholic Church (CC), wish them no harm, and indeed would defend their rights to believe as they wish against all attempts to repress them. If I had been around during Revolutionary War times, I would have sided with the Catholics against those who discriminated against their rights to believe as they wished. I view individual Catholics as victims of a power that is probably largely unknown to them.
The problem is the church itself and its hierarchy.
Here is the basis for my claim that the CC is trying to take over our government and laws. They have become a bit bolder of late, what with some loyal Catholics on the U. S. Supreme Court. And because of court decisions that have let them take little inches that they quickly gobble into claimed miles.
The Vatican is a sovereign state. It has its own embassy in our country and in many other countries. The United Nations has recognized the Vatican as a country. Even has its own army. The instructions come from the Vatican, in Rome, headed by “His Holiness” the Pope. Also called the Holy See.
From Rome come the orders of the church. And Catholics everywhere are expected to follow those orders. The Vatican, from its enclave in Rome, Italy, creates and sends forth cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and priests.
And to the sisters, the brides of the Christ, the orders of the male chain of command are conveyed. The power of the church, and the blissfully growing conflict between sisters and their male superiors who get orders from the Pope, is just now, once again, reaching a crisis point. A group of Catholic authorities will watch over these sisters and monitor them for evidence of any deviation from doctrine. Don’t know what the penalty would be today. Just a few years ago, it was death by being burned with fire, while chained to a stake. The reason for burning people was the biblical injunction against the spilling of blood. Burning, they reasoned, did not spill blood. Therefore it was okay, approved by god, punishment for wrong thinking.
Certain sisters are, at this writing, in trouble because they are not toeing the party line of the CC on issues of women becoming priests, and on birth control and family planning. These same sisters want to educate women, and to arm them with birth control and sexual information that they can use to get past the morality police of the CC.
The clash between the proclaimed requirements of their god, and the needs of many women to obtain proper reproductive information, and the refusal of the CC to provide lifesaving, critical medical information to a woman citizen because the church forbids it is clear enough, and shows the power of the CC over our Constitution, that the CC has chosen to make inferior to the CC and to the will of their Pope. The church, not the state, is thought by many of our fellow citizens to be the ultimate control over how women of the church dress, breed, and become educated. This control, these orders, emanates from his Eminence the Pope, and is introduced down the line to believers. Pope gives them to the archbishops who see to it that the latest doctrine gets to the bishops, and thus on down to the most humble priest, who shares it with his flock.
And the Pope seems to think that this is all the will of a god. But I know as much about that god as the Pope knows about that god, and I tell you that that god is not real and that the rules attributed to that god are actually rules of the CC, made up over a period of almost 2,000 years by people who have said, and are saying, that they speak for the god, and that they alone can pronounce the will of the god for humans.
In selling this mythology, the CC can get away with some remarkably unconstitutional behavior.
The CC is openly, and brazenly, attempting to influence the votes, the elections, and the laws, of the United States.
The CC has a non-profit status in this country as a result of its agreement to not attempt to influence the politics, laws, and policies of our country; a country gracious enough to let the CC in with a tax-exempt status. The CC does not have to pay taxes on property owned by the CC. We have to pay taxes on property we own, but the CC does not.
American cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, nuns, and sisters are agents of the Vatican in Rome, Italy. The Vatican is the world headquarters of the CC. After the Christian church had overwhelmed other religions in power at the time in ancient Rome, they built their headquarters on a place called Vatican Hill, previously dedicated to the god Mithras. They are still there. And they are dispensing orders to be followed by the chain of command. The CC is actively engaged in political activity in this and other countries.
The clergy of the CC tell their parishioners, from the pulpit, and in printed tracts, whom to vote for and whom not vote for. The criteria for the unlawful endorsements is whether or not a given law, or right, is supported by the Vatican.
The CC is also now telling elected legislators, and those seeking such offices, how to vote. It is unlawful to use threats to attempt to force a member of the Congress to vote as you wish. While the threats of excommunication, and being sent posthumosly to hell, might be less significant to our readers than having their Book of the Month Club memberships cancelled, they are designed to force compliance from faithful CC members who are in office or who are running for office.
It is incorrectly said that for every legal wrong there is a remedy. However, there are laws that could stop these abuses. If the government obeys those laws, that is.
The CC, and all of its agents attempting to influence our votes and our representatives’ votes, should be subject to extant federal laws requiring all agents of foreign principalities attempting to influence our laws to register as foreign lobbying agents. Do you reckon that all of the politically active clerics are so registered?
Threatening a legislator with eschatological consequences for not voting as he should, for not doing as told, should be a crime. According to Wikipedia, “The Oxford English Dictionary defines eschatology as ‘The department of theological science concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.”” Those are some pretty heavy things that believers have to worry over. Imagine the effect on a voter, or on a legislator, who believes the CC is right and has the power to affect, through their god, the situs of one’s immortal soul. Could scare the hell out of them. And make them do as the CC wishes. That is coercion and it is a crime.
Then let us also require those who would influence our laws and our elections to pay taxes. The CC has forfeited their tax exempt status by its behavior. If, given the choice, do you reckon the CC will pay their taxes or stop their behavior?
Two thousand years of their history should answer this question.
Edwin
© 2012 by Edwin Kagin
Excellent post.
The branch of the Catholic Church in my home town has tag- teamed with evangelical preachers to rally against the president in their gatherings on the courthouse lawn this year. The Catholic Church’s actions are no longer covert because they have garnered the support of right wing Christians. They are openly antagonistic toward the president and do not seem to fear any consequences for their actions.
Edwin,
You might be more explicit that bishops, cardinals and priests are in fact unregistered agents of a foreign government operating unchallenged in the US, seeking to influence US law and legislators, and undermine the secular state. Any such persons who are US citizens are traitors and spies.
You know what we do to them.
Treason against the US is defined in Art. III Sec. 3 of the US Constitution. It is not clear how you could show that the clergy of the RCC are either levying war against the US or adhering to their enemies. English experience at the time of the Tudors suggests that making religious adherence into treason is not a good idea, even though it made sense in that context (the papal bull “Regnans in Excelsis” putatively released English RCs from loyalty to Elizabeth I). On the other hand, agents of a foreigh government *are* required to register with the US government. Examples of such unregistered agents other that of the RCC clergy also come to mind.
If, given the choice, do you reckon the CC will pay their taxes or stop their behavior?
They won’t do either. They’ll continue acting exactly as they have. Because they know they won’t face any consequences for their actions, they’ll just shrug.
Women’s reproduction has long been the interest of the Holy See- if you can control what a population does with its genitals, you’ve literally got them by the short hairs. This is what is so obvious, and so definitively ignored.
For an organisation whose treatment of children once born is so horrific, you’d think society as a whole would have more of a problem even listening to opinion of such a leader. But so ingrained is the belief in his power that breaking free becomes excessively difficult for some, especially if most of their family is Catholic. The targets of the rituals and mantras are not the ear of a loving God- no, the targets are the believing ritual-doers and repeaters of liturgy. A system of beliefs thusly ingrained become an archetype of that religion, and just like Wal-mart, you become familiar with where everything is, how everything works. It all works the same at any franchise, so your archetype rarely has to be adjusted.
Catholic people, like every other religious group, are primarily good people seeking through faith to become more and more Christ-like, which is a beautiful goal. But for those who are not sure of who they are, or those who have some other more nefarious goal, it sadly provides the perfect cover.
The systematic degradation of the majority gender of the human race since its inception makes the Holy See a misogynistic organisation. Its open hatred of gays makes it a bigoted organisation. They should read their own book- Ecclesiastes 3:19-22 makes clear that what happens to one happens to us all, so there are no divisions between men or even beasts in our final outcome- from the dust all we came, and to it all we shall return, man and beast.
Nowhere does it say Good Catholics ONLY get to see the face of God, that is a God created by ego-smashed Men for the purpose of control for their own power. Hoarding power and wealth is the work of that other guy- you know, the one who’s really sitting on that throne.
5000 whining atheists vs the Great Prophet
http://www.ottawaskeptics.org/forum?func=view&id=4560&catid=3
I can see the logic and sincerity of an agnostic. But atheists are just plain scary. Why would anyone put so much effort into tearing down the beliefs of others? I believe in Christ, but even if I’m wrong I win. I live a good life and love others. What if atheists are wrong when the end comes? LOL.
You didn’t read a thing, did you?
But given your premise, that atheists just want to tear down people’s beliefs, how does that compare to religious people trying to tear down different religious people’s beliefs, and trying to run a secular nation by religious rules, and enforce their religion-sanctioned bigotry?