Pope to resign (first in 600 years)

[8bitagent]

[crikkett]

About time we had a fresh apocalypse on the horizon...

Something I was speculating about, myself.

[NeonLX]

Aww, crap...never mind, somebody beat me to it (lightning striking the Vatican).

[IanEye]

*



it's not enough to pray to God when you're in Rome
or having photos taken getting head in Viet Nam



and even if you kill your self it won't be worth your while
'cause no one is going to stop you, no one wants to stop you

*

[justdrew]

Papal cuts: why is he really resigning?
by digby | Monday, February 11, 2013
Adele Stan addresses what virtually everyone is thinking but nobody will admit (at least on TV, particularly MSNBC where "pope news" is right up there with a terrorist attack for the amount of attention it garners.)

Citing age and infirmity as his reason for leaving the papacy, Benedict's action comes just weeks after he opened his celebrated Twitter account -- and less than a month after the decades-old child abuse scandal drew nearer to the pope's door, with revelations published in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month that Cardinal Roger Mahony, then Archbishop of Los Angeles, sought to evade the law in cases involving the sexual abuse of children by the priests in his charge by sending them to treatment facilities in states that did not require health professionals to report the crimes to authorities.

At the time that Mahony was covering up the crimes of his priests, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that oversaw such matters.

In archdiocese documents released under a court order earlier this month, Mahony is revealed to have taken actions deliberately contrived to avoid legal prosecution of priests who had sexually abused, and even raped, children. The documents were so damaging that Mahony, now retired and once thought to be a contender for the papacy, was publicly rebuked by the current Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez, and stripped of any public duties, an unprecedented censure of a cardinal archbishop by his successor.

Amid the cache of church records, released as part of a settlement between the archdiocese and 500 sex-abuse victims, are several letters to Ratzinger from Mahoney, in which the California prelate reports to the Vatican his reasons for various actions (such as defrocking) taken against the offending priests. The records amount to some 30,000 pages, so their full contents have yet to be pored through by investigators and journalists.

What is clear, though, is that Mahony repeatedly failed to act on concerns about the sexual abuse of children by priests that brought to him by pastors and church officials throughout the diocese, and that when he did, his actions were designed to avoid criminal prosecutions of the predator priests. And it is also clear that in his Vatican office, Ratzinger was the recipient of letters from Mahony informing the Holy See of what actions he had taken.

They haven't even begun to scratch the surface of these document. Mahoney and Ratzinger worked closely together and Mahoney was previously thought to be one of the rare exceptions to the Cardinal cover-up, at least to the degree he's recently been revealed to have been involved. So, most likely, was Ratzinger. Stay tuned.

The one thing I'm glad about is that Tim Russert isn't going to be running the "Pope Watch" coverage, although Chris Matthews looks to be stepping up quite gladly. For those of us who have a justifiably jaundiced view of the Catholic hierarchy, it get pretty hard to take.

[conniption]

aangirfan.blogspot

Tuesday, February 12, 2013
CIA TO CHOOSE NEXT POPE?


Cardinal Bertone (right)

"The Secretary of State and the real power behind the papacy is Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, an old insider who also engineered the sacking of Gotti Tedeschi, head of the Vatican Bank, last May.

"Tedeschi had taken seriously the call of the European Parliament for 'greater transparency' by the Vatican Bank /IOR, and was about to disclose to Brussels how his bosses had been laundering money for the mob for decades.

"It was the pivotal Cardinal Bertone who leaked the pope's diary and other incriminating papers to a catholic-friendly journalist in Rome last year .... to prepare the world for Ratzinger's removal."

Penny for your thoughts - Ratzinger Resigns: Follow the Vatican Bank Money

continued

*

bbc

Papal conclave: Runners and riders

Canon Law states that any male who has been baptised is eligible to be elected, but since the late 14th Century the Pope has come from this body of Princes of the Church.

A post once almost exclusively held by Italians has most recently been filled by a Pole and a German, so the race is open, although the composition of the electors offers clues to who might be a frontrunner for the papacy - or papabile.

A two-thirds-plus-one vote majority is required, meaning the man elected is likely to be a compromise candidate. Sixty-seven of the electors were appointed by Benedict XVI, and 50 by his predecessor John Paul II.

About half the cardinal-electors (61) are European - 21 of those being Italian - and many have worked for the administrative body of the Church, the Curia, in Rome.

Thus, a candidate's credentials will be bolstered if he has Curial experience and affinity with Europe - a working knowledge of Italian is seen as a prerequisite.

But there is also speculation the new pontiff may come from one of the Church's growth areas - 42% of the world's 1.2bn Catholics come from Latin America, as do a sixth of the electors.

Here is a selection of the leading papabili.

continued

[8bitagent]

Aw drat, so Palatine isnt resigning over guilt from covering up deaf kids being raped...shame.
Not even my Catholic friends give a crap about the bloated carcass known as the Palpacy.

It's so fucking funny how the Vatican talks about exorcisms, the "occult", etc...nothing on this planet is more overtly steeped in black occultism than the goofy ornate pagentry of the Catholic Church and Vatican.
Good god please let this and other religions die finally

[justdrew]

and i said it was finally over

[Allegro]

Who will be the next pope: Top 15 choices
Matador Network, Josh Heller | February 11, 2013


^ Photo via http://www.telegraph.co.uk

WITH BOOKIES already offering odds on who will become the next pope, I have a few suggestions to add to the list.

Listen, I know there’s a whole process for coming up with new popes. A college of cardinals or something. But this is what they’ve been using for several hundred years. The last time a pope resigned was 600 years ago. They need to upgrade their system and just choose people who are famous, not necessarily qualified or pious or Catholic or even want the job.

We need a pope who wasn’t in the Hitler Youth and didn’t shield sex criminals and hasn’t enraged the Muslim world. We need a pope that the whole world will be cool with. So I’m submitting to you my top 15 best picks for popes.

1. Justin Bieber

It seems like a goal for the Catholic establishment is to get more young people psyched on the Church. So they should just co-opt a thing that people are already into. Young people are really into Bieber, ergo Bieber should become the pope.

2. Justin Timberlake

Timberlake would be a good transitionary figure for pope. Today he is a successful singer who’s decided to try to make dreadfully uncool MySpace cool again. He’d do this with the Vatican.

3. GW Bush

This guy is just chilling on his riches. He’s out of work and could use something to do. I’m not saying he should become the pope, but should at least be considered for the position.

4. Janelle Monae

She’s got a cool attitude, cool look, and cool sound. She’d also break many walls as the first female and the first African American pope. She’d also be the first android pope since Clement V of the 14th century.

5. Skrillex

Never in the history of the papacy has there ever been an advocate for sick beats and wonky basslines. Skrillex could also easily adapt his Twitter username into the pope’s (“pontifex” vs. “skrillex”).

6. Kanye West

It’s less that Kanye would be a good pope, and more that it’d be good for the world to have Kanye ascend to this position, mostly because it’d keep him humble.

7. Madonna

Might be confusing because she’s already named after a bigwig in the Catholic canon, but she’d revolutionize the office…and make it more dance-floor friendly.

8. Carrie Underwood

I don’t know much about Carrie Underwood, but I think she is a singer, and as we’ve seen through the 1971 classic “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony),” world peace can be achieved by just getting people to learn their parts and sing together.

9. Whoopi Goldberg

She’s been in Ghost and on The View. Enough said.

10. Bill Murray

It’s less that he should actually become pope, and more that every time I write an absurdly speculative list of celebrities it’s impossible to omit him. Sorry — it’s more my issue than his.

11. Dr. Dre

Dropped some classic records, signed Eminem, and 50 Cent, then convinced a generation to buy $200 headphones. This is the kind of genius that the papacy needs to succeed in a consumer-driven economy. Plus, Dre could update some of those old hymns.

12. Clarence Carter’s song “Patches”

I dunno, it’s just that I’ve been playing this song on repeat a lot and I think it’s pretty funky, but it’s also about an impoverished young man who fulfills his commitment to family, which seems like a value that a pope would be into.

13. Sean Penn

Where the rest of the world turned its back on Haiti, Sean Penn showed that he still cared by using his fortunes to help rebuild their infrastructure. Rumor also has it that the current pope’s favorite movie (which he’s been illegally streaming) is I Am Sam. Because allegedly “that Beatles covers soundtrack is totally freaking dope.”

14. General David Petraeus

When you really look closely at his name it makes you think of pterodactyls, which were flying dinosaurs. We need a pope whose name reminds us of flying dinosaurs.

15. A potato

Yo I realize this a controversial submission, but let’s get down to the cold hard facts: “Pope” is translated into Spanish as “papa,” which is also the word for potato. So it’s basically most of the way there. Potatoes are hearty vegetables that can do the job and feed the world at the same time.

[seemslikeadream]

The Great Catholic Cover-Up
The pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it.
By Christopher Hitchens|Posted Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, at 12:00 PM ET
Citing wavering strength of mind and body, Pope Benedict XVI announced his decision to resign from the papacy at the end of February. He will be the first pope to abdicate in nearly six centuries. In 2010, as allegations of pedophilic priests continued to swirl, Christopher Hitchens decried individual and institutional corruption within the church’s sacred walls. His original article is reprinted below.

Pope Benedict XVI
On March 10, the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican," and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true—including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia." This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanation.
Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing—indeed endless—scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse." He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed."

He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.)
There are two separate but related matters here: First, the individual responsibility of the pope in one instance of this moral nightmare and, second, his more general and institutional responsibility for the wider lawbreaking and for the shame and disgrace that go with it. The first story is easily told, and it is not denied by anybody. In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing "abuse"?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for "therapy" by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger's deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to "pastoral" work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.
It is, of course, claimed, and it will no doubt later be partially un-claimed, that Ratzinger himself knew nothing of this second outrage. I quote, here, from the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a former employee of the Vatican Embassy in Washington and an early critic of the Catholic Church's sloth in responding to child-rape allegations. "Nonsense," he says. "Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He's the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he's trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope."
This is common or garden stuff, very familiar to American and Australian and Irish Catholics whose children's rape and torture, and the cover-up of same by the tactic of moving rapists and torturers from parish to parish, has been painstakingly and comprehensively exposed. It's on a level with the recent belated admission by the pope's brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, that while he knew nothing about sexual assault at the choir school he ran between 1964 and 1994, now that he remembers it, he is sorry for his practice of slapping the boys around.
Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics.) Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)
Not content with shielding its own priests from the law, Ratzinger's office even wrote its own private statute of limitations. The church's jurisdiction, claimed Ratzinger, "begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age" and then lasts for 10 more years. Daniel Shea, the attorney for two victims who sued Ratzinger and a church in Texas, correctly describes that latter stipulation as an obstruction of justice. "You can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10, the priest will get away with it."
The next item on this grisly docket will be the revival of the long-standing allegations against the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the ultra-reactionary Legion of Christ, in which sexual assault seems to have been almost part of the liturgy. Senior ex-members of this secretive order found their complaints ignored and overridden by Ratzinger during the 1990s, if only because Father Maciel had been praised by the then-Pope John Paul II as an "efficacious guide to youth." And now behold the harvest of this long campaign of obfuscation. The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a mediocre Bavarian bureaucrat once tasked with the concealment of the foulest iniquity, whose ineptitude in that job now shows him to us as a man personally and professionally responsible for enabling a filthy wave of crime. Ratzinger himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil—a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel. What is needed is not medieval incantation but the application of justice—and speedily at that.

[smoking since 1879]

/*
Christopher Hitchens ?, Christopher Eric Hitchens ?
Born 13 April 1949 Died 15 December 2011... ?
I guess he was wrong after all and there IS and afterlife, and it has the internet too
*/

ON EDIT..
guess i should have actually read the article

[2012 Countdown]

IanEye,
Great musical selection (Gregory Gray- 'Pope does not..."). Thats pretty obscure, no? I mean, I happen to have that CD. The radio station played that song once on the radio by mistake one night a few years ago. I called in because I had never heard of it or him and wanted to get it. I liked the tune so much on first listen that I called in and got the info. He said then he'd played it by mistake and it wasn't supposed to be on air. I'm glad I'd called in, otherwise I would not have gotten the info or heard the song again. I don't think he did another album either...anyway, good tune. Good CD too.

[IanEye]

(Gregory Gray- 'Pope does not..."). Thats pretty obscure, no?

when that gregory gray album came out i was working in a record store and i saw that "pope" cd single in the "free bin" and i liked the cover, so i took it home.
i used to put it on mix tapes all the time.



in a way, Mr. Gray's delivery reminded me of Vic Chesnutt, in terms of the world weariness, different accents though!

[barracuda]

The Ratz are deserting the ship.

[SonicG]