Benedict XVI Liar liar praise Galileo but shuts down Jesuit Vatican Observatory

As we pointed out the GISU Galileo Iceberg at Sapienza University in this our weblog from January to March 2008, Benedict XVI was forced to cancel his speech at the opening of the university’s school year in 2008. Now, he is trying to court the students and professors who rejected him because of what he said to Galileo when he was Cardinal Ratzinger.

Benedict XVI is LIAR number 1 because he also shut down the Jesuit’s Vatican Observatory last January on the eve of the 35th General Congregation of the Jesuits in Rome to warn them that it is the Opus Dei who rules the Vatican and their mere presence is not needed or tolerated.

Benedict XVI the Liar Pope also silenced the Jesuit Jon Sobrino who is the truthful missionary of the poorest of Christ , the new Galileo of the 21st century.


===========

Pope praises Galileo, celebrates the SolsticeTrack this topic Galileo magnifico?

The Pope tipped his hat to long-time Vatican bugbear Galileo this weekend as he helped kick off the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.

Pope Benedict also gave some comfort to pagans by acknowledging the connection between the date of Christmas and the Winter Solstice.

Pope Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, formally apologised for the Church's hounding of Galileo for pointing out that the Earth - and therefore man - was not at the centre of the Universe, never mind the solar system. But the relationship between Benedict and the sciences in general and astronomy in particular, has been somewhat pricklier.

So, it might have seemed perverse that the pope this weekend decided to highlight Unesco's International Year of Astronomy, which marks 400 years since Galileo first used the telescope. Still, the occasionally surprising Benedict - he wears Prada after all - rose to the occasion, paying tribute to Galileo and his ilk for promoting further understanding of the laws of nature.

Of course, in the Vatican's world, it doesn't stop there. Understanding the laws of nature therefore stimulates an appreciation of God's work. This would normally be the point at which we kick off an unholy row by asking whether the pope is then saying the laws of nature were laid down by God, and are not independent of him, whether he exists or not.

But instead, we're going to marvel at how Benedict, after veering into science, then seems to have swerved into Dan Brown territory. After pointing how Christmas uncannily coincides with the Winter solstice, he gave an account of how astronomy, and the solstice, underlie the very architecture of the Vatican.

According to AsiaNews.it, Benedict pointed out that "not everyone knows that St Peter's Square is also a meridian: the obelisk, in fact, casts its shadow along a line that runs along the pavement toward the fountain under this window, and in these days the shadow is at its longest of the year.

"This reminds us of the function of astronomy in marking out the rhythm of prayer. The Angelus, for example, is recited in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, and with the meridian, which was used in ancient times to identify 'true noon', clocks were adjusted."

Of course, this is what the Pope wants you to think. As any good conspiracy theorist knows, he is clearly trying to distract attention from the fact that the obelisk naturally points to the grave of Mary Magdalene, who is interred with the Templar's gold, the Ark of the Covenant and the outline for Dan Brown's next novel. ®

Benedict XVI the Liar's Vatican report on US seminaries & SNAP's response

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Vatican report on US seminaries & SNAP's response

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, SNAP president

"Concern about seminaries misses the mark.

The central problem is, and always has been, chancery offices, not seminaries. Some predators will always 'slip through' educational institutions. The key is 'how does the church hierarchy respond when allegations are made or abuse is witnessed or whistleblowers express concerns?

Sadly, in Catholic dioceses and religious orders, the short answer is usually: belatedly and deceptively. And since no bishop has suffered the slightest consequence for ignoring or concealing child molestation, such crimes and cover ups continue even now.

Sure, many were ordained priests who shouldn't have been. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, the predators could and should have been removed after their first few victims, not after dozens were devastated. That recklessness, callousness and severe harm is the fault of bishops, current and past. It can't be ignored or minimized or shifted to seminary staff.

From the outset, most bishops worked hard to claim others were largely culpable for their own deceit and cover ups: underlings, therapists, cultural 'permissiveness,' and sex in the media. Arguing that some Vatican 'probe' of seminaries is needed is just more of their finger-pointing and blame-shifting."

US-SEMINARIES Jan-14-2009 (700 words) With photos.

Vatican report: Most U.S. seminaries are generally healthy

By Chaz Muth
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- An apostolic visitation team concluded that U.S. Catholic seminaries and houses of priestly formation are generally healthy, but recommended a stronger focus on moral theology, increased oversight of seminarians and greater involvement of diocesan bishops in the formation process.

"This visitation has demonstrated that, since the 1990s, a greater sense of stability now prevails in the U.S. seminaries," the report said. "The appointment, over time, of rectors who are wise and faithful to the church has meant a gradual improvement, at least in the diocesan seminaries."

The report, sparked by the sexual abuse crisis that hit the U.S. church, concluded that seminaries appeared to have made improvements in the area of seminarian morality, most notably with regard to homosexual behavior.

"Of course, here and there some case or other of immorality -- again, usually homosexual behavior -- continues to show up," the report said. "However, in the main, the superiors now deal with these issues promptly and appropriately."

The report was dated Dec. 15 and signed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which deals with seminaries. It was published on the Web site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to coincide with National Vocation Awareness Week, which began Jan. 12.

The report said some seminaries need to examine how educators can ensure the good behavior of their students when they are off-campus as well as their access to emerging technology.

"Seminaries face extra challenges today, as compared to recent years," the report said. "Among these is how to monitor the students' use of the Internet." It recommended that seminaries and religious houses of priestly formation use Internet-filtering programs and restrict Internet use to public rooms within the seminary.

Bishops sometimes delegate too much responsibility for the acceptance of diocesan candidates to their vocation directors and other subordinates, the report said.

"This is unfortunate, as it is the bishop who will ultimately have to call, or not call, the candidate to orders," it said, recommending a more collaborative approach to the formation process.

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, said in a letter to U.S. bishops that it was "gratifying to read in the report that our seminaries are generally in a healthy condition that strongly promotes the formation of men for the sacred ministry in this country."

"The general conclusions of the visitation are positive," Cardinal O'Malley added. "I am sure that all bishops and religious superiors will take seriously the observations and recommendations of the congregation that will further strengthen our seminaries and houses of formation."

The plan to hold apostolic visitations to assess the quality of formation in seminaries arose in Rome at an April 2002 special meeting of the U.S. cardinals and U.S. bishops' officials with top Vatican officials.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, now head of the Baltimore Archdiocese, was chosen to coordinate the visitation team, which included 117 bishops and seminary personnel. Archbishop O'Brien was rector of the Pontifical North American College, the U.S. seminary in Rome, from 1990 to 1994. For five years before that and two years after, he headed the New York archdiocesan seminary, St. Joseph's in Yonkers, N.Y.

Working in teams of three for smaller programs or four for the larger ones, the panels visited more than 200 U.S. seminaries and formation houses in 2005 and 2006. The visitations paid special attention to areas such as the quality of the seminarians' human and spiritual formation for living chastely and of their intellectual formation for faithfulness to church teachings, especially in the area of moral theology.

Cardinal O'Malley noted that although the report generally praised the academic standards of most institutions for both philosophy and theology it reported gaps in some programs, particularly in the areas of the theological study of Mary and the study of early Christian writers, as well as some lack of commitment to "sentire cum ecclesia" (to think with the church) in the area of moral theology.

- - -

Editor's Note: The apostolic visitation report is available in its entirety online at www.usccb.org/cclv/final_report.pdf.

Benedict XVI the Vicar of Opus Dei

Benedict XVI is a secret member of the Opus Dei and he reads and follows all the writings of the founder St. Josemaria Escriva. Therefore he says Mass in Latin and perform the black magic of the Eucharist and turn flour-into-flesh of Christ. But Opus Dei is intrinsically evil as they silenced the Jesuit Jon Sobrino who has worked all his life as a missionary with the poorest of Christ in El Salvador.

Opus Dei do not tolerate any criticism about them or the Pope, and they buy out or silence all their enemies and critics like the Opus Livre.org in Brasil -- see ODAN's article below.

John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger his right-hand man during his papacy, and the Vatican Opus Dei elite supplied the El Salvadorian Army with the whereabouts and activities of religious people which made it easy for them to kidnap or kill these religious servants of the poor. The Jesuit President of the University of Central America was one of the victims of John Paul II's oppressive papacy and he was massacred by the army together with 5 other Jesuit professors and two female colleagues. This year on November 16, 2009 marks their 21st martyrdom anniversary.

http://www.amazon.com/Witnesses-Kingdom-Salvador-Crucified-Peoples/dp/1570754683 - Read excerpts, sample pages, table of contents,etc.


John Paul II travelled around the world but he used the poor people as his props (like an actor and politician) and hardly knew their true conditions. He kissed babies left and right but he ignored the thousands of little boys (and little girls) - 12,000 in America alone -- sodomized by his papal-priests-pedophiles. http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2006/08/john-paul-ii-pedophile-priests-jpiipp.html In El Salvador, he suppressed the poor Crucified Peoples and the Jesuits Martyrs who were working for social justice - whose anniversary is November 16.

Below is an excerpt from Jon Sobrino's book that speaks of John Paul II's un-realistic papal attitudes and ignorant perception towards the poor. These are the paragraphs that made Benedict XVI issued the "Notification" and the Opus Dei Bishop of El Salvador "silence" Sobrino, meaning he can no longer teach or preach and help the poor to whom he has given all his life in service.

Witnesses to the Kingdom: The Martyrs of El Salvador and the Crucified Peoples

Page 141. Important ecclesial events, like a papal visit, are often organized in such a way that they too produce a feeling of unreality. In the Pope’s 1996 visit to El Salvador, it is true that most of the people who attended were poor. But all one could see of their reality was their religious enthusiasm, more or less effectively organized. One didn’t see their poverty, their fears, their discouragement and helplessness, not even their true faith and hope; one didn’t see their reality. As the event was organized, the poor served more as a backdrop than as the reality of the country; in the foreground were minorities that do not represent the reality: the government, legislators and politicians, the rich and powerful, and the Church beside them. The Pope’s visit neither reflected reality nor, to judge from the consequences, had any important effect on it.

On page 140. This applies to the allocutions and homilies of the Pope to the Congregation when he was an "adult-pope’. And that is still a serious problem: humanistas without sarx, factuality without reality (in the world of the poor). To give a few examples: one often gets a feeling of unreality from homilies, documents and messages that do not make central - although they may mention it - the poverty of reality, the injustice and corruption that cause it, and the cover-up that accompanies it. The feeling of unreality comes especially from the lack of commitment to get involved in the conflict, to struggle against injustice and to suffer the consequences. Words, words, words, as J. Comblin calls such messages in the article mentioned above. At another level, one gets the same feeling of unreality from a seminary formation that protects the seminarian from reality; or from the spiritualities and pastoral practices promoted or tolerated by movements that lead the human being into an a-historical transcendence with infantilizing consequences. (From Martyrs of El Salvador. By Jon Sobrino)

Links: Benedict XVI and Jon Sobrino

Benedict XVI-God's Rottweiler voracious appetite for the Jesuits

New Pope Benedict XVI's first bite: the Jesuits

The El Salvador Martyrs November 16, 1989


=========
Please donate to ODAN.

December 15, 2008


Dear Friends of ODAN,


This past year ODAN learned that our Portuguese sister website, Opuslivre.org, located in Brazil, no longer is a source for information about Opus Dei. Opuslivre was one of three organizations that formed “The International Collaboration for Truth about Opus Dei” (ICTOD). The other two, ODAN and Opus Libros of Spain joined together to show Opus Dei’s questionable practices existed around the world, wherever Opus Dei was located. After the managers of Opuslivre inadvertently let the domain name expire, it was purchased by Opus Dei. Reflecting on this action by Opus Dei, the question to ask is this: What does Opus Dei fear about the free flow of information that it would pursue shutting down those who have experienced firsthand Opus Dei’s deception and manipulation? This is the type of action employed by extremist regimes, whether fascist or communist, where information is routinely stifled through control of all forms of media.



ODAN supporters and those familiar with cult information may remember the similar demise of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) which was completely taken over by Scientology in 1997. Opus Dei’s actions speak louder than its words.



Opus Dei also withholds information about itself. Sometimes the information withheld is so important that it denies a person the right to an informed opinion about what Opus Dei is. An example of Opus Dei withheld information happened recently when a well known supernumerary member of Opus Dei was a guest on a Catholic radio show that took live phone calls. His topic was “no more secrets” in the Catholic Church and his new book on the subject. When a caller asked him why Opus Dei was still permitted to have secret Constitutions, he replied he was reading a book which had the Constitutions in the back. The caller pointed out he was in error, that he was talking about the Statutes, which was different. The caller asked if he knew supernumerary members are not full members, as it says in the Constitutions. The supernumerary did not know what to say but pointed to John Allen’s book “Opus Dei”. The caller said that John Allen got a copy of the English Statutes under a non disclosure agreement, so how can he say they are not secret. The difference between the 1950 Constitutions and the 1982 Statutes which erected Opus Dei as a Personal Prelature is important because the Statutes do not tell the whole story.



The 1982 document was necessary because Opus Dei changed its canonical status from a Secular Institute to a Personal Prelature. This gave them the opportunity to rewrite their governing documents. They wrote them according to the criteria relevant to them at the time and the legal criteria (especially how priests were to be members within the norms of Canon Law, and the Prelature's relationship to the bishops) were the driving force of the revision. The revision was not a complete revision and the authors carried forward many of their foundational traditions, rights and obligations by stating in the concluding paragraphs of the 1982 Statutes that anything not directly abrogated or superseded by the 1950 Constitutions is still in effect. This allowed a certain efficiency; the 1982 document is significantly shorter and more compact. It also allowed the 1982 document to be more inspiring and less revealing than the 1950 one, should it ever become public, which was increasingly likely as Opus Dei grew and became more widely known and accepted. (Opus Dei has kept their governing documents secret from their very first erection as a diocesan pious association.) The 1950 document tells a lot more about the internal manner of being of Opus Dei. Opus Dei continues to hold this document as secretly as possible.[1]



To the unsuspecting public, it appears that Opus Dei is revealing its innermost secrets and governing documents when in reality it is not. Opus Dei uses unsuspecting members and others to promote erroneous information about itself. This is not only untruthful but morally wrong.



Opus Dei did not make public these governing documents for the world to read and they are still withholding information. The ODAN website was the first place the Opus Dei Constitutions and Statutes could be read in English. If you would like to read the Opus Dei Statutes and its Constitutions, go to the ODAN website http://www.odan.org/statutes_1950.htm and http://www.odan.org/statutes_1982.htm.



The ODAN web site is a clearing house for information about Opus Dei. We intend to continue this important site. Many of you have sought information about Opus Dei from ODAN and know how important it is to maintain this valuable resource. ODAN needs your support financially to continue the task at hand. Please keep ODAN in your prayers. We need your prayerful and financial help.



Yours truly,





Dianne R. DiNicola

Executive Director





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[1] 1950 Constitutions of Opus Dei -- Latin and English –Introduction, Dennis Dubro, January 25, 2005. ODAN Website http://www.odan.org/statutes_1950.htm



Donations may be made out to:
ODAN® (Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc.)
PO Box 4333
Pittsfield, MA 01202-4333
USA

Cash, money orders and checks accepted. Receipts are issued for all donations. Donations are fully tax deductible – ODAN® is a registered 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. Thank you for your support.

Please print and enclose the following with your donation:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc.
FUNDING APPEAL

( ) Yes! I want to support ODAN®.

Realizing ODAN® depends upon charitable funding, I am enclosing a donation of

$500 ( ) $250 ( ) $100 ( ) $50 ( ) $25 ( ) Other__________

I/We realize ODAN® needs regular supporters and so would like to contribute $________per month/per quarter.

Office Use

Name____________________________________________________________________ID#________________

Address__________________________________________________________________AMT._______________

City_________________________________________State__________Zip____________D.Rcd______________

Phone( )____________________Email_________________________________CkNo._________

Thank you for your support and generosity.

ODAN®: Challenging the Questionable Practices of Opus Dei."
Please make your tax-deductible contribution payable to ODAN®, PO Box 4333, Pittsfield, MA. 01202-4333
___________________________________________________________________________________________