In a volume of essays put together by an agency of the Bishops’ Conference in England and wales and published in association with Caritas contains attacks on Pope Benedict and John Paul II and even uses scare quotes around terrorist in regards to 9/11. The book has been given a glowing foreword by the Bishop of Plymouth, Christopher Budd.
According to Fr Tissa Balasuriya, the author of the relevant essay, both John Paul and Benedict lived their lives “in a world dominated by white racism” and therefore could not understand the developing world.
Damian Thompson who blogs for the Telegraph has the full story here. I have been following Damian Thompson’s blog for the last couple of months since he linked to one of my posts and can highly recommend it. He is the editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald and you got to love someone who was described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret".
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I’ll bet Cardinal Arinze doesn’t agree with this assessment of Popes JPII and BVI.
Disturbing. Even more disturbing to hear that Mass-goers are paying for this junk. To say that Pope Benedict & Pope John Paul are racists is to ignore everything they have ever done and said. And to use inverted commas around the word terrorist? What is going on with the bishops in England? One commentator suggested that this would speed up a papal trip to England…I hope so.
This bunch of bishops would have gotten along great with the English bishops in the time of Henry VIII. All but St. John Fisher, of course.
The document is from Caritas, and that doesn’t surprise me.
Here in Australia I sometimes get the impression from their publicity that behind the scenes at Caritas there are liberals with a very anti-Catholic agenda. I may be wrong, and I donate to them, though with misgivings every time.
Lance,
For goodness sake! Stop donating to them! If they are going to go so far afield as to make out JPII and BXVI as racists, then they deserve not a single penny.
And while you are at it, write them a letter telling them why you are pulling your donations.
There are thousands of more deserving publications struggling for recognition. Divert your funds to one of them.
If only I had contributed, then I could have the distinct pleasure of taking away my donation!
JPII definitely recognized a developing world. In fact he takes it a step further in his book “Toward the Sources of Renewal,” which he wrote before he was pope, stating that the world evolved and that �only with this fundamental condition does the Church participate in the evolution of the world through her own ‘evolution.’� (that is, barring that this translation is correct)
We’ve probably all read Deus Caritas Est, so we all know what a strong statement it makes that all Catholics should do tons of charity, and that all dioceses should work hard to help channel this. Surely, you’d think the “social justice” crowd would be pleased.
But it also contends that lay Catholics should be the ones advocating social change, and that it’s the primary job of religious to help out the laypeople. Also, that big huge church organizations are probably not the best way to provide charity or advocate social change. Also that Catholics shouldn’t expect the government to be the provider of all charity or to legislate all social change.
That’s what has this crew angry. Pope Benedict is (for lack of a better word) too libertarian and too grassroots for them.
Sad and ignorant assessment of John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Worse, it plays right into the hands of the anti-Catholic agenda.
Don’t think you are all exactly aware of the full contents of the book:
a] it has a chapter by HANS KUNG filled with its usual mix of incredulous vituperative bile.
b] one contributor [technically excommunicated incidentally] deems the 9/11 attacks as acts of ‘terrorism’ in quotation marks !!!
c] Philomena Cullen, the chief editor, denounces both the present and last pope, castigates the nuclear family and launches a callous condemnation against the entire church – accusing it of sexism, white supremacism, misogyny, homophobia,pro-westernism,pro-capitalism, nuclear familiolatry, racism, disabilitism…and all manner of isms – it demands a promotion of an open-ended family structure grounded on the feminist model – i.e. abortion and contraception for all; and sex with whomsoever one please, man, woman or goat!
Ostensibly the Bishops of england and wales have backed this book – I plead with you all to petition against it, by complaining to Doctrina Fidei about it.
mailto:cdf@cfaith.va
Wouldn’t applying the term “feminist model” to “family structure” render it an oxymoron?
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