Pope Francisco Bergoglio Attacks the Tyranny of the Markets… He’s Rather MORE “Lefty” than Benny Ratz Was

The Russian Market: Satan Reigns There

Vasili Ostrovsky

2004

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The cult of money is today’s golden calf.

Pope Francisco Bergoglio

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Yesterday, Pope Francisco gave his first major analysis on the causes of the global financial crisis. 

Our human family is presently experiencing something of a turning point in its own history, if we consider the advances made in various areas. We can only praise the positive achievements that contribute to the authentic welfare of mankind, in fields such as those of health, education, and communications. At the same time, we must also acknowledge that the majority of the men and women of our time continue to live daily in situations of insecurity, with dire consequences. Certain pathologies are increasing, with their psychological consequences; fear and desperation grip the hearts of many people, even in the so-called rich countries; the joy of life is diminishing; indecency and violence are on the rise; poverty is becoming more and more evident. People have to struggle to live, and, frequently, to live in an undignified way. One cause of this situation, in my opinion, is in our relationship with money, and our acceptance of its power over our society and ourselves. Consequently, the financial crisis that we are experiencing makes us forget that its ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis. It stems from the denial of the primacy of human beings! We’ve created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Exodus 32.15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

The worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight their distortions and above all the gravely-deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, nowadays, human beings themselves are considered as consumer goods that can be used and thrown away. We have started a throw-away culture. This tendency is seen on the level of individuals and whole societies; and it’s being promoted! In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. Whilst the income of a minority increases exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies that uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and, thus, deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny is established; one that unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules. Moreover, indebtedness and credit distance countries from their real economy and citizens from their real buying power. Added to this, as if it were needed, is widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion that have taken on worldwide dimensions. The will to power and of possession has become limitless.

Concealed behind this attitude is a rejection of ethics, a rejection of God. Ethics, like solidarity, is a nuisance! It’s regarded as counterproductive: as something too human, because it relativises money and power; as a threat, because it rejects manipulation and subjection of people… because ethics leads to God, who’s situated outside the categories of the market. God is thought to be unmanageable by these financiers, economists, and politicians; God is unmanageable, even dangerous, because he calls man to his full realisation and to independence from any kind of slavery. Ethics … naturally, not the ethics of ideology… makes it possible, in my view, to create a balanced social order that is more humane. In this sense, I encourage the financial experts and the political leaders of your countries to consider the words of St John Chrysostom, “Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It isn’t our goods that we possess, but theirs” (Homily on Lazarus, 1:6 – PG 48, 992D).

There’s a need for financial reform along ethical lines that’d produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone. Nevertheless, this’d require a courageous change of attitude on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and farsightedness, taking account, naturally, of their particular situations. Money has to serve, not to rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. The Pope appeals for disinterested solidarity and for a return to person-centred ethics in the world of finance and economics.

For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person. In this sense, she reiterates that the common good shouldn’t be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes. The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples. She urges financial leaders to take account of ethics and solidarity. Why should they not turn to God to draw inspiration from His designs? In this way, a new political and economic mindset would arise that’d help to transform the absolute dichotomy between the economic and social spheres into a healthy symbiosis.

17 May 2013

The Tablet

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/574/18

Editor’s Note:

I discarded the boilerplate greetings at the head and foot of this piece. Let’s keep it simple. The reason that real Orthodox have to oppose the konvertsy and their attempt to ally the Church with rightwing forces is simple… they wish us all to bow down before Almighty Mammon. They want to ally us with warmongers, greedsters, and politicians so bloody in their use of the death penalty that they’d make Judge Jeffreys blush.

Don’t hate these people… but do oppose them. Hatred only dulls our vision and lowers us to the level of those such as Rod Dreher and James Paffhausen. God calls us to oppose them… not hate them… not do violence to them. As long as they’re alive, there’s hope that they’ll repent… it’s slim, but it’s there.

Keep your mind right and God’ll bless you.

BMD 

 

Vatican Sez Disgraced Cardinal to Leave Scotland for Penance

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On Wednesday, the Vatican said that Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who resigned as head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland after acknowledging sexual misconduct, would leave Scotland for a period of “prayer and penance”. A statement said that O’Brien, who was Britain‘s most senior Catholic cleric until his resignation in February, would leave the UK “for the same reasons” that he decided not to participate in the conclave that elected Pope Francisco Bergoglio.

15 May 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_05_15/Disgraced-Cardinal-OBrien-to-leave-Scotland-for-Penance-Vatican/

Editor’s Note:

Does this mean that Francisco’s gonna stomp on abusers or does it mean that he’s gonna squirrel ‘em away until the shit dies down? There’s no way of knowing… we’ll have to see what happens. Frankly, what Catholics (and others… including Orthodox) do in the USA doesn’t give me optimism… but we’ll have to see. You can’t attack someone until they fuck up… and Francisco hasn’t slammed it in the door, yet. On the one hand, he’s sincerely embraced evangelical poverty (and its espousal of the “preferential option for the poor”)… on the other, he has a blind spot in being so anti-abortion that it may blind him to rightwing shenanigans. We’ll have to see…

BMD

Will Georgia Ban Abortions?

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The Georgian state has begun thinking of banning abortions after influential Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia Ghudushauri-Shiolashvili pitched the idea in his Easter sermon on 5 May. Many churches may be pro-life, but in this devout Christian country, which cherishes the Church leader above any other public figure, words from the patriarch can carry as much power as papal bulls once did in Europe. During his sermon, the patriarch called on the government to stop the “terrible sin” of abortion and “filicide”, aside from a few circumstantial exceptions. He blamed both Bolshevik “atheists” from the past and modern liberal philosophy for the prevalence of abortions. Georgia tops the South Caucasus for abortions, with 408 performed per 1,000 live births, according to a study by the WHO, the Caucasus Research Resource Centres reported (By comparison, the EU rate is 222 per 1,000 live births).

Georgian government officials, who can’t hold a candle to the patriarch in terms of public support, quickly gave the nod to the Church on considering an abortion ban. Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili responded by saying that baby-boosting legislation is in order. However, he sensibly suggested that if one wanted to improve the country’s bleak demographic situation, the focus should be on economic incentives rather than abortions. Amongst top Georgian officials, only female Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani ventured to express outright scepticism, saying that the ban could make abortion an underground business. She said that prohibiting informing parents about the sex of a future child is as far as she is personally willing to go as a way to prevent selective abortions, which favour boys.

With one eye on the country’s modest population of 4.48 million, the patriarch has long pushed Georgians to have more babies. After he offered to baptise every third child as an incentive, the Church held mass baptism ceremonies several times a year. Now, he’s proposed to cash-strapped parents that, rather than aborting any additional children, they hand them over to the Church’s care. However, gender researcher Nargiza Arjevanidze cautioned that Georgia’s Soviet experience actually illustrates the dangers of an abortion ban. She said in comments to EurasiaNet that a ban during the Stalin era “led to the rise of back-room abortions that often ended in health complications and even death. Another ban could result in similar problems. Those who can afford it would travel to neighbouring countries; others would resort to illegal procedures”. She believes than an anti-abortion law would do little to reduce Georgia’s high abortion rate. Rather, Arjevanidze thinks that promotion of contraception and family planning is the real need.

7 May 2013

Georgi Lomsadze

EurasiaNet.org

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66933

Editor’s Note:

There are those who believe that we can solve the problems associated with abortion by simply outlawing it, and making those who provide it criminals. That’s simply hogwash of the worst possible sort. Before Roe, abortion was readily available to women who had the money to pay for it. Those who didn’t have the money to access proper medical intervention turned to quacks or “homebrew solutions”. In short, there was plenty of abortion going on despite the formal ban on the procedure.

In any case, the Church doesn’t bless political action to solve moral problems. That’s a Catholic solution (said with no rancour towards individual Catholics). It’s not Christ’s solution… it’s the solution of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. That is, when we try to address moral problems with the police power of the state rather than with the moral authority of Our Lord Christ, not only does the effort usually fail, it ends in exacerbating the problem. Thus, to march in “Pro-life” rallies and to support rightwing politicians because they’re anti-abortion is clearly anti-Christian (it certainly ain’t Orthodox).

St Serafim Vyritsky didn’t carry on a political protest… he prayed for the Soviet state and for its conversion. He prayed for the victory of the Red Army in the VOV, as that was preferable to a Fascist victory. He was typical of many in the Church. We didn’t carry signs… we didn’t sign petitions… we prayed. That’s right… we prayed. It worked. By the 1980s, the KPSS abandoned the anti-religious struggle… the rebirth of the Church began, not in 1991, but in 1985. If all things are equal, then, Christ calls on us to pray. He calls on us to aid unwed mothers anonymously. He calls on us to show civility to Pro-Choice people. I’ll tell you a “secret”… virtually all Pro-Choice people view abortion as a nasty alternative, one that they’d like to see minimised. They’re not pro-abortion ogres. We should have nothing to do with Randall Terry and all those even remotely of his ilk.

To take the current Pro-Life narrative as a given is to reduce a full-blown moral dilemma (for there’s no “clean” moral solution to the abortion mess) to a cartoonish, juvenile, and fundamentally-untrue fairy tale. It’s not simply “good anti-abortionists” against “evil pro-abortionists”. It’s a case where all people who favour life over death (and most Pro-Choice people DO fall in that category) have to face stern reality and unyielding facts. We can have our own opinions, but we can’t have “our own facts”.

Are we Christians? Are we Orthodox Christians? Then, we face the dilemma that Dostoyevsky posed using the figure of the Grand Inquisitor. Think hard on that one… remember, “simple” doesn’t mean “easy”, it doesn’t mean “obvious”. Do bear in mind St Serafim praying for four years for the victory of the Red Army… it led to setting up a situation that led eventually to the relaxation of the ‘80s that led to the Church’s liberation. In like manner, we may have to keep abortion legal in order to reduce it.

I fear that many will call me pro-abortion for what I’ve written. One takes that risk. I’m not such, but you have no control over what others think of what one says or does. However, I’ll say this much… I’ve got the guts and grit to speak my mind, and that’s being “honest to God”. I don’t think that displeases the Almighty… and I’m not alone in thinking that way…

BMD 

4 May 2013. Read n’ Heed… Pentecostalist Propaganda from a Secular Newspaper in Texas… This is Why We Can’t Have ANY Official Contact with “Evangelicals”, Pentecostalists, Mormons, or Other Radical Sectarians

THIS is Christianity? I think NOT…

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Editor’s Foreword:

READ THIS.

It’s false… it’s revolting in its dishonesty… it’s full of hatred for Our Lord Christ and His Church. Yet… you must know what the enemies of Christ say… and that many of them cloak themselves in pseudo-Christianity. Nasty world, ain’t it? THIS is what the Evangelicals truly think of us… the “nice” people aren’t so nice, are they?

BMD

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The aroma of tobacco lingered on the tips of his fingers and stalled on the fold of his collar. He agreed not to smoke for the duration of the church crusade, but his two-and-a-half-pack-a-day habit had Roy Jacob longing for a cigarette. The then-31-year-old Jacob knew he didn’t belong among the charismatic churchy types surrounding him, who found joy and meaning praising Jesus under a tent in the middle of nowhere, India. However, he was obligated to stay and fake his comfort. He was in charge of the musical entertainment, including 75 musicians and choir members. He’d learned all the church songs so he could teach them to his musicians. Jacob, who now lives in Victoria TX and works as a DuPont lab analyst, didn’t realise it then, but he was about to embark on a journey that would take him far from his roots in a Christian tradition that stretched back 2,000 years in Kerala, India.

The Journey Begins

Jacob knew the conference would soon end, and he’d be free to go home and wrap his lips around a pint of whiskey and inhale a few drags of nicotine. That was the usual sundown routine… a contentious point for his wife, Elsie. He agreed he wouldn’t drink through the weekend. It was a request from the crusade’s organiser, an evangelical preacher who paid him good money during the week to teach his daughter to learn guitar. The preacher and the request, Jacob respected. He’d do about anything to be able to play Western music in front of a crowd. Jacob sat in a chair next to his cousin, Jimmy, in the back of the revival tent, where hundreds of traditionless Pentecostals gathered in Kerala, India, for a weekend of wholesome Christian fellowship.

The crusade was polar opposite from the piety and religiosity of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Orthodox church tradition he was raised in. He was used to high bishops, three-hour-long communions, repeating liturgy on command, and ordered sitting and standing during service. Sitting in the chair, Jacob heard something unusual. Confused, he thought he heard a voice telling him to speak to a pastor. He said he later realised it was the voice of God, guiding him to speak to a man at the front of the room. Jacob had no idea he was about to surrender his life to Jesus, even if it required that he leave his family, and his country and walk away from a 2,000-year-old Orthodox religious family tradition that he had always been told was the only way to heaven.

Growing Up Orthodox

When he was a child in Kerala, India, it wasn’t unusual for his family to entertain high bishops of the Mar Thoma Orthodox church in their home. His father, a respected layman of the church, helped build the Korba Mar Thoma Church from the ground up when the family moved to Korba. Jacob’s father would often invite the high priests to stay in their home and Jacob, now 55, remembers as a young boy, sitting on the bishops’ knees when they’d visit. He remembered what a coup it was for his father, recalling, “My dad was a hard-core Mar Thoma. He had a lot of influence with the bishops. They were always close to us. They always saw big things in our life, and they always thought we’d do something big in the Mar Thoma church”.

Church was never missed on Sunday; Sunday was always respected as a day of rest. Jacob said, “Sabbath meant Sabbath. We couldn’t play radios or work, and if you did anything, it’d have to be Christian. That church was just so traditional… We all hated it as kids”. Even with years of exposure to godly men and his father’s impressed importance of the church, Jacob said he never accepted Christianity. Church was simply something his family did, like watching soccer or drinking tea, noting, “I didn’t have anything to do with God. I was pleasing my dad, I guess”. Still, his father had high hopes for Jacob in the church and was grooming him early to learn and perform musical instruments so he could perform for the church. With a talent for bass, guitar, drums and other instruments, Jacob was put to use as early as sixth grade, conducting choirs and leading music for the church’s youth programme. He said, “My dad’s goal was to make us famous musicians for the church. We were kind of big at one point”. Jacob enjoyed his guitars and performing them for an audience. God didn’t keep him in church, but his love of music and performance did.

History of Orthodox Church (sic)

When St Thomas, one of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles arrived on the coast of Kerala state in 52 AD, he left behind more than the gospel of Jesus. He introduced Christianity to the region, where to this day, Orthodox and Catholic believers in Kerala are quick to inform foreigners their church traditions are rooted in more than 2,000 years of antiquity. By the sixth century, Christianity was firmly planted in the state. The St Thomas Christians, who still practise the faith in Aramaic, the tongue of Jesus’ time, existed peacefully among the Hindus for more than 1,000 years until the Portuguese arrived on a second expedition in the 16th century. Upon their arrival, they forcibly converted many to Roman Catholicism and forced Indian Orthodox believers to acknowledge the Pope above others. Protestantism didn’t arrive until the 19th century, brought by British and American missionaries. It’s still not quite as popular as Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

In subsequent years, many of the Orthodox churches went through periods of branching off and beginning new churches in Kerala, each of them recognise St Thomas as the bringer of Christianity. His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Paulose Paul, the supreme head of the Malankara Orthodox Church, a breakaway from Jacob’s Mar Thoma Church {this is laughable… the Malankara Church IS the Mar Thoma Church… what a maroon! It shows the ignorance of American Evangelicals: editor}, acknowledged the divisions inside Orthodoxy, but said he doesn’t feel they weaken Indian orthodoxy or Christianity in general, saying, “When colonisation occurred, some divisions happened. Roman Catholics came, and other denominations came. With the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500s, slowly our freedoms were lost”. He said the other churches, both Orthodox and Catholic, may be separated by name, but they’re together in worshipping the same God, noting, “We keep a traditional faith as it is. We are in communion with other churches. We are one group… same church, same faith”.

However, Jacob said the Mar Thoma church takes its role in preserving the history too seriously. Because members claim their lineage to Syria, and history to St Thomas, no one is admitted as a member of the church unless they’re part of the pure bloodline of Syrian descent. Jacob said, “They’re very prideful of it. Because they claim that’s first church. That’s what they believe”. Members marry only other members of the church, even if it means marrying first and second cousins to preserve the bloodline. Jacob said, “That doesn’t happen as much anymore unless you’re in the smaller villages where the communities are smaller”, mentioning his arranged marriage to wife, Elsie, the day after their engagement. “But, yes, sometimes”. Jacob knew his entire life his marriage would be arranged to a girl of the Syrian Mar Thoma church. Elsie, an educated Orthodox woman from Kottayam, a city about four hours from where he lived in Trivandrum {it hasn’t been called that for 20 years now… it’s Thiruvananthapuram… another case of Evangelical stupidity: editor}, was the perfect match for Jacob. They had nothing in common, except they were single and Orthodox, the only necessary qualifiers. “When we started our life, I wasn’t a Christian. I hated Christians, and always thought they were phonies”.

Born Again in the USA

Sitting in the chair at the back of the crusade, Jacob listened to an American preacher share the gospel with a room of Christian Protestants. He wasn’t thinking about God, but an audible voice crept into his mind and told him to go speak to a man at the front of the room. Jacob said, turning to his cousin, “Jimmy, someone just told me to go speak to that man”. “That was the voice of God”, Jimmy replied, urging him to walk to the front of the tent. Jacob finally went up to the man and explained they were supposed to meet. “You’re not saved, are you?” the man asked. “No”, he replied. “You’re leading all this music at this big event, and you’re not saved?” “I’m not ready to get saved”, Jacob said, flatly. “Why not?” Jacob replied, “I have yet to see a Christian who’s real”. “So you evaluate God based on every Tom, Dick and Harry?”

That was the question that captured Jacob’s heart. That’s when he realised he’d spent his entire life judging everyone else’s relationship with God and realising their imperfections rather than where God had stretched them. He said, “What he said, it hit home for me. I realised I was running away from God. That was the day I got saved. I quit drinking and smoking, and I lost half my vocabulary because I stopped using all curse words”. Jacob got serious about going to church. He was water baptised {“water baptised”… what a maroon! It proves that this article was written by a sectarian fanatic with no real knowledge of actual Christianity: editor} a few weeks later and then spiritually baptised, in which he accepted the gift of speaking in tongues {there’s no such sacrament… it’s a fable of the Pentecostalists: editor}.

Six months later, Elsie was saved. Jacob said, “She came up out of the (baptismal) water speaking in tongues”. Lamenting the years they spent in an unhappy marriage, Jacob said his beloved wife most certainly would have left him if he hadn’t been saved that day. Jacob was ordained in 1989 and felt God leading him to the USA to learn more about church life. He sold his guitars and most of his valuables to pay for his trip to New York. He also gave up a lucrative sales job in India where he was earning a top salary and the respect of his family to follow God’s path in a foreign land. His journey to the states wasn’t easy, but he said God was always near, making sure he was provided for. He left Elsie and their two sons behind for about a year, so he could establish himself in South Carolina and set up a home and job for his family. From New York, he travelled to Virginia, then to Pennsylvania. From there, he travelled to South Carolina, where he and Elsie lived for 22 years with their two sons.

Jacob said they helped launch a church in South Carolina, where Jacob preached and grew a music ministry greater than any he ever envisioned in India. Their sons never felt the burden of church, Jacob said, “Our kids learned the easy way. They didn’t struggle with faith the way we did”. Elsie said, “We had to unlearn a lot of things that were taught by the church. Our kids didn’t have that”. Jacob said that the traditions of Orthodoxy he learned growing up prevented him from knowing the true gospel of Jesus and that he can have a relationship with him. He realised he didn’t have to wear his hair a certain length or dress in a certain type of suit to be a Christian. He said, “These are cultural things. They’re religious spirits, the same as what the Pharisees did. I couldn’t believe at first that a pastor could come preach in jeans. I thought he had no reverence for God. But I learned that God doesn’t care about that. And eventually those things were broken off for us”.

Three years ago, the couple moved to Victoria. Their sons are grown, dating American girlfriends, and Jacob went back to an engineering profession at DuPont. Every morning he reads his Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, a version named after an American Pentecostal minister. For many years, family back home in Kerala, especially Jacob’s father, weren’t accepting of the couple’s conversion to Pentecostalism. However, as the Jacobs continued to follow God and preach the gospel to their Indian friends and family, members of their family started leaving the Orthodoxy, too. Jacob said, “Her two sisters were saved. My mother was saved. And my father was saved about a year before he died. He told me, ‘I’m going to do what you did, and become a Pentecostal’. He thought he was serving God his entire life, but he wasn’t. He realised there was something more”.

The Jacobs said their sons, who are both studying to become doctors, are considering mission work in India in the next few years. The Jacobs also are considering a return to Kerala to start a church and help others find God the way they did. Jacob said, “There are so many in India who have never heard about Jesus. Our part is to preach, and the Father brings them to Christ. So, I’d love to go back. It’s something I dream of”.

3 May 2013

Jennifer Preyss

Victoria (TX) Advocate

http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2013/may/03/jp_india_christianity_050413_208404/

Editor’s Afterword:

Let’s be frank. The Evangelicals (and all radical sectarians, by the way) hold us in contempt. They believe that their late-blooming American-grown heresy is the Truth of the Ages, hence, they believe that we aren’t Christians at base (they also believe the same of Catholics, by the way). They hate history, they hate art… they hate anything that isn’t “religious”. That is, they hate the secular… even though God created that too (which is not to mention their addiction to vitiating intellectual flapdoodle such as Young Earth Creationism)! They proselytise aggressively amongst our people… and they’ve taken over the US Republican Party. This is why decent right-believing Christians can have nothing to do with the Republican Party or the Pro-Life movement… both have sold out to the sworn enemies of Christ and His Church.

You can believe in Christ or you can believe in Jayzuss… it’s up to you.

BMD