Opus Dei prelates long for a smaller,"purer" Catholic Church.

[chieftain]

MTP showcased the thinking of those who influence Benedict XVI.For those of us who still love our religion but are wary of the Church,
it was a sad portent of what is likely to result from the combined papacies of Paul VI, John Paul II and the current pope. Just as the Bushies are trying to turn government back to pre New Deal days, it is clear that some of the medieval minds that are ascendant in the Church today want to eradicate Vatican II.
We are in an era when intolerance is celebrated, compassion is ridiculed and a return to dark ages thinking about sex and gender seems inevitable.
If these good Catholics want their own Church where human sentiment is excluded and rigidity is the prime virtue, so be it. Maybe a liberal catholic church will emerge which celebrates humanity rather than fears it.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. I prefer

to follow the teachings of Jesus. I left the church and organized religion a long time ago.

[Mari333]

2. The bottom line will be money

church is a business, and when the business no longer attracts the customers, the customers leave. They want to go broke with their misogynist, homophobic rhetoric, let them. This former catholic no longer will add to their coffers.

[Arugula Latte]

13. Right on, Mari333 and Doyoueverwonder

I love hearing these stories from people who were brave enough to look at their church and see the leadership for what it is, and then say: "I want no part of this." I'm sure it's not easy, but it's the right thing to do. Good for you!

[Donailin]

14. filling the collection basket

Guilt fills the collection basket faster than mercy. The reason being that a person cannot impart from his heart what is not there. If you are merciful, you will make others merciful (giving one's resources out of pure compassion), and if you are guilty, you will make others guilty too ( giving one's resources out of obligation and self indulgence). It is easier to speak out against sin then to act in mercy, mercy requires forgiving and forgiveness requires the self-realization that we are all sinners. Not too many clergy preach about their own sinfulness.

[Djinn]

3. if all the "non pure" Catholics left

and I mean all of those who defy the supposed word of God in private as well as in public, there'd be maybe 4 people left to run the Vatican.

All the talk about "purity" should make people nervous, when is the Vatican going to start listing people as untermenschen.

[Warpy]

4. Let 'em have one

because it would also mean "poorer, less influential." After they purge some 60% of Catholics who use birth control and approve of keeping abortion safe and legal (whether or not they'd ever choose one), they'll be left with a small group of nutcases who will be unable to attack the Democratic Party quite so successfully. Oh, they'll be noisy, but they'll also have a lot of enemies among that 60% of ex communicants.

The far right always destroys itself with purges, like the left always destroys itself with factionalization.

[sundancekid]

10. a big "amen" to your point, imho too

I thought the "extremism" of the opus dei types on MTP and the deeply thoughtful "dissent" of the others spoke volumes for me as to what the church envisioned by Jesus would look like ... and it AIN'T the opus dei one.

[blm]

5. Split into 2 - Opus Dei Catholics and Christ's teachings Catholics.

The Opus Dei Catholics are a bunch of rich, white Republicans who use the church as their reason for needing a good whipping. If they were honest they'd just pay a dominatrix and call it what it really is, sado=masochism or alternative sexual foreplay.

I wonder if Bill Bennettt wrote off the money he paid his dominatrix for so many years as an Opus Dei style church donation?

I prefer the Christ teachings Catholics like Dennis Kucinich, whose efforts offer relief to the poor, sick and working class.

I detest the Opus Dei Catholics whose efforts enable the greediest fascists to escape all responsibility to their fellow man.

[TomClash]

16. And you forgot one thing

They're fucking nuts. Have a look: http://www.odan.org/

[Selteri]

19. Isn't Mel Gibson an Opus Dei S&M fanatic? N/T

[murdoch]

6. The Opus Dei isn't even the scariest bunch

The really scary ones are Traditional, Family and Property. They are big in South America and are connected to the (still active) death squads down there. They're in the US too - here they talk about Fatima a lot (the Virgin Mary appears in Portugal and warns the world about communism).

[blm]

7. My mother was TFP since the early 70s. They claimed John Paul was a

communist. The right wing factions of ALL religions were originally funded by RevMoon and his political allies in the BFEE. TFP is one of them. Traditional Values Coalition is another - Tim LaHaye received big funding from RevMoon.

It is ALL political manipulation more than theology. That is how they manipulate the working class to vote against the best interests of their own and vote FOR the fascist doctrine of the corporatists. They use abortion and gays as their bait.

[Southsideirish]

11. Is this the bunch that Mel Gibson's father is big in? Some of my loony

relatives are in that crowd.

[blm]

15. Yes. David Brock's father, too. These people built their own churches

that were never approved by the Vatican, and are not part of it. They have been brainwashed into thinking the Vatican was run by communists. They may think now that one of their stealth members made into the papacy to bring it back to the real catholics, meaning them.

My mother used to do charity work when I was a child. The more angry she became at the catholic church, the more she started reading the far right rantings in pamphlets that were actually from front groups for white supremacists. I traced one back to David Dukes, called The Truth At Last.

Every one of the people in this church are Bush supporters. My mother died before I found the connection of the TFP to RevMoon. I want to believe that she would have been horrified at the realization that her religious affiliation was funded and organized by Moon and his allies at the time (one of who was Klaus Barbi) and formed for the political dominance of fascism and the unifications of all religions under Moon's leadership. Undermining the pope in the 70s and 80s was a big part of it.

[blm]

21. When she became a TFP catholic she stopped her normal charity work and

quickly turned into a vicious political creature that could make Pat Buchanan seem like a centrist. All based on the information from the TFP and rightwing pamphlets.

[K-W]

9. What strange places christianity has been taken.

If Jesus was a gift from God, man has long since refused the gift.

[alcuno]

8. I'm German Catholic. Now who was is that preached "purity of the race?"

Oh yeah, I remember.

[cap]

18. you should read the article in the current Foreign Affairs

code talk for liberals by a retired German professor at Columbia.

He starts out with a plea for reconciliation between America and its transatlantic partners and then talks about the rise of Nazism. Nazism allied itself with conservative Christianity to propell its rise to power.

He talks about the need for a respect for human rights, the dangers of religiosity, and the need for the bill of rights. He ends with "True conservatives understand the importance of this".

[biscotti]

12. Every time I see the movie

"Eyes Wide Shut" I think of Opus Dei. Like others have said, rich white, hypocritical pricks that care nothing for the common man.
It is a very "connected" dark cult which is all about power.

[cap]

17. the church will go bankrupt if they try for purity...

The Pope can clamour all he wants for religious purity... but if he drives out liberal/progressive Catholics, he will be short of money.

The Vatican is running in the red and a fair number of diocese are going bankrupt due to sex abuse scandals.

Africa and Latin America are supported by the Catholic Church not the other way around. If you are going to evangelize, who's your target audience in the US? Are you going to compete with the evangelicals or the Episcopelians? Fat chance at getting any kind of growth from these populations.

Faith based programs in the US wont make up for the loss of donations.

Maybe the economics will halt the slide into the abyss.

[chieftain]

20. The impact of the cover up of the child molestation scandal

may well contribute to the financial bankruptcy of the institution in addition to illuminating the moral bankruptcy of its leadership.I don't think that money is the driver for most of the actions taken by the hierarchy but this pope may well cause an economic crisis that cannot be ignored. It puzzles me to think that the conservative message that these old men are promulgating will have any appeal in either the advanced countries or the emerging nations.