28 June 2010 “just say no” to the Pope just hear no on the Gulf Coast
Pope Lashes Out at Belgium After Raid on Church
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/world/europe/28vatican.html?th&emc=th
Seeking God’s Help for a Wounded Gulf
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/us/28land.html?ref=us
Europe is making strides toward the further removal of religious over-lordship. A deliberate incursion by civil authorities into the previously sacrosanct properties of the Roman Catholic Church is a wonderful event. This event followed still more allegations of sexual abuse committed by priests and Church Hierarchy. Claiming that the autonomy of the Church was violated, the Pope claimed that the investigation should have been carried out simultaneously by cannon and civil authorities. Belgian authorities apparently felt that this would have allowed obstruction of justice and would have increased the potential for Papal cover-up. The Vatican is angry, has rebuked Belgium’s action. Belgium is displaying a lack of concern for the power of the Church, demonstrating a national awareness that the Church should have no role in government or in national policy. This is good.
Meanwhile, closer to the Dark Ages, the five Gulf Coast states have essentially crawled back to the days of divine rights of royalty and the belief that government should include religion. Five governors declared 27 June to be official “prayer days,” in order to beg for divine intercession in stopping the BP oil spill. Today the oil is still pouring from the seabed, volume and velocity unchecked. The seas were not magically parted. No giant boulder fell from the skies to block the wellhead. No chorus of angels sang.
It should be painfully obvious to all but the least well educated that there will be no divine intervention. It matters not, in their minds, that we’ve ignored the 1st Amendment in five states in order to beg for magic events. If 50% of the prayers of attendees and players in high school football games are ignored, can the same demographic honestly not see that Bonne Secour is simply a fallacy?
We need to follow Belgium, and the rest of Western Europe in removing religion from political matters. The hold that Christianity has on U.S. internal policy is horrifying. Its fundamentalist believers want to force religion into every aspect of life in this nation.
Despite their every effort to make this into a theocratic nation, some shreds of the 1st Amendment remain intact and will hopefully do so for a few more years. There is no Christian sect that can be trusted to not intrude in national policy.
We need to learn from Belgium, or at least our fundamentalists do. If the volume of prayers pouring out of the Vatican didn’t stop a police raid, it’s unlikely that there will, likewise, be no response to the Gulf Coast supplicants. Technology is the only applicable answer and, as of today, it has little to offer. All those people pictured on bent knees in those Gulf Coast churches would be far more effective if they went out to help clean the beaches and de-oil some wildlife.
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We'll have to agree to disagree here Stev. I don't see Obama interjecting any theology into his administration. If you go outside the western world, every country where Islam is the major religion has at least some level of religious involvement in the government.
ReplyDeleteIf the prayers are non-denominational, who cares if a governor asks for people to pray? This is not an order (like many of the above Muslim countries do) to do so.
As far as the Catholic Church thing goes, it would have been proper for the police to arrive and then wait for local church officials to arrive before doing their search. Digging into graves for paperwork is pretty sad.