¿QUÉ ESPERAR DE ESTE BLOG?

• Una afición insana por el programa de autos de la BBC Top Gear.
• Escritos corrosivos y altamente parciales en contra de la Iglesia, generalmente la Católica Apostólica Romana.
• Un flaco tirando soretes a un ventilador prendido, tratando de exponer a los Kirchner por lo que son: demagogos, capitalistas, estafadores, mafiosos, clientelistas, ladrones y verdugos de nuestra Argentina.
• Amor oscilante por las bicicletas.
• Obsesión justificada por Star Wars (al menos lo que hoy se conoce como episodios IV, V y VI).
• Posts aleatorios acerca de cine: defenestrando la máquina de hacer chorizos que es Hollywood y reivindicando algunas pequeñas películas que a mi me gustan.
• El acto de compartir web sites oscuros, pero ácidos y divertidos.
• Profesiones de odio en contra de las malditas PC y el maldito Windows.
• Declaraciones de amor incondicional a las Mac y en general a cualquier cosa Apple.
• Documentales breves de mis viajes.
• Reseñas de libros que disfruto, la mayoría oscuros y de ningún valor cultural para las masas.
• Fotos altamente parciales acerca de mi vida, mi casa, de Rose -mi pareja- y mi mascota. Todas ellas me hacen parecer más flaco de lo que realmente estoy.
• Relatos que me hacen parecer un superhéroe que está siempre en lo correcto. (Verosímil pero fantasioso.)
• Cobertura de diferentes obras de arte en madera.
• Algún post errático acerca de el mejor instrumento de todos: la armónica.
• Paseos virtuales acerca de mi alter-ego: un estudiante del CBC de 34 años, que sueña con ser Diseñador Industrial antes de que vuelva a cambiar el mileño.

Después no digan que no les avisé.

LO ENCONTRE x accidente. Estaba BUSCANDO OTRA COSA... #2

Bishop Williamson's mad conspiracy theories - how could the Pope rehabilitate him?

"The Jews created Holocaust" and "US planned 9/11"

04.02.2009 - 11:10 UHR By Einar Koch

 
Pope Benedict XVI's decision to rehabilitate Holocaust-denier Bishop Richard Williamson back into the Catholic Church has been heavily criticised - but does the Vatican really know the extent of Williamson's outrageous beliefs?


Williamson (68) was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1988 and has now been rehabilitated by Benedict XVI. He is currently in the priest seminary of the ultra conservative Society of St. Pius X, in Argentina, hidden behind thick walls lined with barbed wire. (NdelT: que curiosamente es el mismo lugar en el que se escondieron los nazis...)


People around the world are now asking themselves - how could the Pope rehabilitate this madman?

The British born Bishop has often publicly denied the Holocaust. In December 2008 Williamson said in a Swedish television interview: "I think the most serious conclude that between 200,000 to 300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber. I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, 6 million Jews having been gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."

It is not the first time Williamson had made such outrageous claims: In a 1989 sermon in Canada he said “The Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new State of Israel... Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil, and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism.”

But that is not the extent of his shocking conspiracy theories: Williamson also believes that on 9/11 the two towers weren’t destroyed by terrorist suicide bombers but rather “they were professionally demolished by a series of demolition charges from the top to bottom of the towers.” The bishop believes that the US planned the attacks for their own means and that “without 9/11, it would have been impossible to attack in Afghanistan or Iraq… And now the same forces want to do the same thing to Iran. . . They may well be plotting another 9/11."

The Bishop also has strong sexist beliefs, and wrote in a 2001 letter that women shouldn’t be allowed secondary education or to wear trousers: “Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God's Nature which characterizes our times.”

Pope Benedict XVI has been heavily criticised by Bishops in his native Germany over his decision to welcome back Williamson - with one theologian calling upon him to resign over the matter.

Pope: condoms can be justified in some cases

By NICOLE WINFIELD and FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop the spread of HIV, a stunning comment for a church criticized for its opposition to condoms and for a pontiff who has blamed them for making the AIDS crisis worse.


The pope made the comments in a book-length interview with a German journalist, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times," which is being released Tuesday. The Vatican newspaper ran excerpts on Saturday.

Church teaching has long opposed condoms because they are a form of artificial contraception, although it has never released an explicit policy about condoms and HIV. The Vatican has been harshly criticized for its opposition.

Benedict said that condoms are not a moral solution. But he said in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, they could be justified "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection."

Benedict called it "a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way of living sexuality."

He used as an example male prostitutes, for whom contraception is not an issue, as opposed to married couples where one spouse is infected. The Vatican has come under pressure from even some church officials in Africa to condone condom use for monogamous married couples to protect the uninfected spouse from getting infected.

Benedict drew the wrath of the United Nations, European governments and AIDS activisits when he told reporters en route to Africa in 2009 that the AIDS problem on the continent couldn't be resolved by distributing condoms.

"On the contrary, it increases the problem," he said then.

Journalist Peter Seewald, who interviewed Benedict over the course of six days this summer, raised the Africa condom comments and asked Benedict if it wasn't "madness" for the Vatican to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility," Benedict said.

But he stressed that it wasn't the way to deal with the evil of HIV, and elsewhere in the book reaffirmed church teaching on contraception and abortion, saying: "How many children are killed who might one day have been geniuses, who could have given humanity something new, who could have given us a new Mozart or some new technical discovery?"

He reiterated the church's position that abstinence and marital fidelity is the only sure way to prevent HIV.

Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, the Vatican's longtime top official on bioethics and sexuality, elaborated on the pontiff's comments, stressing that it was imperative to "make certain that this is the only way to save a life." Sgreccia told the Italian news agency ANSA that that is why the pope on the condom issue "dealt with it in the realm of ecceptionality."

The condom question was one that "needed an answer for a long time," Sgreccia was quoted as saying. "If Benedict XVI raised the question of exceptions, this expection must be accepted ... and it must be verified that this is the only way to save life. This must be demonstrated," Sgreccia said.

Christian Weisner, of the pro-reform group We Are Church in the pope's native Germany, said the pope's comments were "surprising, and if that's the case one can be happy about the pope's ability to learn."

William Portier, a Catholic theologian at the University of Dayton, a Marianist school in Ohio, said he had not read the report in the Vatican newspaper, but he said it would be wrong to conclude that the comments mean the pope has made a fundamental, broad change in church teaching on artificial contraception.

"He's not going to do that in an offhand remark to a journalist in an interview," Portier said.

In other comments, Benedict said:

• If a pope is no longer physically, psychologically or spiritually capable of doing his job, then he has the "right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign."

• On Islam, in Europe, he declined to endorse such moves as France's banning the burqa or Switzerland's citizen referendum to forbid topping mosques with minarets.

"Christians are tolerant, and in that respect they also allow others to have their self-image," Benedict replied when asked if Christians should be "glad" about such initiatives. "As for the burqa, I can see no reason for a general ban."

• He was surprised by the scale of clerical sex abuse in his native Germany and acknowledged that the Vatican could have better communicated its response. "One can always wonder whether the pope should not speak more often."

• On Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff accused by some Jewish groups of staying publicly silent on the Holocaust: Some historians have asked the Vatican to put Pius' sainthood process on hold until the Holy See opens up its archives from his papacy. But Benedict said an internal "inspection" of those unpublished documents failed to support "negative" allegations against Pius.

"It is perfectly clear that as soon as he protested publicly, the Germans would have ceased to respect" Vatican extraterritoriality of convents and monasteries who were sheltering Jews from the Nazi occupiers in Rome. "The thousands who had found a safe haven ... would have been surely deported," Benedict argued.

In the book, Benedict also offers insights into his private life, saying he enjoys watching TV at home in the evenings with his secretaries and the four women who take care of his apartment, preferring the evening news and an Italian TV show from decades ago "Don Camillo and Peppone" about a parish priest and his bumbling assistant.

He said he always wears his white cassock, never a sweater, and wears an old Junghans watch that was left to him by his sister when she died. When he prays, he said, he prays to the Lord as well as the saints and considers himself good friends with Sts. Augustine, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas.

UNION COMUN

Si se puede argumentar que la comunión es el sacramento más importante de la religión católica, y está establecido que la palabra comunión y la palabra comunismo tienen la misma raíz etimológica, alguien me puede explicar, ¿por qué catzo la iglesia es enemiga declarada del comunismo?

"RELIGULOUS"

I AM NOT ALONE: Alguien que se hace las mismas preguntas que yo. Si bien no estoy de acuerdo con el approach del ñato, creo que las preguntas que hace son muy pero MUY acertadas.



" [...] Unfortunately, before man figured out how to be rational or peaceful, he figured out nuclear weapons." Bill Maher

"l certainly honestly believe religion is detrimental to the progress of humanity." Bill Maher

"l believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what l believe, and that's one part of my foreign policy." George W. Bush

"You need a Holy Ghost enema right up your rear end!" Anonymous Nutjob.

"-l am Jesus Christ man, the second coming of Christ, l am.
-Not just because you have-- you share the name Jesus?
-No, not because of that.
-You also share the name Miranda. Maybe you're Carmen Miranda. Maybe the second coming of her? You should have fruit on your head, instead of fruit in your head." Bill Maher entrevistando a José Luis de Jesus Miranda (Portorriqueño que reside en Miami)

"-lt's a monotheistic religion, but there's three of them.
-Just like water can be ice, steam and water." Amusement Park Jesus.

"-A Vatican astronomer. lt's one of those terms like ''gay Republican''--
-lt's not that the church has the idea, you know, they're gonna train us up so we can be the first ones out there to baptize those extraterrestrials before the Mormons get at 'em."
[...] "The Christian Scriptures were written between about 2,000 years before Christ to about 200 years after Christ. That's it. Modern science came to be with Galileo up through Newton, up through Einstein. What we know as modern science, okay, is in that period. How in the world could there be any science in scripture?" Father George Coyne PhD

Future pope stalled pedophile case

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES – The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature. The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office. The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle. The Vatican confirmed Friday that it was Ratzinger's signature. "The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said. Another spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the letter showed no attempt at a cover-up. "The then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn't cover up the case, but as the letter clearly shows, made clear the need to study the case with more attention, taking into account the good of all involved." The diocese recommended removing Kiesle (KEEZ'-lee) from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests. The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church. In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of "grave significance" but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department. But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time. Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory. As his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese submitted papers to Rome to defrock him. In his earliest letter to Ratzinger, Cummins warned that returning Kiesle to ministry would cause more of a scandal than stripping him of his priestly powers. "It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry," Cummins wrote in 1982. While papers obtained by the AP include only one letter with Ratzinger's signature, correspondence and internal memos from the diocese refer to a letter dated Nov. 17, 1981, from the then-cardinal to the bishop. Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a week later. California church officials wrote to Ratzinger at least three times to check on the status of Kiesle's case and Cummins discussed the case with officials during a Vatican visit, according to correspondence. At one point, a Vatican official wrote to say the file may have been lost and suggested resubmitting materials. Diocese officials considered writing Ratzinger again after they received his 1985 response to impress upon him that leaving Kiesle in the ministry would harm the church, Rev. George Mockel wrote in a memo to the Oakland bishop. "My own reading of this letter is that basically they are going to sit on it until Steve gets quite a bit older," the memo said. "Despite his young age, the particular and unique circumstances of this case would seem to make it a greater scandal if he were not laicized." As Kiesle's fate was being weighed in Rome, the priest returned to suburban Pinole to volunteer as a youth minister at St. Joseph Church, where he had served as associate pastor from 1972 to 1975. Kiesle was ultimately stripped of his priestly powers on Feb. 13, 1987, though the documents do not indicate how or why. They also don't say what role — if any — Ratzinger had in the decision. Kiesle continued to volunteer with children, according to Maurine Behrend, who worked in the Oakland diocese's youth ministry office in the 1980s. After learning of his history, Behrend complained to church officials. When nothing was done she wrote a letter, which she showed to the AP. "Obviously nothing has been done after EIGHT months of repeated notifications," she wrote. "How are we supposed to have confidence in the system when nothing is done? A simple phone call to the pastor from the bishop is all it would take." She eventually confronted Cummins at a confirmation and Kiesle was gone a short time later, Behrend said. Kiesle, who married after leaving the priesthood, was arrested and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations. He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his Truckee home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison. Kiesle, now 63 and a registered sex offender, lives in a Walnut Creek gated community, according to his address listed on the Megan's Law sex registry. An AP reporter was turned away when attempting to reach him for comment. William Gagen, an attorney who represented Kiesle in 2002, did not return a call for comment. More than a half-dozen victims reached a settlement in 2005 with the Oakland diocese alleging Kiesle had molested them as young children. "He admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the Pied Piper and said he tried to molest every child that sat on his lap," said Lewis VanBlois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims who interviewed the former priest in prison. "When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he said 'tons.'" Cummins, 82 and now retired, initially told the AP he did not recall writing to Ratzinger about Kiesle, but he remembered when shown the letter with his signature on Friday. He said things had changed over the past quarter century. "When he (Ratzinger) took over I think he was following what was the practice of the time, that Pope John Paul was slowing these things down. You didn't just walk out of the priesthood then," Cummins said. "These things were slow and their idea of thoroughness was a little more than ours. We were in a situation that was hands-on, with personal reaction." Documents obtained by the AP last week revealed similar instances of Vatican stalling in cases involving two Arizona clergy. In one case, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood. In the second, the bishop called Msgr. Robert Trupia a "major risk factor" in a letter to Ratzinger. There is no indication in those files that Ratzinger responded. The Vatican has called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented.

PERLAS DE SABIDURÍA #11

"The difference between religion and fanatism is semantics." CSI

WEDLOCK

Tengo la piel pegajosa de la transpiración seca. Tengo los pies doloridos y me estoy sacando mi mejor traje. Aquellos de Uds. que pueden leer mentes, saben que acabo de volver de un casamiento. Los que me conocen, saben que no soy muy fan de los casamientos y que tengo problemas procesando el precepto religioso del casamiento. Esta estuvo particularmente buena porque conozco a "la novia" desde el día en que nació y además porque fui en familia (cuñados incluídos). Estas son las cosas que noté del ritual.

• Que en la ceremonia sea un cura el que hable de amor a la pareja. Sepan disculpar la herejía, pero él, ¿qué mierda sabe?. Lo único que digo es, si yo quiero construir una casa, voy a recurrir a un arquitecto que tenga experiencia comprobable de haber construído casas antes y no alguien que esté suscripto a Summa o a Architectural Digest pero nunca lo haya hecho antes.
• Nos pasamos festejándole a la pareja sus entradas. ¿Notaron? La entrada a la iglesia, la entrada a la recepción, la entrada al salón, la entrada a la pista de baile, la entrada... ¿Qué es lo que estamos festejando realmente? ¿Qué se casaron o que las piernas les funcionan?