Joe Ratzinger's orbiter dictum

One of the silliest men on Earth, Joseph Ratzinger a.k.a. Benedict 16, is at it again, defending the Roman Catholic Church's persecution of the astronomer Galileo.

Ratzinger has raised the hackles of scientists and students in Italy for observing that the Inquisition was "reasonable and just" to have tried and convicted Galileo for heresy in the 17th century.

Now Ratzinger has cancelled his scheduled visit to Rome's La Sapienza university in the wake of protests, which are themselves a bit silly.

That the persecution of Galileo was "reasonable and just" is a thought cherry-picked from philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend's provocative "collage" of ideas, Against Method. Unfortunately Ratzinger added, "The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason."

Talk about completely missing the point. There exists a much, much broader context here, that being the history of science, and the manner in which scientific "paradigms" have replaced one another during the course of that history. What Feyerabend was suggesting is that Aristotle, who believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, was better at arguing than was Galileo, not that the means and ends of the Inquisition were defensible, and certainly not that faith is rooted in an even greater form of reason.

In his critique of scientific methodology, Feyerabend compared Aristotle's debating style with Galileo's and argued that even though the latter was correct about the arrangement of the solar system and the former not, Galileo's support for his discoveries was often tainted by "rhetoric, propaganda, and various epistemological tricks," whereas Aristotle's deployment of logical inference was more rigorous. In other words, Aristotle's method was more sound.

That the Inquisition was "reasonable and just" is but pure provocation: "I love to shock people," as Feyerabend put it in his autobiography. It's hardly either reasonable or just to put a man to trial on penalty of torture for challenging the teachings of some religion, although I disagree that Der Papst should be discouraged from propagating his inanities at any particular venue.

Let him speak. He occasionally comes up with some great material.

Donohue's homo bookmarking

Wild Bill Donohue, the irascible fruitcake head of something called the Catholic League, is upset that a website "with homosexual tendencies" has been awarded media credentials to report from next week's Democratic National Convention in Denver.

So he's demanding that Leah Daughtry, who's running the convention, dump the blogger.

Why? Because the site's proprietor wrote a blog post citing a report in the Manchester Guardian that Joseph Ratzinger is the first pope in 40 years to dress himself up in ermine-trimmed robes and hats, complete with what seems to me some entirely fair commentary comparing Ratzinger's fur bearing proclivities with several of his other infallible policy positions.

Also, because it "shows men in jockstraps and underwear" (although, mercifully, Joseph Ratzinger is not among those, ermine-trimmed or otherwise). But so do store catalogs, don't they?

What the heck is Wild Bill Donohue doing trolling around on gay websites, is what I'd like to know. Shopping for underwear?

Here it is.

Dolan misses, then makes, columnist's point

Timothy Dolan, who is the Archbishop of Milwaukee, in purporting to address a question posed by one of the Journal-Sentinel's community columnists, completely sidestepped it and answered a different one, a question that wasn't even asked.

The columnist wondered, where does religious fanaticism come from, and Dolan replied, religious belief does not equal fanaticism.

But the columnist, Thomas Zachek, never said that it did.

Interestingly, Dolan is sympathetic to most of Zachek's critical observations pertaining to all those other religions, until Zachek gets to Dolan's particular religion of choice, Roman Catholicism.

In the meantime, Zachek correctly observes that "most believers are pretty sensible and not given to [fanatical] extremes." Despite that clear enunciation, Archbishop Dolan inexplicably accuses Zachek of "reduc[ing] all religious belief to fanaticism."

Zachek invoked Joseph Ratzinger, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI, and the latter's admonition that Roman Catholicism is the only one "true" religion, and that all the other religions are in some way defective.

But that's not the same as saying that Roman Catholicism is fanatical per se, only that bold claims to the one true religion are the seeds of fanaticism. Much unfortunate history supports this.

Thomas Zachek certainly wasn't the first person to point that out:

Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

And those claims say nothing — which is to say, quite a lot indeed — about all the non-Christian religions, none of which, by definition, are "true" paths, according to Ratzinger.

Nor is Zachek the only one to have challenged Ratzinger's assertions:

The statement brought swift criticism from Protestant leaders. "It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity," said the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a fellowship of 75 million Protestants in more than 100 countries.

Dolan didn't rebut Zachek's point, he reinforced it.

Pope warns against supernaturalism

Continuing his 2009 Tour of Africa, Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI) admonished Angolans to abandon their unusual beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery.

Earlier, performing an ancient and mysterious incantation, Mr. Ratzinger purported to transform a slice of bread and a goblet of wine into the body and blood of a legendary 1st century Rabbi.

Der Papa is traveling the sub-Sahara in an armored, glass-enclosed Mercedes Benz, into which His Holiness is elevated by hydraulic lift.

Two of the faithful met an untimely despatch Heavenward after they were trampled outside a soccer stadium, the scene of Mr. Ratzinger's latest engagement. Eight others were reported hospitalized for undisclosed afflictions. Which doctors were assigned is also unknown.

Closer to home, a Madison Bishop fired a beloved member of the Catholic laity for the crime of being much too intellectually honest.

Pope's broham was Bobby Knight of the bishopric

Boy soprano recounts undentured servitude

"Ratzinger was extremely choleric and quick-tempered during choir practice," says Thomas Mayer, who was a student at the choir boarding school from 1988 to 1992. "On a number of occasions, I saw him get so angry that he threw a chair into our group of singers." Once Ratzinger flew into such a rage during choir practice "that even his false teeth fell out."

— Der Spiegel

Contradiction fails to trigger priest's recollection

Presided over 200-count pederast's "church criminal trial"

[A] letter seemingly written by [former Milwaukee canon law judge Thomas] Brundage to [former Milwaukee archbishop Rembert] Weakland on Aug. 15, 1998, shows Brundage actually drafted Weakland's [Aug. 19, 1998] letter to [then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lieutenant Tarcisio] Bertone.

So let me get this straight. Brundage achieved celebrity this week denying awareness of the contents of Rembert Weakland's letter to Ratzinger's main man at the former office of the Inquisition, but today it turns out that Brundage himself drafted the very letter.

Is that about right?

Only two days ago, Brundage had said he didn't see Weakland's letter — the one he drafted — until he read about it in the New York Times.

He voiced dismay at the apparent contradiction. "I have no memory of ever being asked to abate the case," Brundage said.

J-S: Weakland never told me what I told him to tell future pope

And: Vatican cited "apparent good conduct" at Boulder Junction, WI

More like, I-got-you-away-from-a-parent bad conduct.

Bonus headline of the week:
Satan: father of lies, publisher of the New York Times

— David Horowitz's NewsRealBlog

Great, there's nothing like dragging that up today.

Happy Passover.

Pope exorcises exorcist

A Vatican flack has denied statements by the Holy See's top caster out of demons, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, declaring that every Catholic diocese will be equipped with a platoon of exorcists.

The papal spokesman said Joseph Ratzinger, a.k.a. Benedict 16, "has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession.”

According to the London Daily Torygraph, Amorth told a Catholic website, Petrus, the teams of exorcists would be deployed to combat “extreme godlessness.” As opposed to mild godlessness, presumably.

“Too many bishops are not taking this seriously,” Amorth added. Well, you can hardly blame them for that, since it takes a degree of extreme sillyfulness to do so. It's difficult to say who's flakier, the demon worshipers or the exorcists and their Vatican City sponsors, since the baseline for flakiness, which they all occupy, is buying into these nonsensical superstitions.

Satan is making inroads with modern youth via rock music and the internets, according to the Vatican. And, quoth Amorth, “Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of darkness, the Devil.”

Also noteworthy is this item from the Torygraph:

A Roman Catholic bishop has caused fury in Spain by claiming that some teenagers "want to be abused."

Bishop Bernardo Álvarez of Tenerife told a newspaper: "There are 13-year-olds who are in agreement and even want it; even, if you don't watch out, provoking you."

Sounds like Ratzinger still has a few demons of his own to expunge.

Papal encyclical may be "naïve or dumb"

Says this guy, bemoaning all that Catholic "peace and justice" crap.

h/t Former Marquette law school "alum blogger of the month" Daniel Suhr, who is concerned that some actual teachings of Jesus Christ might have inadvertently contaminated Herr Ratzinger's otherwise infallible commitment to free market capitalism and union busting.

Man in private jet warns of climate change

Pedophilia also bad idea, adds Ratzinger.

Court affirms right to annoy Catholics

Just don't inconvenience them.

[The court] also found the concept of annoyance had "no intelligible boundary."

It's unclear how the court's ruling squares with Joseph Ratzinger's personal, subjective experiences of absolute morality.

Personhood also above Ratzinger's pay grade

The assumption of Obama's critics is that a president should always reduce complex issues to simple black and white truisms, unfounded in reality. That's why they supported Bush. And that's why they're supporting McCain.

Andrew Sullivan.

Recall that Rick Warren didn't ask Barack Obama 'When does life begin,' but rather, "At what point does a baby get human rights."

John McCain got, "At what point is a baby entitled to human rights." Those are two very different questions, in that one may not get what one is entitled to — and vice versa — and both are quite a bit different than 'When does life begin,' a separate inquiry to which McCain seems to have been responding.

Needless to say, the right-wingers are currently engrossed in a typical self-righteous snit, despite apparently not even having considered the meaning of the questions themselves. Much like John McCain.

McIlheran indicts another Milwaukee archbishop

Call it a cover-up or the naivete of the era, but either way, a lot of that blame seems to belong to then-Archbishop William Cousins, who decided to send Murphy off to live in what amounts to exile at his mother's house ...

Neither are particularly desirable options.

And given that former MKE archbishop Rembert Weakland's 'We knew molesting children was wrong but we didn't know it was illegal' line elicited guffaws even from the faithful, I guess that leaves cover-up.

This is supposed to be a defense to allegations of conspiracy.

The award-winning right-wing guy: Anybody but Mr. Ratzinger.

Flashback: McIlheran connects education adviser with NAMBLA.

Yes, isn't it just awful what these people are trying to do to the pope.

Aren't there any honest conservative columnists?

Ratzinger faces infallibility challenge

Re-excommunicate Holocaust denier, say German bishops:

Williamson, a Briton who now lives in Argentina ...

Cor blimey, what a dead giveaway!

Avignon remains home to antipope

France Chastises Pope on Condoms

HIV/Aids was, [Ratzinger] argued [sic], "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem."

I guess, if you believe that distributing condoms will encourage people to have intercourse they wouldn't otherwise be having.

But I think the point is that — most humans being simply humans and not celibate male religious leaders — because folks are more likely to be having intercourse anyway, they stand a better chance of not communicating or contracting STDs by introducing a latex barrier.

Just one of the many reasons why I'm not the pope.

It's too cold to harass topless women

So Ralph Ovadal is subsidizing Madison public transit. Personally, I'd take being called a fool by Ralph Ovadal as a compliment. But how old Joseph Ratzinger takes to being called the Antichrist, I cannot say.

It's nice to see Ralph back in the news. He's always good for a laugh.

Kissing not as bad as Hitler for German pope

That is seriously the premise of McIlheran's column today. Reports McIlheran, when protesters staged a kiss-in along the papal parade route in Barcelona, they would have failed at perturbing Mr. Ratzinger, 83, as he had "endured the rise and fall of the Nazis."

Me too, whenever I hear about gay people, I automatically think of the Third Reich. I mean, who doesn't. Nazi regalia is sexy.

McIlheran was also comforted by the fact that because the kissing "tantrum was overwhelmed by reverence," fewer Spanish nationals will be tortured eternally in McIlheran's contemplated afterlife.

However McIlheran's source (a link he found on the internets) said it wasn't clear if the pope was aware of the kiss-in, as he communed with the faithful sealed in an airtight bulletproof glass box on wheels.

The Beeb takes the Popemobile for a spin: "German, of course."

Would you believe the pope had an F-150.

Fun Pontiffact: Paul VI was one of the last Italian popes, which is why there was always a soccer ball in the trunk of his Popemobile.

Empirical evidence for God mounts

Celibacy joins flowers, stars, and the Bible on growing list of proofs:

The pope acknowledged [sarcastically?] that celibacy was itself "a great scandal" in a world where people have no need for God. But he called it "a great sign of faith, of the presence of God in the world."

That's a new one. Fortunately celibacy's opposite number made it possible for Mr. Ratzinger (b. 1927) to expound this latest claim.

Yet in Reformation theology, God encourages relentless copulation. According to Der Pabst, His presence is simply not made manifest on those fleshly occasions, in spite of the impassioned cries out to Him.

He'll be back when you people quit rutting.

By how much can you miss a point

Über-Catholic Dad29, when he's not obsessively navel gazing over liturgical minutiae, occasionally unearths some classic material. For example this gem, delivered in elegantly scented Jesuit prose, alleged to debunk a couple of recent bestsellers, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens's God is Not Great.

Via ol' Dad, Fr. Edward Oakes, S.J. (I can never see those initials without thinking of Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J., one of Ambrose Bierce's fictional collaborators on The Devil's Dictionary) disgorges the following:

It is ... blinkered ahistorical myopia that makes reading these books such a surreal experience. For like a “red thread” running through all their other arguments, each book has one central claim: Belief in God causes violence. The obvious corollary to this thesis is almost too absurdly risible to merit formulation, and some authors are just coy (or embarrassed) enough not to say it out loud; but others are bolder and shout it from the rooftops: If only atheism would take hold as the majority view throughout the globe, humans would lose their propensity for violence, lion would nestle beside the lamb, children would regain their long-lost happiness, swords would magically turn into plowshares, churches would empty and the resultant collapse in the market-price for incense would alone reverse global warming.

Eh, no. Neither author claims that said belief is the sole cause of violence, nor that the absence of belief would eradicate all violence. Only that belief has led to much violence, and postulates that whatever violence proceeded from belief may well have not occurred in its absence. So that leaves Oakes, S.J. with, well, appeals to Adolf Hitler and Joe Ratzinger, as it turns out. In other words, nothing.

Speaking of risible, as if on cue, the esteemed Professor John McAdams wanders cluelessly into ol' Dad's comments thread to deposit this profoundly rudimentary misunderstanding:

[Re:] The burden of proof is on the one making a claim.

Yea [verily?], but saying God exists is a claim, and saying that He does not is a claim.

Your claims don't get any special advantages.

Except Dawkins, for one, makes no such claim. Dawkins is a scientist, and scientists don't go around claiming to prove the non-existence of beings, supernatural or otherwise. In fact, throughout Dawkins's frequently uproariously funny book, he allows for the — albeit vanishingly small — possibility of "god." His point is that the evidence for it is nil and the arguments in favor of its existence are so threadbare and unconvincing, it's more than reasonable to rule out god in the meantime, for the most part.

That being the 99.99999999999999999999999999999% part.

This is generally the position of most atheists, and also why the claims are not comparable as McAdams seems to think.

Oddly enough, ol' Dad's webpage prominently displays an animated "God Bless America" graphic, which in turn features images of the destruction of the World Trade Center. If memory serves, that event was engineered and conducted by a gentleman named Mohammed Atta, who left frighteningly detailed directions as to the proper ablutions to be performed over his corpse on the occasion of his successful religious martyrdom and ensconcement at Valhalla.

Notably, he didn't ask to be buried with copies of Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Note: The author denies his insolence is evidence for the existence of god, although he acknowledges the argument has been made.

Pederasts roamed, but Ratzinger was on the case

In 1981, the now-Vicar of Christ on Earth punished a priest for holding a Mass at a peace demonstration, leading the man to ultimately leave the priesthood.

The man was said to have eventually discovered Jesus.

"The most evil, remorseless sociopath of the lot."

But the priest was skillful with a rope and a true lover's knot

John S. Cummins, the former bishop of Oakland who repeatedly wrote his superiors in Rome urging that the priest be defrocked, said the Vatican in that era, after the Second Vatican Council, was especially reluctant to dismiss priests because so many were abandoning the priesthood.

Optimus contemplor, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger