[Oe List ...] Fox on Benedict XVI

[LAURELCG at aol.com]

Forwarded by Jann McGuire.  This came from Wisdom University info office.


Friends,



Matthew will be on NPR's Morning Show on Monday morning, April 25th. 

Check your local listings for the time in your area.



22 Questions for Cardinal Ratzinger and the Silver Lining in the 

Election of this first Grand Inquisitor as Pope

 

By Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox

 

Last night I was all hooked up to be on "Hardball with Chris 

Matthews" to be interviewed about the new pope.  I was listening as 

he prattled on with some Catholic lawyer about altar boys and latin 

in church when they suddenly cut the line and said they did not have 

time for me (I had been promised "at least 30 minutes" and there were 

60 minutes left on the show).  

 

I said: "This is a political act."  The tv man hooking me up said it 

was the "first time in 8 years of working in television" that he had 

seen anything like that happen.  

 

I think Chris' Matthews' program should be renamed "Softball."  When 

it comes to religion the American media is soft, soft, soft.


Thus I have taken it upon myself to feed journalists with some real 

questions about this man and his record and his intentions.  Twenty 

two questions follow:

 

1. You come from Bavaria, that part of Germany that most admired 

Hitler and first voted for him.  Did you ever denounce Hitler or 

fascism? If so, when?  If not, why not?

 

2. If you denounced Hitler why do you support today the Spanish 

priest Escriva who admired Hitler publicly?  And why did you rush 

Escriva, founder of the opus dei movement, into canonization thus 

leaving the impression that fascism is a path to holiness?

 

3. If you denounced Hitler then why do you carry on in his ways such 

as 1) bookburning and denouncing of thinkers and theologians?  2) 

whipping up hostility toward homosexuals as he did?  3) excluding 

women of all decision-making and leadership?  4) create scapegoats 

including people of religions other than Catholic, theologians, women 

and gay people?

 

4. Do you want to put gays in concentration camps like Hitler did?  

(In the second of two documents you wrote and the past pope signed 

denouncing homosexuals you did not cite even ONE scientific study of 

homosexuality but cited your catchechism five times.  Is this anti-

intellectual attitude not another Galileo case in the making?)

 

5. Do you know the difference between ideology and theology? Why have 

you destroyed the latter by condemning theologians while you create 

ideological churchmen by your loyalty oaths?  Is this not the 

explanation for the scandalous pedophile crisis in the church--that 

you have so dumbned down the hierarchy since the only criterion for 

their "elevations" is loyalty, that they had neither the intelligence 

nor the integrity to stop pedophile priests?  Why was Cardinal Law, 

the poster boy for hierarchal pedophile support, "elevated" to a plum 

parish assignment in Rome? 

 

6. According to a serious study done on the death of Pope John Paul 

I, cardinals were part of the plot that killed him.  Do you know 

which cardinals were involved in his murder and have they ever been 

brought to justice?

 

7. How much was the CIA involved in the rushed election of John Paul 

II?  (A CIA agent told me he had been "their man in Poland" for many 

years.)

 

8. You once said you wanted a "smaller church."  Might you tell us 

why?  Does it have anything to do with absolute control?

 

9. Do you agree with Lord Acton that "power corrupts and absolute 

power corrupts absolutely?"  What are you--the champion of papal 

infallibility (as in "the fuhrer is always right")--doing to prevent 

that from happening in your organization?

 

10. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of 

forbidding condoms in a time of AIDS has contributed to the death of 

millions in the African continent and beyond?

 

11. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of no birth 

control is contributing to the destruction of 25,000 other species 

annually as well as to the degradation of life among human beings?

 

12. Did Jesus ever say anything at all about condoms or birth control 

or homosexuality or the ordination of women?  (In fact, today's 

scholarship shows how many women were in position of leadership in 

the early church.)  Then why are you so sure of your absolutist 

position?

 

13. You complain about "the dictatorship of relativism."  Isn't there 

also--and more easily--a dictatorship of absolutism?  Isn't that what 

you have been involved in for twenty-five years by aggregating ALL 

decision making, all theological teaching, all bishop-making back to 

Rome in spite of Vatican II's explicit teaching to spread it to 

bishop's conferences and to lay gatherings in parishes?

 

14. Why do issues of social and economic injustice play so little a 

role in your definition of morality which seems to be 98% about sex?  

(Hint: Saint Augustine!)

 

15. Are you aware that your destruction (with the help of the CIA) of 

liberation theology and base communities in Latin America has 

stripped Catholicism so bare that Pentecostals are taking over the 

continent?

 

16. Why did you canonize the Escriva who favored Franco and fascism 

and not canonize the holy martyr Oscar Romero who favored the poor 

against the military in El Salvador?

 

17. Jesus was on the side of the anawim (those without a voice).  

When have you or your dictates ever been on the side of the anawim?

 

18. Are you a Christian?  (A canon lawyer who spent years in Rome 

told me that to understand you I had to first realize that you are 

not a Christian.)  Can you prove it to us please.  

 

19. Are you the first Grand Inquisitor to be elected pope?  What does 

that tell us about the state of the Roman Catholic Church at this 

time in history?  How does that feel to be treading such fresh ground?

 

20. A Native American woman who is also a Roman Catholic went to Rome 

a few years ago for the beatification of Blessed Tekekwitha.  It was 

her first visit to the Vatican and she was looking forward to it.  

However, she came back shaking her head saying, "there are evil 

spirits in that place."  Was she correct?  Have evil spirits taken 

over the Vatican at this time in history?

 

21. Why do you denounce Buddhists as "atheists" 

and "autoerotocists?"  Why do you condemn Hindus?  Protestant 

churches?  Pagans?  Goddess worshippers?  Native American believers?  

Feminists?  The practice of  Yoga?  (You write that it gets you "too 

much in touch with your body").  Is your church--mother of 

Inquisitions and Crusades and anti-Semitism--without sin and the 

holder of all spiritual wisdom?  Why did your church never 

excommunicate Hitler?

 

22. Why do you forbid Catholics to talk about God as Mother?  God as 

Child?  Original Blessing instead of Original Sin (which is not in 

the Bible)?  God as female as well as male?

 

 

Now the good news.  The silver lining in the election of this, the 

first Grand Inquisitor as Pope, is this:  Now people of conscience 

the world over have a clear choice between Religion and Spirituality; 

Fundamentalism and Wisdom; A Punitive Father God and the Mother-

Father Creator of Justice and Compassion; Fascism and Control vs. 

Letting the Spirit Work; between a preferential option for the rich 

and powerful (cf. Opus Dei) and a preferential option for the poor 

(as in liberation theology).

 

Now all people--and Catholics in particular--are called to find their 

consciences and take a stand about the Punitive Father God of 

Fundamentalism and the Divine Wisdom of Justice and Compassion and 

against idolatry including religious idolatry and papalolatry and the 

television cult of personality, and between lies and truth.

 

This is already happening.  I received an e mail this morning from a 

life-long Catholic who says she is now leaving the Ratzinger Church.  

Ratzinger and his German entourage have been running the Vatican for 

the last twenty-five years while Pope John Paul II traveled about the 

world.  From that point of view, nothing has changed.  Only that 

their head man is now the man out front.  ALL bishops and cardinals 

have been appointed through Ratzinger already.  This is how he got so 

many votes so swiftly in the conclave.  It is his church.  It is a 

schismatic church.  They are out of touch with the spirit and letter 

of Vatican II as well as the person and teachings of Jesus. 

 

A New Reformation can happen swiftly.  It is already underway.  The 

Internet can help feed it.  The myths that have kept the Roman 

Catholic Church afloat for 1800 years have been washed away.  (The 

historical Jesus never said: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I 

will build my church."  That came later.)  Maybe the new version of 

Christianity need not be Peter based (Roman Catholicism) or Paul 

based (the Protestant option) but Mary Magdalene based.  Any takers?