Benedict XVI ‘God’s Rottweiler’ Barks

When Benedict XVI went to Jordan, one of the first things he did was to visit a Muslim mosque and apologize for his comments against the Muslims which he made in Germany in 2006. It was well orchestrated with the Royal Family of Jordan who played host to him for 3 days. Sam Harris wrote an article about that maul against the Muslims Benedict did as God's Rottweiler. Benedict XVI should also apologize and recant his "Notification" and the "silence" imposed on the Jesuit Jon Sobrino by the Opus Dei Bishop in Salvador.


‘God’s Rottweiler’ Barks

By Sam Harris

www.samharris.org

The bestselling author of “The End of Faith” responds to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech on the interplay between faith and reason. Harris: “It is ironic that a man who has just disparaged Islam as ‘evil’ and ‘inhuman’ before 250,000 onlookers and the world press, is now talking about a ‘genuine dialogue of cultures.’ ”

Read Harris’ new book, “Letter to a Christian Nation”.

The world is still talking about the pope's recent speech (http://zenit.org/article-16955?l=english), a speech so boring, convoluted and oblique to the real concerns of humanity that it could well have been intended as a weapon of war. It might start a war, in fact, given that it contained a stupendously derogatory appraisal of Islam. For some reason, the Holy Father found it necessary to quote the Emperor Manual II Paleologos, who said: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman….” Now the Muslim world is buzzing with pious rage. It's a pity that Pope Benedict doesn't also draw cartoons. Joining a craven chorus of terrified supplicants, The New York Times has urged him to muster a "deep and persuasive’’ apology. He now appears to be mincing his way toward the performance of just such a feat.

While the pope succeeded in enraging millions of Muslims, the main purpose of his speech was to chastise scientists and secularists for being, well, too reasonable. It seems that nonbelievers still (perversely) demand too much empirical evidence and logical support for their worldview. Believing that he was cutting to the quick of the human dilemma, the pope reminded an expectant world that science cannot pull itself up by its own bootstraps: It cannot, for instance, explain why the universe is comprehensible at all. It turns out that this is a job for… (wait for it) … Christianity. Why is the world susceptible to rational understanding? Because God made it that way. While the pope is not much of a conjurer, many intelligent and well-intentioned people imagined they actually glimpsed a rabbit in this old hat. Andrew Sullivan, for instance, praised the pope's "deep and complicated" address for its "clarity and openness." Here is the heart of the pope's argument, excerpted from his concluding remarks. I have added my own commentary throughout.

“The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizon….”

The pope suggests that reason should be broadened to include the empirically unverifiable. And is there any question these new "vast horizons" will include the plump dogmas of the Catholic Church? Here, the pope gets the spirit of science exactly wrong. Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable). And it does mean to exclude the gratuitously stupid. With these distinctions in mind, consider one of the core dogmas of Catholicism, from the Profession of Faith of the Roman Catholic Church:

"I likewise profess that in the Mass a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice is offered to God on behalf of the living and the dead, and that the Body and the Blood, together with the soul and the divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and there is a change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into Blood; and this change the Catholic Mass calls transubstantiation. I also profess that the whole and entire Christ and a true sacrament is received under each separate species."

While one can always find a Catholic who is reluctant to admit that cannibalism lies at the heart of the faith, there is no question whatsoever that the Church intends the above passage to be read literally. The real presence of the body and blood of Christ at the Mass is to be understood as a material fact. As such, this is a claim about the physical world. It is, as it happens, a perfectly ludicrous claim about the physical world. (Unlike most religious claims, however, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is actually falsifiable. It just happens to be false.) Despite the pope's solemn ruminations on the subject, reason is not so elastic as to encompass the favorite dogmas of Catholicism. Needless to say, the virgin birth of Jesus, the physical resurrection of the dead, the entrance of an immortal soul into the zygote at the moment of conception, and almost every other article of the Catholic faith will land in the same, ill-dignified bin. These are beliefs that Catholics hold without sufficient reason. They are, therefore, unreasonable. There is no broadening of the purview of 21st-century rationality that can, or should, embrace them.

“Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today….”

It is ironic that a man who has just disparaged Islam as "evil" and "inhuman" before 250,000 onlookers and the world press is now talking about a "genuine dialogue of cultures." How much genuine dialogue can he hope for? The Koran says that anybody who believes that Jesus was divine--as all real Catholics must--will spend eternity in hell (Koran 5:71-75; 19:30-38). This appears to be a deal-breaker. The pope knows this. The Muslim world knows that he knows it. And he knows that the Muslim world knows that he knows it. This is not a good basis for interfaith dialogue.

“In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures….”

Astrologers don't like "their most profound convictions" attacked either. Neither do people who believe that space aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Happily, these groups do not take to the streets and start killing people when their irrational beliefs are challenged. I suspect that the pope would be the first to admit that there are millions of people on this Earth who harbor "most profound convictions" that are neither profound nor compatible with real dialogue. Indeed, one doesn't even need to read between the lines of his speech to glean that he would place the entire Muslim world beyond the "universality of reason." He is surely right to be alarmed by Islam--particularly by its doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. He is right to find the treatment of Muslim women throughout the world abhorrent (if, indeed, he does find it abhorrent). He is right to be concerned that any Muslim who converts to Christianity (or to atheism) has put his life in jeopardy, as conversion away from the faith is punishable by death. These profundities are worthy objects of our derision. No apologies necessary, Your Holiness.

We might, however, note in passing that one of the pope's "most profound convictions" is that contraception is a sin. His agents continue to preach this diabolical dogma in the developing world, and even in sub-Saharan Africa, where over 3 million people die from AIDS each year. This is unconscionable and irredeemably stupid. It is also a point on which the Church has not shown much of an intelligent capacity for dialogue. Despite their inclination to breed themselves into a state of world domination, Muslims tend to be far more reasonable on the subject of family planning. They do not consider the use of temporary forms of birth control to be a sin.

“Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought—to philosophy and theology….”

This may have been where Sullivan found the Holy Father to be particularly "deep and complicated" and "profound." Granted, questions of epistemology can make one sweat, and there are many interesting and even controversial things to be said about the foundations of our knowledge. The pope has not said anything interesting or controversial here, however. He has merely insinuated that placing the God of Abraham at the back of every natural process will somehow reduce the quotient of mystery in the cosmos. It won't. Nearly a billion Hindus place three gods--Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer)--in the space provided. Just how intellectually illuminating should we find that?

“The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur—this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.

“Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor….”

Please read that first sentence again. I hope it doesn't seem peevish to point out that the West faces several dangers even greater than those posed by an incomplete epistemology. The West is endangered, primarily, by the religious fragmentation of the human community, by religious impediments to clear thinking, and by the religious willingness of millions to sacrifice the real possibility of happiness in this world for a fantasy of a world to come. We are living in a world where untold millions of grown men and women can rationalize the violent sacrifice of their own children by recourse to fairy tales. We are living in world where millions of Muslims believe that there is nothing better than to be killed in defense of Islam.

We are living in a world in which millions of American Christians hope to soon be raptured into the sky by Jesus so that they can safely enjoy the holy genocide that will inaugurate the end of human history. We are living in a world in which a silly old priest, by merely giving voice to his religious inanities, could conceivably start a war with 1.4 billion Muslims who take their own inanities in deadly earnest. These are real dangers. And they are not dangers for which more "Biblical faith" is a remedy.

http://www.samharris.org/site/articles/

Benedict XVI is OUT OF TOUCH: The Williamson Affair

Benedict XVI and the Opus Dei are OUT OF TOUCH with reality because they live in the ivory tower of the Vatican Palace where they are drugged with their Latin Mass ecstasy everyday.

Opus Dei is more concerned with their own founder's glory, that fascist St. Josemaria Escriva - see the John Paul II Millstone www.jp2m.blogspot.com for indepth coverage -- and the speedy canonization of John Paul II. Opus Dei covered-up the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army for more than 26 years because they were preparing for his canonization in the Vatican saint-factory.

Latin Bullshit! - Did Christ speak Latin?

Benedict XVI cares more for Bishop Williamson than the poor people of El Salvador and so he and the Opus Dei Bishop silenced the Jesuit Jon Sobrino.

Imagine, williamson the Jew hating Catholic Bishop has more right to speak than the Jesuit Jon Sobrino - the infallible pope couldn't be more fallible!

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The Williamson Affair

I wonder if, hearing about the Vatican's embarrassment over the Bishop Williamson affair, you experienced a feeling of schadenfreude - delight in other people's misfortunes? I winced at the damage done to the Church's relationship with the Jews; to the reputation of our Church and to the confidence of thoughtful, sane Catholics. All the same, one couldn't but feel gratified that what supporters of women priests know only too well; THE VATICAN IS OUT OF TOUCH was being shouted around the world.

The announcement that four Lefebvrist bishops, including Bishop Williamson, who, excommunicated for disobedience, still reject Vatican II teachings on liturgy, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and religious liberty, could return to the Church, was made on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Pope John XXIII's announcement of the Second Vatican Council. Did the Pope really believe that the lifting of the order of excommunication would help reconciliation? In modern parlance, "What was he thinking?" .

Apparently he decided to lift the order of excommunication unilaterally and without consultation. A contributor to CIRCLES contributed the comment,

"Great harm is being done by just a one-man papal dictatorship or all male small Vatican oligarchy of misguided and mistaken clerics who do not reflect the Catholic laity or most of the nuns and priests or the traditions and teachings of Jesus Christ who never excluded people or women or defamed or hated Jews or any people."

According to Hans Küng, the Pope is not at ease with modernity and reform. It is to be hoped that the outraged reaction of the main body of the Church to his recent decision will help to bring him into the modern world. Cardinal Schönborn, the first of several German-speaking cardinals to criticise the Pope's decision, wrote in Thema Kirche that the outcome of the crisis could be positive.

"Crises can be opportunities - not comfortable ones, free of suffering, but in the final effect salutary opportunities, even if one cannot see them as such in the middle of crisis itself."

The Catholic Network for Women's Equality (CNWE) seized the opportunity of The Pope's "merciful" decision to readmit the dissenting bishops for the sake of Church unity, to ask him, in a gesture of reconciliation toward women, to also lift the May 29, 2008 decree of automatic excommunication issued against all women priests or bishops who belong to the 'river ordinations' movement .

We can surely also pray that the furore aroused by Bishop Williamson's published views on women (eg. they should not go to university or wear trousers!) will convince Pope Benedict that such views reflecting age-old prejudices are unacceptable in the modern world.

Best Wishes from the Housetop Team

Leonie Russell

editor

WWW.WOMENPRIESTS.ORG

Quotes from Bishop Richard Wiliamson

On 21 January, Pope Benedict lifted the excommunication from four Bishops of the Society of Pius X. Among them is the controversial Bishop Richard Williamson.

Bishop Williamson has not only denied that Jews were gassed by the Nazis in the infamous concentration camps. He has also repeatedly expressed totally unaceptable views about women, reflecting the age-old prejudices that unfortunately beset the thinking of Church leaders in the past. His statements have recently been removed from SSPX sites but we have been able to recover some. The original links to these letters were appended to an article by John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter on January 26th, 'Lefebvre Movement: long troubled history with Judaism.'

* Bishop Williamson: Why Women's Trousers Represent Deep Revolt Against God -- The Unwomaning of Woman, September 1, 1991

* Bishop Williamson: Why No 'Girl' Should Go To University, September 1, 2001

* See related CIRCLES' discussion re Are Child Bearing and Parenthood 'Woman's' Primary Social Tasks? Scroll through thread to find info about Nazi Women's League!


http://www.womenpriests.org/circles/tm.asp?m=2119&mpage=78&key=睸


Bishop Williamson's Letters
Girls at University
Emancipation’s Mess of Pottage (Gen. XXV, 29-34)

Winona, September 1, 2001

Dear Friends and Benefactors:

Canadians strike me as a gentle people; but "strike" is the word! Ten years ago I was innocently asked in Canada whether women should wear trousers. Some ten weeks ago, also in Canada, I was asked whether a girl should go to a conservative Novus Ordo university. The answer now to the second question may be as stormy as the answer to the first:- because of all kinds of natural reasons, almost no girl should go to any university!

The deep-down reason is the same as for the wrongness of women's trousers: the unwomaning of woman. The deep-down cause in both cases is that Revolutionary man has betrayed modem woman; since she is not respected and loved for being a woman, she tries to make herself a man. Since modem man does not want her to do what God meant her to do, namely to have children, she takes her revenge by invading all kinds of things that man is meant to do. What else was to be expected? Modern man has only himself to blame.

In fact, only in modern times have women dreamt of going to university, but the idea has now become so normal that even Catholics, whose Faith guards Nature, may have difficulty in seeing the problem. However, here is a pointer in the direction of normalcy: any Catholic with the least respect for Tradition recognizes that women should not be priests - can he deny that if few women went to university, almost none would wish to be priests? Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God's Nature which characterizes our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls.

NATURE OF UNIVERSITIES

Let us begin with the true university. As defined by Cardinal Newman in his famous "Idea of a University", it is "a place of teaching universal knowledge". Universities in this sense were a creation of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and, as the Cardinal splendidly recalls, theology held pride of place there because, as science of the Supreme Being, it is the supreme science which alone can appoint to all other sciences their proper place. So a true university is a place for all-round learning of reality beneath the queenship of Catholic theology. The value of sciences and this need of theirs for theology is why the Catholic Church is always tending to create universities, and why she alone can create true universities, directing all study ultimately to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

From which, one must question what kind of queenship can be exercised by Novus Ordo theologians, even conservative. Normally, "conservative" Catholics who have left Tradition are in bad faith, so will be bad teachers, while those who have never known Tradition will be ignorant, and so bad teachers. Both will make a point of "rescuing" a damsel in"schismatic" or "excommunicated" distress. Therefore a Traditional girl putting herself under "conservative" teachers will, to keep her Faith, require a special effort to resist the menfolk whom God designed (and her parents paid) her to follow. She will then be voluntarily so setting her true Catholic Faith against her true feminine nature that one or the other is almost bound to suffer.

It also follows from the queenship of Theology that a democratic age like ours, rejecting God and dethroning Theology, will make a nonsense of universities. Sure enough. All around us we see "universities" which are much worse than brothels, because not only does democratic "equality" indiscriminately herd there together all kinds of boys and girls with little or no interest in ideas so that they should not be studying in the first place, but also, by silencing Theology and rendering Philosophy ridiculous, these "universities" corrupt the highest part of the youngsters' nature, their minds, leaving their lower nature with little or no means of resisting the aided and abetted promiscuity of the two young sexes. Survey the waste on any "university" campus today - feckless unmen and trashy unwomen whose noblest activity is throwing frisbees at one another!

Such "universities" dedicated to the defiance of God and Nature, make mincemeat of the youngsters' Faith (if they had any), of their morals and of their common sense. Poor parents. But they have mocked God, and God is not mocked. Obviously no boy, let alone any girl, should be sent to such a "university". What needs to be proved is that even to a decent university, if such could be found, few or no girls should be sent. This is because of the God-given nature of girls. Which, despite today's massive propaganda to the contrary, is quite different from the God-given nature of boys!

NATURE OF GIRLS

For a sane grasp of woman's nature, let me appeal to the Church's Common Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, distant now by three-quarters of a millennium from our own disturbed times. The three reasons he gives in his Summa Theologiae (2a, 2ae, 177,2) why woman should not teach in Church in public can all be applied to why she should not teach or learn in a public university. Firstly, he says, teaching is for superiors, and women are- not to be superior, but subject, to their men (Gen III,16).

Secondly, women stepping up to teach in public can easily inflame men's lust (Ecclus IX,11). Thirdly, "Women are not usually ("communiter") perfect in wisdom".

To grasp these three reasons, let us back up another five millennia, to Adam and Eve. Since the word "nature" comes from the Latin word for "being born", then to study a thing's nature one goes back to its birth. Eve was created by God to be a "help" to Adam (Gen. 11,18). She was to help him, says St Thomas Aquinas elsewhere (1a,92,1), not for any other work than that of generation (or reproduction), because for any other work man could be more suitably helped by another man. It follows that woman's nature is intrinsically geared to motherhood, so that in all things pertaining to motherhood she is man's superior, in all else she is his inferior, and in none of all the things in which the two sexes are complementary are they equal.

Now to attract a man so as to marry and become a mother, to nurture and rear children and to retain their father, she needs superior gifts of feeling and instinct, e.g. sensitivity, delicacy, tact, perspicacity, tenderness, etc. by which her mind will correspondingly be swayed, which is why no husband can understand how the mind of his wife works! For to do the work of generation, i.e. to ensure nothing less than the survival and continuation of mankind, God designed her mind to run on a complementary and different basis from her man's. His mind is designed not to be swayed by feelings but on the contrary to control them, so that while his feelings may be inferior to hers, his reason is superior. And reason being meant to rule in rational beings, then he is natured to rule over her (Gen. III, 16), as can be seen for example whenever she needs to resort to him for her feelings not to get out of control.

Correspondingly, while she senses family (and loves to talk about it), he responds to the world around and wants to master it (Gen II,15,19,20). While she is people-oriented, he is reality-oriented. (How often will a woman pull an idea or a question of reality back to family! - "You're against drink? You're attacking my husband!" This is in woman's nature. One does not mock her for it.) So while she is queen of feeling within the home, he must be king of reason over the home. So while he must love her and listen to her, at the end of the day she must obey him, because he is natured to take the broader view and to be the more reasonable (Eph V 22,25: Col III, 18,19).

FIRST REASON

Now what does a university call for? Whereas in modem "universities" the males all believe in "if it feels good, do it," which is why they are, as they wish, overrun by feeling females, on the contrary in a true university one thinks about universal reality, which is the prerogative of men. A woman can think in this way, or do a good imitation of handling ideas, but then she will not be properly thinking as woman. The dilemma is inescapable: she cannot do what is properly men's thinking or work without cutting across her deepest nature. Did this lawyeress check her hair-do just before coming into court? If she did, she is one distracted lawyer. If she did not, she is one distorted woman.

Moreover, true university thinking tends to produce leaders because true students have pondered on more or less universal reality. Cardinal Newman may argue that the cultivated mind is an end in itself, but if Mother Church has always raised universities, is it not because an elite of all-round minds will in any society powerfully help many souls to get to Heaven, if those minds' studying has been governed over all by the true Faith? But women are neither meant, nor normally gifted, to be leaders! Therefore girls should not be at university. As for a Queen Isabella the Catholic, Spain was her family and she never went to university! Nor did Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna or Joan of Arc.

Concretely, if a girl devotes several years of her youth and much money of her parents to acquiring a university education, especially a decent one, how easily will she submit to her husband, especially if he has not had that education? And how may she not argue with him if he has had it? And if she has a "degree", how will she not think herself above the multiple humiliations of being "barefoot and pregnant"? And if she is a "graduate", how will she not hold-herself superior to being-a “vegetable at the-kitchen-sink"? And if making a family makes her forget in the right kind of way all about "graduating", "degrees" and "university", why go there in the first place? The dilemma is inescapable: in doing manly things like going to a university, either she is merely going through the motions or she is damaging her potential for motherhood - conclusion: she should not go there.

SECOND REASON

We come to St Thomas' second reason: the inflaming of lust. Enough said about today's unibrothels. What will happen if heaps of boys and girls are thrown together with mention of God even forbidden is massive common sense, but that is not the whole story!

Just suppose that a decent girl can find a decent university which is cultivating on a broad front minds of an elite of boys who will provide tomorrows world with its leaders. If she is smart enough to study, will she not be smart enough to know that even if she does not wish to distract the boys, she will still be a distraction? To this reason there is no exception. So if she is that decent, will she not prefer to hang back from distracting the future leaders that she and all her society tomorrow will need?

Then the more decent the university, will she not the more keep away? What woman can be imagined taking part in Plato's Dialogues? Not even the Blessed Virgin Mary took part in the Last Supper. Girls at university are a double source of confusion, both doing what girls were not created to do, and distracting the boys from doing what the boys were created to do.

At any true university, the worthwhile students do not want to be distracted by girls. Those are exactly the potential husbands that the really intelligent girls will go after. That is why even really intelligent girls should not be at university.

THIRD REASON

For indeed - St. Thomas's third reason - "women are not usually perfect in wisdom". This is because woman's family-wisdom is priceless, it comes straight from God, but it is as wisdom, because it orders only a part of reality.

Woman's thinking is subjective, inward, intuitive, concrete, small-scale, with a gift for loving details. University thinking needs to be objective, outward, rational, abstract, large-scale, with a drive towards the grand principles. Her thinking follows her heart. University thinking can only follow the head. While a university professor is teaching, the boy will be listening to and learning from the words but the girl will naturally be listening to the man and learning by osmosis. Only by an effort will she listen to the words, because her heart is elsewhere - usually on the boys. Naturally docile and possibly possessed of more than sufficient brains, she can always do a good imitation of a good student, especially if she wishes to please a particular male professor. Nor, again, should she be mocked for that, insofar as God designed her to please and to attract - a husband. Rarely, however, will the impressive studentess be a really good student, because the Lord God simply designed her heart and mind for a quite other task. Girls, do you really want to spend so much of your time and of your parents' money on doing something God almost for sure did not mean you to be doing?

OBJECTIONS

But Pius XII encouraged you to make the best of being forced out into the world? - Maybe he was making the best of an already bad situation in the 1940's and 1950's, when he hoped women would bring to bear their femininity on the public domain. However, by the definitions of "feminine" and "public", that is a contradiction in terms. Fifty years later, who can deny that the public domain has de-feminized, woman? As a friend said, "Women used to have careers open to them only in nursing and teaching, which they did well. Now they no longer know how to do either!"

It is high time for Catholics to buck the current and to buck the world! Europe, center of Christendom, is collapsing, because European girls are all being taught to go to "university" and to "put off' having babies! Woman and family are in desperate crisis - do we want to follow the swine over the cliff?

But men today are unfit to lead, so you have to go to university to take their place? – You cannot take their place!!!! (The exception proves the rule). Today you are merely following them into "universities", tomorrow you will be following them out. By hook or by crook, do something motherly, play your part as God meant you to do, and God can give you back from above the manly leaders and the husband that you pray for and need, but that you cannot by the nature of things wrest to yourselves from below. You cannot restore God's order by breaking it. Get behind your men! Behind, you have an enormous power to inspire and guide. In front, you will merely make them more irresponsible than ever...

But what about the Dominicans' school for girls in Idaho? - As much as St Thomas Aquinas disapproves women teaching in public, he approves their teaching in private, in other words at home, "or in a home-like setting". A university cannot resemble a home, but wise Mothers can keep a girls' secondary school like a home. See the enclosed flyer for an encouragement to support the same Dominican Mothers' primary and secondary schooling in France.

But where will girls' secondary schools find women teachers if no girls go to university? -One needs no university to learn most of what secondary schoolgirls need to be taught, for instance "domestic economy, setting up home, running a house, the care and education of children, the spiritual and social preparation for marriage" - Pius XII's timeless list, to the Union of Catholic Women, June 24, 1949. Of course if the law of the land, as now in France, demands "university" "diplomas" for women to teach or to open girls' schools, then some women's "university" attendance becomes, for the duration of that law, an exceptional necessity. However, exceptions make bad rules!

But what about the co-educational college of the Society of St Pius X at St. Mary's in Kansas? - It is still a family-scale operation, typical of the true Church's drive to teach the true Faith in as much depth as possible amidst difficult circumstances, but according as it may expand and rise in the future to a truly university level of teaching, I for one piously hope that the boys will by then be giving such a lead and example, creating such a new world, that the girls will no longer feel any need to attend.

But what are girls in the meantime to do, who have a brain and are not ready to get married? - Let them use their brain: firstly, to grasp how God designed them, and for what role; secondly, to pray God He grant us all some men; thirdly, to read at home on their own (for instance Jane Austen, a classic example of how much domestic woman can do); fourthly, to devise with their parents a feminine place and function where they can mature towards marriage. Or - for Heaven's sakes - let them think of a vocation! Old saying: "A woman is once a woman, a nun is twice a woman"!

CONCLUSION

For all these reasons, domestic girls are not by nature for public universities. Where did modern man go wrong?

As man puts himself in the place of God, so this life on earth blocks out of view any after-life in God's Heaven or Hell. Man's pride unchains his inclination to pleasure here below. Self comes first But children - however unconsciously -demand and reward selflessness in their parents. Therefore the children, and the demand, and the reward, most go. But woman's life is natured to center around children. Therefore woman's life in particular becomes empty, as does her home, especially if working conditions take her husband also away. She will inevitably follow him into his domains, eg. university, where she is liable to impose female patterns that do not belong, but that are frustrated at home. She will not let her being remain meaningless!

As this letter has often argued, such a breaking of family, home and woman is too deep a violation of Nature for the modern way of life to be able to survive. With men in the lead, Catholics, whose Faith should give them a handle on Nature, will be wise, according to circumstances, to take remedial action now. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Men, think! Give substance to the home! Girls, I bless you, your parents and all dear readers.

Sincerely yours in Christ,


+Richard Williamson

http://www.sspx.ca/Documents/Bishop-Williamson/September1-2001.htm

Benedict's speech in Israel showed verbal indifference and banality

Benedict XVI and his Opus Dei entourage, with theatrical direction of GAY Zeffirelli, was in Israel – walking and talking in his usual GAY mannerisms. Of course, the 12,000 American victims of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army is all but "Dust in the Wind"... That is why SNAP must built a SNAP Memorial like the Holocaust Memorial where an eternal flame will be lit in memory of the American victims, and victims from around the world, of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army…and that Pope John Paul II must NEVER be called a “saint” in Amrican soil and by American children.

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Benedict's speech showed verbal indifference and banality

One word unsaid can sometimes be more damaging than thousands of words uttered. This is what happened two days ago during Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem. The thorough preparations for his visit to Israel, the complex traffic and security arrangements, and the millions of shekels that were earmarked for his hospitality evaporated as if they did not exist thanks to a speech that was missing one word - "sorry."

The pope's visit was a good opportunity to improve Israel's relations with the Vatican and for advancing inter-religious dialogue. His arrival strengthened the government's international standing on the eve of Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with United States President Barack Obama.


From the church's standpoint, the pilgrimage to the Holy Land could have buttressed the Vatican's position in the diplomatic process while minimizing the damage caused by some of the pope's decisions: beatifying his predecessor, Pius XII, who is accused of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust, and reinstating a bishop who is on record as denying the Holocaust.



Yet the political weight of a visit by a pope who was in the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany and a soldier in the Wermacht are reason enough to undertake as diligent a preparation as possible.


Perhaps in the eyes of his Catholic followers, pictures of the pope at Christian holy sites are the most moving of all. But from the standpoint of his Israeli hosts, the crux of the visit was the event at Yad Vashem. It should have been clear to the Vatican that every word spoken by, and every bead of sweat dripping down the face of the leader of the Catholic Church during his appearance at the site of the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority would be picked apart.


But Benedict is not as attuned an internationalist, capable of rallying the masses, as his immediate predecessor, John Paul II, was. His organizers should have made more of an effort in understanding the audience which the pontiff addressed. His important statements condemning anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial lost their potency because of his lukewarm remarks at Yad Vashem.


The pope's visit shows that there is no real dialogue between Israel and the Vatican, and that it is difficult to erase centuries-old wounds. It is clear that logistical preparations for such a visit are not sufficient, and that it is vital to conduct diplomatic dialogue over the content of the public aspects of the visit, so as to prevent mishaps and ensure a successful trip. On his trip to Africa, Benedict set off a storm by what he said. In Jerusalem he set off a wave of disappointment by what he did not.


Survivors angered by Benedict's 'lukewarm' speech at Yad Vashem


By Jonathan Lis, Nadav Shragai, Jack Khoury and Cnaan Liphshiz

The speech by Pope Benedict XVI yesterday at Yad Vashem drew criticism from staff members of the Holocaust memorial, who described it as disappointing and lukewarm. The chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Avner Shalev, said he expected the pope, "who is a human being, too," to draw on his personal experience to issue a stronger condemnation of Nazis and Germans, who were not directly mentioned in the speech. The pope grew up in Nazi Germany and served in both Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, before deserting from the army in 1944. Shalev, however, said the speech was "important," especially in its criticism of denial of the Holocaust.


The pope spoke at length about the importance of remembering the victims of the Holocaust. "One can rob a neighbor of possessions, opportunity or freedom. One can weave an insidious web of lies to convince others that certain groups are undeserving of respect. Yet, try as one might, one can never take away the name of a fellow human being," he said. "May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of goodwill remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!"



The chairman of Yad Vashem, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, himself a Holocaust survivor, complained of the pope's usage of the word "millions" instead of the more specific "6 million" when speaking of the Holocaust's Jewish victims, as well as over his use of the word "killed" rather than "murdered."


"There's a dramatic difference between killed and murdered, especially when a speech has gone through so many hands," Lau said.


Lau also said that the speech "didn't have a single word of condolence, compassion or sharing the pain of the Jewish people as such. There was a lot about the pain of humanity, cosmopolitan words," Lau said. Lau, the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and a former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, also described the speech as "beautiful and well scripted and very Biblical," however.


Some of the Holocaust survivors chosen to shake hands with the pope at the ceremony also expressed mixed feelings about the pontiff's speech.


"It was exciting to meet with the most important dignitary of the Christian world, and his coming to speak at Yad Vashem is very meaningful," said Avraham Ashkenazi, who as a 4-year-old boy in Nazi-occupied Greece attended church with his parents, who pretended to be Christian in order to survive. "But he's not all innocent, he was in the Hitler Jugend and the Wehrmacht. He might not have had a choice, although his father opposed the Nazis."


Other survivors were less critical. "People who expected the pope to apologize or change his mind demonstrated a poor understanding of diplomacy and the Catholic church," said a founder of the the Company for Restitution of Holocaust Victims' Assets, Avraham Roth, who attended the ceremony.


Later yesterday the pope met with the parents of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. He promised to do everything he could to obtain a sign of life from him and to aid the negotiations for his release. The Shalits told the pope they were disappointed with the conduct of the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose delegates have not visited Gilad. They gave the pope a copy of the children's book written by their son before his capture, translated into Italian especially for the pontiff and inscribed in Gilad's name.


Meanwhile, police declared a "zero tolerance" policy regarding any attempts of protest during the papal visit. In East Jerusalem's Ambassador Hotel, a press center set up by Palestinians for foreign journalists covering the visit was shut down by police, who also dispersed a press briefing conducted there.


In another incident, right-wing Jewish activists protesting near the President's Residence in West Jerusalem were dispersed by Border Police.


Two Jews carrying protest signs near Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem were detained, as was a man who was seen throwing paint at a Vatican flag elsewhere in the city.


The traffic jams in Jerusalem yesterday caused by the papal visit were much worse than police had anticipated. Further congestion is expected tomorrow, when Hebron Road will be closed for the duration of the pope's visit to Bethlehem.


Pope at Yad Vashem / Benedict's speech showed verbal indifference and banality

By Tom Segev
Tags: Holocaust, Haaretz TV


Pope John Paul II was received in Israel with enthusiasm that sometimes bordered on the excitement generally reserved for pop stars. He radiated warmth. Pope Benedict XVI, in contrast, comes across as restrained, almost cold.

In the best-case scenario, Benedict will leave behind indifference, not hostility. The speech he gave yesterday at Yad Vashem was surprising mainly because one would have expected the Vatican's cardinals to prepare a more intelligent text for their boss. Someday, maybe in 500 years, when the Vatican archive is opened to researchers examining the preparations for this visit, we will be able to learn from early drafts how the final speech came to appear so forced.

There is nothing easier than expressing real horror when talking about the Holocaust, than identifying with its suffering, pain and grief. If that is not done, it is a sign that there was a deliberate decision not to do so. No church bell would cease to ring had the pontiff said something about Christian anti-Semitism, even if he fell short of explicitly saying that without it, the Nazis would not have won the support of the German people. What he said about the Holocaust sounded too calculated, too diplomatic and professional - he advised "compassion," a prescription that is to priests what aspirin is to general practitioners.


Yad Vashem officials rushed to express "disappointment" at Benedict's failure to mention the Germans, and naturally they attributed that omission to his own background. The truth is that the Israeli culture of memory has itself struggled hard with the question of whether and how to identify the murderers.

Sometimes this identity is not mentioned at all, as in the "El maleh rachamim" funeral prayer recited before the pope's address. Yesterday, President Shimon Peres referred to the genocide as "Hitler's Holocaust," a highly problematic term he would do well not to use again. The intention, of course, is to avoid insulting the German people as a whole. Yad Vashem ceremonies generally use the term "the Nazi Germans and their helpers." How simple and fitting it would have been had the Vatican adopted that terminology, just as it inserted the Hebrew term "Shoah" into the pope's text, a tribute to the Israeli view of the destruction of the Jews.

Benedict is aware of the historical responsibility that rests on his shoulders as both a German and a Christian. He supports annulling the statute of limitations on prosecuting Nazi criminals in Germany and has visited Yad Vashem once before. On more than one occasion, he has expressed empathy for Jews and for Israel.

But in last night's speech, he inexplicably said Jews "were killed," as if it had been an unfortunate accident. On the surface, this may seem unimportant: Israelis often use the same term, and they do not need the pope to tell them about the Holocaust, which today is a universal code for absolute evil.

But the word the pope used is significant because someone in the Holy See decided to write "were killed" instead of "murdered" or "destroyed." The impression is that the cardinals argued among themselves over whether Israelis "deserve" for the pope to say "were murdered" and decided they only deserve "were killed." It sounded petty. Even the recurring use of the term "tragedy" seemed like an attempt to avoid saying the real thing.

The verbal stinginess Benedict displayed last night also diminishes the impact of anything he might say about Palestinian suffering. Had he said what he needed to on the Holocaust, he could have said more to condemn Israel's systematic violation of the human rights of residents of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Yad Vashem speech emphasized the Holocaust's universal lessons, which are obviously important. Israel has yet to learn to do this sufficiently well. The legacy of the Holocaust obligates every person to fight racism and protect human rights. It obligates every soldier to refuse a patently illegal order.

But Benedict chose to phrase even the universal lessons of the Holocaust in abstract terms. These may still have a place in the lecture hall of a German theology professor, but in the Internet age, they are little more than empty banalities.


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Comment:

http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2008/12/pope-benedict-criticizes-homosexuals.html

Just watch the descent of Pope Benedict down the steps of his aircraft upon his arrival in Amman airport, Jordan, on his recent Middle East trip.

The wind was up and the pope's small, white cape blew up around his left shoulder and remained stuck there.

His PA, Msgr. Ganschwein noticed it, some minutes later, although he was the other side of a line of dignitaries and some way off.

Ganschwein rushed right round behind this line of dignitaries, over to the pope and flicked the offending garment off the Pope's shoulder.

That says "Mr. and Mrs." to me.

It is certainly not the behaviour one would expect from two straight men.

Also the pope has changed his tailor and the white casssock was very full and billowy; very swishy; very girly.

I am a big, old girl and I know another when I see one and THAT is one.

Keith.

SALFORD.
U.K.