22 Questions for Cardinal Ratzinger and the
Silver Lining in the Election of this first Grand Inquisitor as Pope
By Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox
The other night I was all hooked up to be on "Hardball with
Chris Matthews" to be interviewed about the new pope. I was
listening as he prattled on with some Catholic lawyer about altar
boys and Latin in church when they suddenly cut the line and said
they did not have time for me (I had been promised "at least 30
minutes" and there were 60 minutes left on the show).
I said: "This is a political act." The TV man hooking me up said it
was the "first time in 8 years of working in television" that he had
seen anything like that happen.
I think Chris' Matthews' program should be renamed "Softball." When
it comes to religion the American media is soft, soft, soft.
Thus I have taken it upon myself to feed journalists with some real
questions about this man and his record and his intentions. Twenty
two questions follow:
1. You come from Bavaria, that part of Germany that most admired
Hitler and first voted for him. Did you ever denounce Hitler or
fascism? If so, when? If not, why not?
2. If you denounced Hitler why do you support today the Spanish
priest Escriva who admired Hitler publicly? And why did you rush
Escriva, founder of the Opus Dei movement, into canonization thus
leaving the impression that fascism is a path to holiness?
3. If you denounced Hitler then why do you carry on in his ways such
as
1) bookburning and denouncing of thinkers and theologians? 2)
whipping up hostility toward homosexuals as he did? 3) excluding
women of all decision-making and leadership? 4) create scapegoats
including people of religions other than Catholic, theologians,
women and gay people?
4. Do you want to put gays in concentration camps like Hitler did?
(In the second of two documents you wrote and the past pope signed
denouncing homosexuals you did not cite even ONE scientific study of
homosexuality but cited your catchechism five times. Is this
anti-intellectual attitude not another Galileo case in the making?)
5. Do you know the difference between ideology and theology? Why
have you destroyed the latter by condemning theologians while you
create ideological churchmen by your loyalty oaths? Is this not the
explanation for the scandalous pedophile crisis in the church--that
you have so dumbed down the hierarchy since the only criterion for
their "elevations" is loyalty, that they had neither the
intelligence nor the integrity to stop pedophile priests? Why was
Cardinal Law, the poster boy for hierarchal pedophile support,
"elevated" to a plum parish assignment in Rome?
6. According to a serious study done on the death of Pope John Paul
I, cardinals were part of the plot that killed him. Do you know
which cardinals were involved in his murder and have they ever been
brought to justice?
7. How much was the CIA involved in the rushed election of John Paul
II?
(A CIA agent told me he had been "their man in Poland" for many
years.)
8. You once said you wanted a "smaller church." Might you tell us
why?
Does it have anything to do with absolute control?
9. Do you agree with Lord Acton that "power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely?" What are you--the champion of papal
infallibility (as in "the fuhrer is always right")--doing to prevent
that from happening in your organization?
10. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of
forbidding condoms in a time of AIDS has contributed to the death of
millions in the African continent and beyond?
11. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of no birth
control is contributing to the destruction of 25,000 other species
annually as well as to the degradation of life among human beings?
12. Did Jesus ever say anything at all about condoms or birth
control or homosexuality or the ordination of women? (In fact,
today's scholarship shows how many women were in position of
leadership in the early
church.) Then why are you so sure of your absolutist position?
13. You complain about "the dictatorship of relativism." Isn't there
also--and more easily--a dictatorship of absolutism? Isn't that what
you have been involved in for twenty-five years by aggregating ALL
decision making, all theological teaching, all bishop-making back to
Rome in spite of Vatican II's explicit teaching to spread it to
bishop's conferences and to lay gatherings in parishes?
14. Why do issues of social and economic injustice play so little a
role in your definition of morality which seems to be 98% about sex?
(Hint:
Saint Augustine!)
15. Are you aware that your destruction (with the help of the CIA)
of liberation theology and base communities in Latin America has
stripped Catholicism so bare that Pentecostals are taking over the
continent?
16. Why did you canonize the Escriva who favored Franco and fascism
and not canonize the holy martyr Oscar Romero who favored the poor
against the military in El Salvador?
17. Jesus was on the side of the anawim (those without a voice).
When have you or your dictates ever been on the side of the anawim?
18. Are you a Christian? (A canon lawyer who spent years in Rome
told me that to understand you I had to first realize that you are
not a Christian.) Can you prove it to us please.
19. Are you the first Grand Inquisitor to be elected pope? What does
that tell us about the state of the Roman Catholic Church at this
time in history? How does that feel to be treading such fresh
ground?
20. A Native American woman who is also a Roman Catholic went to
Rome a few years ago for the beatification of Blessed Tekekwitha. It
was her first visit to the Vatican and she was looking forward to
it. However, she came back shaking her head saying, "there are evil
spirits in that place." Was she correct? Have evil spirits taken
over the Vatican at this time in history?
21. Why do you denounce Buddhists as "atheists" and "autoerotocists?"
Why do you condemn Hindus? Protestant churches? Pagans? Goddess
worshippers? Native American believers? Feminists? The practice of
Yoga? (You write that it gets you "too much in touch with your
body").
Is your church--mother of Inquisitions and Crusades and
anti-Semitism--without sin and the holder of all spiritual wisdom?
Why did your church never excommunicate Hitler?
22. Why do you forbid Catholics to talk about God as Mother? God as
Child? Original Blessing instead of Original Sin (which is not in
the Bible)? God as female as well as male?
Now the good news. The silver lining in the election of this, the
first Grand Inquisitor as Pope, is this: Now people of conscience
the world over have a clear choice between Religion and
Spirituality; Fundamentalism and Wisdom; A Punitive Father God and
the Mother-Father Creator of Justice and Compassion; Fascism and
Control vs. Letting the Spirit Work; between a preferential option
for the rich and powerful (cf. Opus Dei) and a preferential option
for the poor (as in liberation theology).
Now all people--and Catholics in particular--are called to find
their consciences and take a stand about the Punitive Father God of
Fundamentalism and the Divine Wisdom of Justice and Compassion and
against idolatry including religious idolatry and papalolatry and
the television cult of personality, and between lies and truth.
This is already happening. I received an e mail this morning from a
life-long Catholic who says she is now leaving the Ratzinger Church.
Ratzinger and his German entourage have been running the Vatican for the last twenty-five years while Pope John Paul II traveled about the world.
From that point of view, nothing has changed.
Only that their head man is now the man out front. ALL bishops and
cardinals have been appointed through Ratzinger already. This is how
he got so many votes so swiftly in the conclave. It is his church.
It is a schismatic church. They are out of touch with the spirit and
letter of Vatican II as well as the person and teachings of Jesus.
A New Reformation can happen swiftly. It is already underway. The
Internet can help feed it. The myths that have kept the Roman
Catholic Church afloat for 1800 years have been washed away. (The
historical Jesus never said: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I
will build my church." That came later.) Maybe the new version of
Christianity need not be Peter based (Roman Catholicism) or Paul
based (the Protestant
option) but Mary Magdalene based. Any takers?
A
