Pope Benedict XVI has died

Pope Benedict XVI was a conservative pope, who pushed the Catholic Church backwards in his eight years as the pope. He will be mostly known for being the first pontiff to step down in 600 years, but I hope he will also be remembered for the evils that he stood for, and never had to face the consequences of.

Pope Benedict XVI was involved in covering up the massive child abuse happening in the Catholic Church, both as the Pope, and before then, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop of Munich and Freising. He also fought against women’s right to choose, and against same-sex marriage.

He followed Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II, who also was deeply conservative, and was lucky enough to die before the Catholic Churches organized cover-ups of child abuse was widely known. He helped Pope John Paul II implement/confirm the conservative politics that the Catholic Church is known for today. As the Guardian writes:

In doctrinal terms, Benedict spent his time in charge tweaking the legacy of the 27 years of the Polish pontiff. The conservative settlement that John Paul had imposed, with Cardinal Ratzinger’s able and unswerving assistance, on the great theological battles that had followed the reforming second Vatican council of the 1960s remained fundamentally undisturbed during Benedict’s reign. The victories already achieved in the last decades of the 20th century over more liberal Catholic voices over questions of sexual morality, clerical celibacy, the place of women and religious freedom were, as far as Benedict was concerned, secure. His pontificate, then, is best seen as an extended postscript to the one that had gone before.

My only regret about his death, is that he never had to answer for his actions in the past.

 

Support the women of Iran

On 16 September 2022, 22 year old Jina Mahsa Amini was killed by the morality police in Tehran, Iran leading to widespread protests and fights in Iran. Among the people protesting and fighting are the women, and the minorities, like the Kurds – a minority which Jina Mahsa Amini belonged to – but the protests/fights are widespread, and international organizations say there is protests in at least 16 of Iran’s 31 provinces, and that at least 50 people has been killed during the protests. Iranian media say that at least 35 people have been killed.

This is hardly the first time that there have been widespread protests in Iran, but this is larger than anything we have seen since 2009. As NY Times writes:

The largest anti-government protests in Iran since 2009 gathered strength on Saturday, spreading to as many as 80 cities, even as the authorities escalated a crackdown that has reportedly killed dozens of people and brought the arrests of prominent activists and journalists, according to rights groups and news media reports.

What is noteworthy about these protests, is that they are not limited to one group or location, but that they are widespread, and have even spread to religious and conservative cities like Mashhad and Qom. This means that the protests are taking a much wider hold than most of the former protests.

In other words, there is currently something major happening in Iran, and it is important that those of us living outside Iran, keep our eyes on the developments, and support the protesters. We need to keep a spotlight on the atrocities committed by the Iranian regime, and put as much pressure on them as we can. If you can, ask your politicians to speak out, participate in demonstrations, and support the protesters on social media.

A note about the name of the young woman, Jina Mahsa Amini. She is often referred to as just “Mahsa Amini”, but that is hiding her Kurdish heritage. Jina is her Kurdish name, which the Iranian government wouldn’t let her use. Thank you to Jino Victoria Doabi for explaining this. Jino is a friend of mine, who is a powerhouse in keeping Danes informed about what is happening in Iran, and explaining the background. Jino is a Kurd from Iran who came to Denmark when she was five, and who grew up in the same places as Jina Mahsa Amini. If you understand Danish, I highly recommend following Jino on Twitter and Instagram.

Acknowledging past wrongs

Out of Victoria, Australia comes the story about a moral policeman, Denis Ryan, who did was what was right, even when it destroyed his career.

They destroyed Denis Ryan’s police career. Now they admit he was right all along

He [Denis Ryan] refused to buckle when his bosses wanted him to ignore a paedophile priest and then was hounded from the job in a conspiracy that many believe went all the way to the chief commissioner’s office.

Now, 44 years after he was forced to resign because he cared more for children than his professional future, he has been vindicated in the very office where his career was destroyed.

It was only a few words and a handshake but when Ashton formally apologised on behalf of the police force it was the final vindication for a man who refused to be crushed by two powerful institutions.

40 years ago, there was a powerful Catholic fraction of the Victorian police force which covered over the crimes of members of the Catholic Church, allowing them to continue. Denis Ryan didn’t accept this, and fought against not only the Catholic Church but also the Victorian police force, trying to get justice to the victims, and stop any more crimes from happening.

Unfortunately, while he did get some results, the collected power of the two institutions were too powerful, and Ryan was forced out of the police force, thus allowing predatory priests to continue for decades more.

Current Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton has now acknowledged that Ryan was treated wrong. This is not only an important acknowledgement of past wrongs in the police force, but it also means that Ryan will get some sort of compensation for being forced out of the police force (something which cost him his police pension).

For more about Denis Ryan and his investigations, you can listen to more here: Conversations with Richard Fidler – Former police officer Denis Ryan’s devoted quest for justice

The Ebla Tablets and proof of the Old Testament – pushing long-debunked ideas

I came across this link on Facebook

Bible Critics Silenced Once Again As Archaeological Discoveries Prove Old Testament To Be Accurate!

For many years, the critics of the Old Testament continued to argue that Moses invented the stories found in Genesis. The critics contended that the ancient people of the Old Testament times were too primitive to record documents with precise details.

In doing so, these critics basically claimed that there was no verification that the people and cities mentioned in the oldest of Biblical accounts ever really existed.

The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970′s confirmed that the Biblical records concerning the Patriarchs are spot on. It was during the excavations in northern Syria that the excavating found a large library inside a royal archive room. This library had tablets dating from 2400 -2300 BC.

The “article” at the end of the link is from February this year.

The Ebla Tablets were discovered in 1974-1975, and already from the start, some people tried to use them as evidence for the truth of the Old Testament.

Even back then, it was considered nonsense, and the Washington Post had an article about this back in December, 1979 – Ebla Tablets: No Biblical Claims

When 11,000 clay tablets dating from 23 centuries before Christ were unearthed in northern Syria three years ago, biblical scholars around the world rejoiced that ancient proof had been found for the Old Testament.

“The tablets were being hailed as a find equal in importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls,” said Dr. Robert Biggs, professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. “The claims being made for these tablets created a sensation in biblical circles.”

But three years of intense study and debate among scholars changed all that. No longer are biblical claims made for the 11,000 clay tablets of Ebla, the ancient Sumerian city whose palace was destroyed by fire around 2300 B.C.

“In my opinion, parallels with the Bible are quite out of the question at this stage,” Biggs told a recent gathering of science writers sponsored by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. “People who are looking to the Ebla tablets for proof of the authenticity of the Bible are going to be sorely disappointed.”

The article goes into more detail about how the tablets are being misread and misrepresented.

It is not often I come across new articles pushing so-called new evidence, that has been debunked for nearly 40 years.