Praying for the Pope...um, just why, exactly?

Lash said

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Begrudging the Pope prayers of love, appreciation and Solidarity.... startling.

You startle easily. Even startling at the absence of a thing. As I said, I have a lot of respect and affinity for this fellow. Who among us can say we've done one one hundreth as much as selflessly as this pope? One can point here and there (like to Poland or to "Hey, listen up...materialism is a trick") and say "well done" and mean it. At the same time, there are things about the fellow I really did not find agreeable (condoms, institutional self-preservation over justice). Differences of opinion - pretty common in human affairs.

Some of you seem to have taken my thread as some sort of insult to the prayerful, general and in the pope-specific. There may be some truth to this assumption. I confess I was zeroing in on the "for" in "pray for the Pope" because the concept clearly suggested by that preposition is 'in aid of' or for the 'proper destination to' - there's a clear sense of aim and intention even if we are speaking of 'communion' as george and others have (and which I understand). But then one gets to considering what aim one might have as regards the pope and god. I take it that everyone wishes him the best, as did I. But what is 'best' here? A quick painless exit? Check. A tip of the hat and a silent 'thankyou' (even if mixed with a 'no thankyou', in my case)? You bet. Perhaps the wish that whoever follows you will do more of the same (and less of the same). Yeah. And I would understand if it were simply a mutual recognition (a communion) of the tragic aspect of mortal existence...that all we love most will be taken away from us because we all die...and like Lear and god and jesus and the janitor's mother and everyone who has ever breathed self aware loving existence...that we don't want to leave or be left. It is the big ugly, for mortals. There is a reason that the English, for centuries, felt that the Shakespeare-composed end of Lear was imply too bleak for anyone to see or think about and so, for centuries, it was performed only with a happy ending. Of course, we don't know whether this is really the Big Sleep. Maybe it is just the Transitional Nap. Tough question. Guesswork all the way. Where my guessing leads me, personally, is somwhere which only a fool would label Atheism. But sometimes I am a fool, and I think that is what it really is. And when I'm not a fool, or a different sort of better fool, I think that whatever the hell is going on, I do exist and that doesn't seem to be my doing.

But back to the questions about purpose for praying for the pope. Perhaps one might pray that his church continue to be a force for good in the world. And I can check that one too. But that's not all it can be, or has been.

The church - the Christian church in its branching manifestations - can speak of mercy and forgiveness and turning the second cheek and the tragedy. And hope for a better day and for liberty (though liberty would have meant something very different to a Bethlehemite 2000 years ago). It can speak for tolerance and inclusion. It can give women equal status to participate in community decision-making (as the early church did, for a while). It can re-allocate wealth from those who can give to those who need. It can inspire (Sistine chapel ceiling).

Yet it can also say that the black man is designed by god to serve the white man. And it can say that witches are real and ought to be tortured and killed. And it can say that it's god is a better god than the other guys' god. And even that it has the exact measure of god's wishes but the church down the street has it so wrong as to be sinfull. It can say this all with confidence. It can exclude, it can maim and murder, it can lust for power and for the judge's chair - it can be the opposite of 'christian charity' and 'humility' and apparently not notice or not care.

So we need to be hard-headed about church stuff. The bad stuff can creep up on cat's paws. It has happened very often before and why - please remind me - do WE deserve special dispensation in the present?

How's this for a phenomenon of present bad stuff?

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"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist."

Pat Roberson, The 700 Club.

Or this?

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"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Pat Robertson, The Washington Post

And this?

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"Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

Randall Terry (of recent Shiavo activism) in the Indiana News Sentinel.

And that's why we ought not to give religious ideas or religious authority (or political authority if that wasn't clear) statements the stamp of "Approved by Heaven, Quality Control Division".

Where religious ideas, floating about in our community of ideas, sound like very bad ones, then they will get targeted. At least for a while longer.

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Walter Cronkite puts the matter (not the matter of prayer, but the matter of being hard-headed about radical religious power in our midst) as follows...

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"When I anchored the evening news, I kept my opinions to myself. But now, more than ever, I feel I must speak out.

That's because I am deeply disturbed by the dangerous and growing influence of people like Pat Robertson and Jerry falwell on our nation's political leaders.

Especially after Robertson and Falwell both shamefully glamed America's courts and the highest levels of our government for the horrific September 11 attacks on our nation. They said it happened because we "insulted God". Gallwell went on to blame feminists, pro-choice Americans and other groups he despises.

Like you, I understand that freedom of speech is a founding principle of our nation, and I respect people with the courage to speak their minds.

As a concerned person of faith, however, I have watched with increasing alarm as the Christian Coalition and other Religious Right groups manipulate religion to futher their intolerant, political agendas.

Over the years, Robertson and Falwell have gained considerable influence on school boards, in the administration, and in Congress. They have shrewdly twisted the traditional healing role of religion into an intolerant political platform.

Using religion as a tool to push their personal political beliefs - especially, in a time of national tragedy - not only insults people of faith and good will, it also diminishes the positive healing role religion can and should play in public life.

That is why I am speaking out today, and why I urge you to speak out too."

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And, there is this...

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AP Poll: New Pope Should Push for Change
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most Americans -- Catholics and non-Catholics alike -- want the next pope to allow priests to marry and women to join the priesthood, a major break from church rules and the judgment of Pope John Paul II, according to an Associated Press poll.

The charismatic pontiff was held in high regard by a majority of Americans and most Catholics, with many suggesting that John Paul will be remembered as one of the greatest popes. For many, the man who led the church for 26 years is the only pope they know.

But affection for John Paul has hardly eliminated the cultural divisions between the United States and the Vatican over the ordination of women, celibacy for priests and the role of lay people in the church.

``He was admired by people who disagreed so consistently on his views,'' John C. Green, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio, said of the pontiff who died Saturday at 84.

The sex abuse scandal that has rocked the church has left many Catholics and other Americans convinced that the next pope must do more about predatory clergy. Eighty-six percent of Americans and 82 percent of the Catholics surveyed said greater steps were imperative.

Perhaps partly as an outgrowth of the abuse by priests, some also are calling for a larger church role for lay people, a notion that Rome has rejected. In the AP-Ipsos survey, 62 percent of Americans and 63 percent of American Catholics favor a greater say for lay people.

``The heart of the crisis has passed,'' said Martin E. Marty, a religion historian and professor emeritus of American religious history at the University of Chicago. Marty suggested that the bishops and the church still need to win back the confidence of Americans, and ``the bishops and the church have to grasp this soon enough.''

Changing views about the role of women and the predominance of married clergy in other faiths may help shape the opinions of Americans and American Catholics toward the Vatican's rules on ordination and priest's celibacy.

Catholics in the United States number 65 million -- out of about 1 billion worldwide -- and Jim Guth, a professor of political science at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., said American culture has had a significant influence on church members here.

``Catholics have considerable differences with Rome,'' Guth noted.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans and 60 percent of U.S. Catholics said the next pope should change church policies to allow priests to marry, while 25 percent of all Americans and 36 percent of Catholics said they preferred no change.

Most Americans, 64 percent, said women should be allowed to become priests, and 60 percent of the surveyed American Catholics agreed in the poll. Thirty-two percent of Americans in general disagreed, 38 percent of Catholics.

``Celibacy of priests is an issue that should be gone, priests should be able to marry,'' said Joseph Riess, a self-employed businessman and Catholic from Vienna, Va. Riess said he had mixed emotions about women priests.

Although such revolutionary changes seem unlikely soon for the tradition-bound church, some within the clergy say they may be inevitable, especially with the Vatican hard-pressed to enlist new priests.

``There are very few things that are absolutely unchangeable,'' said the Rev. Lawrence J. Madden, a Jesuit priest and director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy in Washington.

Madden pointed out that more than 2,000 parishes out of nearly 20,000 do not have priests to offer Sunday Mass, a prospect that worries Catholics who consider receiving the sacrament of communion a critical element of their lives.

``The danger is we become a Eucharist-less church. I cannot see justifying that,'' Madden said. ``People have their head in the sand.''

In the survey, 37 percent of Americans and 41 percent of U.S. Catholics said the next pope should come from Europe while 36 percent of Americans and 43 percent of Catholics said the cardinals should choose a pontiff from Africa or Latin America, the fastest growing areas for Catholics.

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was taken Friday to Sunday and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The Catholic Church could now do the wrong thing...rather than address what they got so badly wrong and set to work making ammends in a humble and contrite manner, they could avoid that by turning to a convenient power bloc with the growing Religious Right movement (in the US and worldwide). They have been courted already, and will be particularly now at this potential change point.

In America particularly, the Religious Right (by which we mean that to which Cronkite refers above) is intimately associated with the modern Republican Party and this administration. That the Republicans have been actively working to pull Catholics (traditionally democrat voters) into alliances theological and policy-wise so as to diminish another traditional powerbase of the democrats, therebye solidifying power futher is not merely an observation, but an explicitly stated objective. Some bishops have eagerly jumped into this uncertain bargain. Others decry it. As do the religious communities represented by the Inter-Faith Alliance.

The church could, in other words (let's use the words of the Spencer Tracy character Henry Drummond "Drag the world backwards" by moving towards an insular and reactive urge to control, rather than serve. The temptation will be there. Some will try to tempt it in that direction and America's new radical Religious Right will be one of the leading voices.

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But we are not speaking of Pat Robertson here Blatham. Instead the context relateds to someone quite different, who has advocated very different things, and who has, to a remarkable degree, lived in accordance with them..

Just as you ASSUMED that prayers were motivated by the desire FOR something in exchange (which in some hearts they undoubtedly were), you ASSUME that all who revere God or who practice Christianity conform to your personal preconception of rabid right wing whatevers. While that may be a comforting assumption to you, and one that enables you to cling to your prejudices with less doubt than otherwise, it is simply not true. You cannot expect such expressions to be taken seriously by serious, thinking people, who have a different concept of spiritual matters than yours, with the overtones of that self-serving ASSUMPTION everywhere in the air.

Finally you should review some of the important details of history, in particular those relating to the old saws about whitches and slaves that you raised. The historical record is quite different from what you imply.

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There are few things in this world that are considered significant...that are more useless than prayer.

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Quote:

you ASSUME that all who revere God or who practice Christianity conform to your personal preconception of rabid right wing whatevers.

You silly boy. The truth is quite greatly otherwise. But you read poorly sometimes and ought to have you knuckles rapped when you do.

I yearn, I plead for DIFFERENTIATION and the absence of absolutes.

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If that is so this is the first affirmation of it I have yet seen.

Certainly your often sweeping characterizations have generally left little or no room for alternatives. However we are always ready to accept repentance.

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Religion (all kinds) and an educated laity, are guaranteed to clash. The Catholic Church has never been, nor probably ever will be , a Democracy. If you want a word in the organization join up with Josemaria Escrivas "Goons for God". Ask any Jesuit or Dominican.

Dont have a cow blatham, the Catholic Church aint looking at Canada or the US as the big growth market.
Even as the new waves of immigrants are cast ashore, they learn that education, not religion is a more marketable commodity.

Its theater one whose playbill I used to subscribe,but after Iwas close by the massacres in Africa and saw a Church blessing both sides, I thought that Id do better by getting my subscription dollars to some outfit that actualy gave a **** about individuals conditions..

I see that the North American RC church will sooner or later split away, or (I wonder why it hasnt begun) begin a dialogue with the Orthodox Catholics (who, like the RC's of old, allow a married clergy)

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Religion (all kinds) and an educated laity, are guaranteed to clash. The Catholic Church has never been, nor probably ever will be , a Democracy. If you want a word in the organization join up with Josemaria Escrivas "Goons for God". Ask any Jesuit or Dominican.

Dont have a cow blatham, the Catholic Church aint looking at Canada or the US as the big growth market.
Even as the new waves of immigrants are cast ashore, they learn that education, not religion is a more marketable commodity.

Its theater one whose playbill I used to subscribe,but after Iwas close by the massacres in Africa and saw a Church blessing both sides, I thought that Id do better by getting my subscription dollars to some outfit that actualy gave a **** about individuals conditions..

I see that t)he North American RC church will sooner or later split away, or (I wonder why it hasnt begun) begin a dialogue with the Orthodox Catholics (who, like the RC's of old, allow a married clergy). ANyway, the fight for the heart of the Catholic Church isnt even remotely about the American or Canadian Churches.

The fact that the Catholics have so much incommon with theEvangelicals is a convenient congruence of chance . The pro-life stance that John Paull II maintained , was , at least a full arc. He was anti abortion and death penalty. He werent no damn Texan. His lok at Liberation theology was , IMHO, a concern that feared Communim more than it celebrated individual freedom. (I think a new pope can help that, but Ill bet hes gonna have to be Hispanic)

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I reserve the right to have cows. And as they are my cows and not the neighbor's cows, I claim also the secondary right to outfit them in either polka dot flannel or glowing spandex with corporate advertising in relief, as whimsy might dictate.

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And tonight, Bill O'Reilly said on his fox tv show that...

the vatican is "against America" and that the it "ought to get behind America".

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looking in....

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Looking up.

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Blatham, you are right with everything you say about the church and all that. Thing is that people simply want to socialize in their spirituality and join these clubs called churches, although they don't agree on fundamentals. Sit at home and pray all by yourself directly to your own god without middlemen is OK, but awfully boring.

I'm convinced most religions are just a bunch of ridiculous superstitions, forged by funny people in funny countries ages ago. But people join in and more or less comply with some of the rules in their own way in order not to be left out. The fundamentals can be crap but are normally ignored anyway. Problems arise when hierarchies and zealots start bullying and pretend to represent all believers or even God herself.

People like to pray on the occasion of the pope's death, because they want to be part of this greatest show on earth and feel spiritual. That doesn't mean they really give a damn about what he said or act accordingly. They just fill things in in their own way.

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Well, Bill Oreilly, reaaallllyyy. Theres a role model.

Your choice of raiment for your cows should be tasteful yet bright , sir B. As anyone accoutered as you can obviously not be satisfied with a bovine, au naturelle.

Are we going to Rome for the interment?
We would blend in quite nicely with all the swooping cardinal capes.

inyen, dont forget the most important for declaring a vocation and becoming clergy in churches. It gives one the license to walk around public in extremely funny clothes.

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Annnnnnnnnnd they are red............

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inyen wrote:

Blatham, you are right with everything you say about the church and all that. Thing is that people simply want to socialize in their spirituality and join these clubs called churches, although they don't agree on fundamentals. Sit at home and pray all by yourself directly to your own god without middlemen is OK, but awfully boring.

I'm convinced most religions are just a bunch of ridiculous superstitions, forged by funny people in funny countries ages ago. But people join in and more or less comply with some of the rules in their own way in order not to be left out. The fundamentals can be crap but are normally ignored anyway. Problems arise when hierarchies and zealots start bullying and pretend to represent all believers or even God herself.

People like to pray on the occasion of the pope's death, because they want to be part of this greatest show on earth and feel spiritual. That doesn't mean they really give a damn about what he said or act accordingly. They just fill things in in their own way.

Interesting thoughts, inyen, except that I can't agree with you on this statement:

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Sit at home and pray all by yourself directly to your own god without middlemen is OK, but awfully boring.

My god is racquetball, and I never sit at home and worship alone. I like to play with others..........be a real human being, not just one of those chronically polite, reverent and humble kind.

Welcome to a2k.

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It's kinda interesting ya know, cuz Lutherans and Jews don't really go for middlemen between them and their God. They just stand up and do their thing wherever.

A good Lutheran needs no church - Martin Luther was right about that. You can talk to God anytime anywhere.

The studies on the beneficial effect of prayer are certainly of interest in the medical community. I've been doing a little more poking around since my first search - and there are more studies out there - promising stuff - funnily enough (?)the research can often be found with the studies on the pain relieving effects of virtual reality games.

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ehBeth wrote:

It's kinda interesting ya know, cuz Lutherans and Jews don't really go for middlemen between them and their God. They just stand up and do their thing wherever.

A good Lutheran needs no church - Martin Luther was right about that. You can talk to God anytime anywhere.

The studies on the beneficial effect of prayer are certainly of interest in the medical community. I've been doing a little more poking around since my first search - and there are more studies out there - promising stuff - funnily enough (?)the research can often be found with the studies on the pain relieving effects of virtual reality games.

Yes, I've seen some writing on this. It wasn't in a professional journal.........or at least it wasn't the direct source. But I think this is interesting.

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I posted some links earlier that came through medlineplus.org (the U.S. gov't site) - I'm not sure whether I'm surprised that there are measurable results or not. Mind/body connection and all - but now I'm going to have to consider a mind/body/spirit connection.

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Praying for the Pope...um, just why, exactly?

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