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[FROM THE ARCHIVE: November 29, 2023, originally titled “Religion & Fascism: Examination of Conscience in a Time of Advent”]
Sadly, the Catholic Bishops’ Convention has embarrassed itself once more by declaring that their primary precedence this upcoming presidential election 12 months might be: Abortion.
Not the destruction of democracy and rule of legislation; and never even Local weather Change, the topic of a serious and far heralded encyclical by Pope Francis and, extra just lately, an apostolic exhortation. Within the latter, titled Laudate Deum, the pope calls out the US specifically for its life-style that makes use of seven occasions the quantity of fossil gas vitality per particular person than individuals of the International South.
Did that contact the ethical conscience of American Catholic bishops?
Faith contributed mightily to the promoting of fascism within the Thirties through Fr. Coughlin’s antisemitic radio program, which reached 30 million listeners in a inhabitants of about 150 million.
Mussolini, Franco and Hitler used the church of their reigns of terror, simply as many white evangelicals again at the moment’s model.
The current papacies of JP II and Benedict XVI made it their precedence to destroy liberation theology in Latin America, in cahoots with the then Opus-Dei pushed CIA. And to nominate younger hierarchy in their very own picture, lots of whom are nonetheless working at the moment.
The outsized position that Opus Dei and its philosophy carries with the present Supreme Court docket is evident. Leo Leonardo is their poster boy. Opus Dei is the mind youngster of probably the most corrupt, misogynist and fastest-declared-“saint” in historical past, Jose Escriva, a fascist Spanish priest whose followers had been on the cupboard of Spanish fascist dictator Franco for years.
Fascism with its excessive homophobia and misogynist anti-abortion politics appear to carry a particular attraction to some Roman Catholic hierarchy in America at the moment. Contemplate Archbishop Strickland, Cardinal Burke, his buddy Steve Bannon and the Opus Dei archbishop of Los Angeles, for starters, the latter having led the Nationwide Convention of Bishops for a number of years, together with canonizing Junipero Serra.
Let the season of Creation be a becoming time for collective examination of conscience relating to faith’s position within the historical past of American fascism.
Tailored from Matthew Fox, The Pope’s Warfare: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Campaign Has Imperiled the Church and How It May be Saved, pp. 106-144
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul and Society.
Banner picture: “The Sacrifice: The Rise of Fascism.” Picture by Daniel Arrhakis on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you assume abortion ought to be faith’s primary precedence within the upcoming presidential 12 months? If not, what can be your primary precedence?
Advisable Studying
Matthew Fox challenges the brand new Pope to stay as much as the promise of his namesake St. Francis and reshape a church that has been mired in corruption and bereft of genuine spirituality and rigorous theological debate. Former Dominican priest Matthew Fox presents a collection of heartfelt letters to his brother in Christ concerning the nice challenges dealing with the church at the moment, drawing from the deep religious and theological sources which have been suppressed since Vatican II, and implores him to revive the sensus fidelium (the sense of the devoted) and reshape a church with justice and compassion.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox gives a brand new theology of evil that basically modifications the normal notion of excellent and evil and factors the way in which to a extra enlightened remedy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Jap custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to assume creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we are able to do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anyone single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Religious Implications of the New Physics
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