Pen Portraits-Three Popes

Pope Pius IX

Saints in heaven see the face of God. However saints on the earth are made with the sign of a cross by a pope, who however may be sitting on the throne uneasily as in the case of Pope Leo X, on account of his fistula.(His anal fistula aggravated by a chronic stomach ulcer made a stink that could be felt miles away. Nevertheless he belonged to the Medici family and it made a lot of difference*) The second sort of saints I cannot say for certain if they would ever see the Lord God but they have seen villainy in the Holy see as in the case of Pope Pius IX. Pius IX, who reigned from 1844 to 1878, and what a wretched drama was played out by his machinations!
In Bologna, after nightfall on June 23, 1858, the papal police arrived unannounced at the Mortara home and removed from this Jewish family one of their sons, Edgardo, six years old, because he had been secretly baptized by a Christian maid when he was dangerously sick as an infant. Despite the anguished pleas of Edgardo’s parents and international indignation, the boy was never returned to his family. He became a personal ward of Pius IX and eventually was ordained a priest. For saints in heaven the blessedness is in seeing ever the face of their lord. They have been unknown and unmerited by worldly pomp or circumstances and they are resigned to it; and after a lifetime of struggle and vicissitudes same as lowest of the low of the earth they have no complaint God should compensate them. They make their way to the abode of bliss, since their Maker has seen something in their lives of his Son who had no place to call his own. They learned the way of humility since it was how they came to this world, children of the dispossessed. Never did they ask if there were some injustice done in the manner they are bound to indigence while the rogues in purple and prelates, seasoned by unctuous tomfoolery can mouth homilies for all seasons. Lazarus of the dives was well compensated in hereafter while these saints may not even know who the blazes is Lazarus! After all saints ordained by God are God- elect while saints churned out of the assembly-line are the ilk of Pius IX.
Born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal infallibility. The Pope defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, meaning that Mary was conceived without original sin. Pius IX also granted the Marian title of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a famous Byzantine icon from Crete entrusted to the Redemptorist priests. In addition to this, Pius IX was also the last Pope to rule as the Sovereign of the Papal States, which fell completely to Italian nationalist armies by 1870 and were incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. He was beatified on Sep.3 in 2000 (ack:JOHN W. O’MALLEY | AUGUST 26, 2000/the Beatification of Pope Pius IX;wikipedia)
(*Freida Leonie-Catherine di’ Medici-p.19)
benny

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Head vs the Heart

In the evolution of man instinct came to play a vital role since Nature fine-tuned his physiology to address the question: flee or fight? The adrenalin rush of your body in sensing danger is of different make up than when you need to think seriously what is the best course for your future. In the latter case time is on your side and you may weigh pros and cons to arrive at a conclusion. This is what thinking means. You brain is not merely reptelian brain but has also complex rewiring to help you in the process. Speech, visual and other faculties are controlled from locations that can be mapped and studied. Thus nature has provided certain initial back-up to which your life among men and animals add ancillary support. The thinking machine Head has its adjunct the Heart with which your feelings reinforce your life experience. Basic emotions fear and pleasure have myriad shades of meaning to make your life significant. This is what makes man different from animals.
Such a man also has rational and irrational side to which I only need to point the wakeful state and the dream state. If you go by the latter irrational side alone you are a menace to the society and you might require supervision and medicine to keep you from harm. The point is the head should remain in its place and consequently the heart must hold its own. The relationship of State and religion is like this.
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In order to understand how poorly religion and state can hold together we only need to look at the Church of Rome.
In the Early Church the bishops elected for the office were considered as shepherds of the flock. Following the stricture of Jesus to Simon Peter they were to cater to the spiritual needs of the early converts who were mostly marginalized in society or were actively hounded out by Rome as a threat to the empire. As seized of their charge the early bishops did not dabble in temporal matters. The serious threat to the religion actually came from the time Constantine made Christianity as the state religion. He made it not out of any genuine conviction but as a matter of state policy. Such explosive mixture could only delay but not prevent the march of events. The empire was doomed to collapse and it did happen. With it the primary aim of the Church was seriously compromised.
After the fall of Rome during the “Middle Ages”, the papacy was influenced by the temporal rulers of and surrounding the Italian Peninsula; these periods are known as the Ostrogothic Papacy, Byzantine Papacy, and Frankish Papacy. Over time, the papacy consolidated its territorial claims to a portion of the peninsula known as the Papal States. Thereafter, the role of neighboring sovereigns was replaced by powerful Roman families of which I may merely mention the Tusculan Papacy.
From 1048 to 1257, the papacy experienced increasing conflict with the leaders and churches of the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The latter culminated in the East-West Schism, dividing the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. While Popes were politicking the Church underwent through serious spiritual crisis among believers that came in the form of the Black Death. With such a calamity for the suffering flock the Church failed to address their spiritual confusion. They believed it was the divine chastisement and came from God. ( The Black Death wiped out nearly two thirds of Europe and the Pope sat out through this terrible times in Avignion,France. No wonder the survivors came out with a new idea of making their present life count. The Carpe Diem effect. This led to Reformation and the Enlightenment in course of time. Initiative in trade and commerce had passed from Italy to Germany, England and Holland.)
The Church was split by politics rather than any theological disagreement that quickly escalated from a church problem to a diplomatic crisis that divided Europe. Secular leaders had to choose which claimant they would recognize that showed the lie that the authority of the Pope came straight from St. Peter. The schism was ended by the Council of Constance (1414–1418).

Islam also suffers from the same tragedy. Petro-Islam is out and out buying converts who fit neither here nor there. Their head is a counting machine while their heart is far from obedience to their God.
P.S: The tragedy of putting the cart before the horse , mistaking the heart for the head led to the decline of the Church and Italy never survived the Black Death. In a manner of speaking the medieval mindset still plagues them. Unification of Italy was hampered by Papacy and the present economic crisis owe partly to it. We see conjugation principle at work here.
benny

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The Beast Among Us

Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse after a nine-year investigation published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children. Wednesday’s five-volume report on the probe — which was resisted by Catholic religious orders — concluded that church officials shielded their orders’ pedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy. The investigation also uncovers previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s. Victims of the abuse, who are now in their 50s to 80s, lobbied long and hard for an official investigation.
“I do genuinely believe that it would have been a further step towards our healing if our abusers had been named and shamed,” said Christine Buckley, 62, who spent the first 18 years of her life in a Dublin orphanage where children were forced to manufacture rosaries — and were humiliated, beaten and raped whether they achieved their quota or not.
The Christian Brothers’ leader in Ireland, Brother Kevin Mullan, said the organization had been right to keep names secret because “perhaps we had doubts about some of the allegations.” The Christian Brothers, which ran several boys’ institutions deemed to have harbored serial child molesters and sadists on their staff, insisted it had cooperated fully with the probe. The order successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. Well the Church may draw a veil of secrecy but what is done in secret has a way of being shouted from the rooftops. This report is to be seen in this context. Such unnaming undeservedly tars the names of those who have been good and true to their cloth.
Jesus said,”Come to me… I shall give you rest.” The Church has her own way of interpreting the Scriptures. From the day the Church found her sway over her flock she has been like the proverbial evil shepherds that ravenously prey upon lambs left under their care. (Gullibility of  believers is only matched by the sheer perversity of the clergy.) In most cases they have found entry into the homes of the laity and under the guise of their ‘ moral superiority’ decamped with the wealth of the house, abused the young and worse still, left  any member left standing to feel morally polluted and self-condemned. (Ack: Catholic Church shamed by Irish abuse report-By Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer-20-5-09)

Anti- Christ has come and is alive among us.  God help us all!
benny

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