"Well, this is going to take a long time, so you may want to get some snacks." - Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Seriously. Go get some
snacks. And something to drink. I’ve been typing this up off and on for almost a month, and it kinda got more verbose than I’d planned, and I don't feel like messing with it any further so it's going up. Apologies in advance for the freethought rambling; I haven't gone on for this long in a while, but there's a fair amount of interconnectivity, so there.
So. Ratzi
retiring. What a bit of interesting history in the making. Anyone wondering about the whole process of what happens
in transition can get a good overview with current players mentioned at this link.
A lot of
stuff has been going around about how he’s been an ineffective pope, how he
hasn’t done enough for those abused by priests, blah blah yada. That’s all
true, but Palpatine is pretty old. At least he’s not stubbornly staying put like
JPII did. I admire dedication to the death, but ministers can still minister
outside of the job of ministry, and that’s all the papal position is, really –
a position. Whoever’s in the role of pope is first and foremost a priest. Maybe Ratzi just wants to retire and kick back with his pretty manservant. More power to that hypocrite if so.
 |
| Practicing what I preach via plastic. |
Quick
context for the rest of this post: I was baptized Catholic as an infant but mom took
me out when I was 5 or 6 so we could support one of her friends who started a
church. I grew up with her going to a non-denominational church, my dad going
to a Catholic church, me going to an Assemblies of God church since I had
friends who went there, and going a few times to both of those plus a Kingdom
Hall with my Jehovah’s Witnesses relatives. I have a ton of friends who follow
some form of organized religion (not necessarily Christian) or somewhat
organized spirituality, and just as many friends who are totally atheist /
agnostic / secular humanist. My husband is very well versed in scriptures of
many faiths (we have a nice collection in our library), is a preacher’s kid,
and lives in tune with Wakan Tanka, but is most assuredly an avowed agnostic.
We have some different perspectives regarding some spiritual things since I’m
an avowed pantheist, but it’s all good. Technically, I’m more of a Zen Catholic
who does not practice much at all, but I consider myself a pantheist because my
definition of God is everything in the multiverses that we do and do not yet
know about, and my church is nature. For what it’s worth, I’m also a card-carrying ordained Spiritual Humanist because I have no problems holding dichotomies. I also need to renew my JREF membership one of these years.
For those
who don’t know how my weird mind works, I’m definitely a skeptic but mysterious
and paranormal things fascinate me. I had a somewhat mysterious experience
while waking up on Christmas morning one year, and I’d gone through RCIA within
the year or two before to get back into being a good Catholic. In researching
Catholic this and that, I came across information about stigmata, and reading
about Catherine of Siena having invisible stigmata fascinated me, since that
Christmas morning I’d dreamed about religiousy Christmasy things (probably from
wanting to go to midnight mass but not going) and woke up with pain in the
palms of my hands and feet. It didn’t go away after a few months, and I knew
there had to be a scientific-based explanation for it, so I learned a lot about
how the mind can create things that aren’t there (like false memories), how emotions
can affect the physical body, kundalini rising, stigmata in history, everything.
I also tried to figure out what it meant to be Catholic (wow is that varied)
and reconcile that to what I was experiencing since I had no other context for
it.
Long story
short, 11 or so years later I found that it had to do with a severe deficiency
in B12 and that I had been experiencing the related peripheral neuropathy. What
kills me is that I could’ve found out after only 5 years of not knowing. A
naturopath started me on B12 sublingual to help me build back my system after
each round of chemo for breast cancer, and she was expecting me to feel really
awesome after a few weeks. Nope. Nothing. She was astonished. She thought out
loud, saying it could be due to a B12 deficiency, but then immediately
dismissed that since B12 deficiencies of that level were rare. Heh. I’m a
magnet / poster child for very rare things happening, so I should have figured
it out then. (I blame chemo brain for the oversight.) Years later, when my
primary care physician’s assistant checked my levels, she found the deficiency
and started me on B12 shots. I ended up having to have 1,000 cc IM something
like twice a week or each week, then every two weeks for over a year. Normally
I would’ve gone to a monthly schedule after three months if memory’s correct,
but I noticed involuntary eye twitching right before my biweekly injection, and
found out about that involuntary twitching being a sign of possible deficiency,
so just kept with it. I got to feeling better, but to feel more “normal” I take
2,000 IU microlingual methylcobalamin each morning, and I still do 1
cc liquid cyanocobalamin for when I know I’m running low, like after getting
nitrous at the dentist’s office or while recovering from a cold. Incidentally,
it was not fun to personally learn that liquid B12 has an expiration date for a
reason.
So yeah, f
yeah, science! There is always something scientific for everything mysterious
and paranormal, and to me, anything genuinely paranormal just hasn’t been
explained by science yet. Take intuition. There’s a fair amount of woo attached
to a simple human sense, and that’s just so strange to me. Some people are more
in touch with their perceptive abilities than others are, just like some people are supertasters,have absolute pitch, great echolocation, etc. Intuition is just another regular
sense.
I’m also
very aware of how people use mysterious events to try to control the behavior
of others. When I heard the breaking news about the pope resigning, because of
my fascination with the mysterious and paranormal, I naturally thought about
the Third Secret of Fatima. (I also thought about the whole list of popes
prophesied by St. Malachy thing, but I’ll get to that later.) Sure, most people
will dismiss the Third Secret as a bunch of malarkey, but I’ve been intrigued
with how Joey Ratz has involved himself with it.
Long story short,
back in the day, God’s mama told some kids that some crap was gonna go down,
and that the guys heading Holy Mother Church needed to pay attention to it and
maybe say some prayers and live better so that it wouldn’t be so bad. The guys
in charge were like, nope!, for whatever reasons (likely power plays and other
blah). Some of the guys have tried to cover things up and misdirect others
about what the crap is all about. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about the Third Secret and the
“grain of salt” perspective works well in reading them; some history can be
found here, and this page has kind of a nice overview of
some things. (Personally, I can see the making known of the scope of abuse
issues as the big huge destructive thing that helps with renewal of the overall
organization into something better, but some people aren’t into that.) Some
guys have laid hints down throughout time in order for there to be a bread
crumb trail to follow in case a course correction is needed. Ratzi seems to be
one of those latter guys. As Cardinal, he was kinda involved with stating somethings about the Third Secret for the record, and as Pope, he’s mentioned that the whole shebang isn’tconcluded yet.
So what’s
the crap? Basically there’s corruption in high places in the church, and that’s
a Bad Thing. *shrug* Having worked at the chancery of a Catholic diocese for
five years, I know some things about the behind-the-scenes mindsets, and that
perspective is totally right on. Totally
solid. I could see compromises in not just business decisions but in overall
Vatican orders barked at us. Rewording the Mass in English to make it more true
to the literal Latin still grates on my nerves, but that’s a personal
preference (shared by some of the priests I talked with while trying to get
their feedback on the then-suggested translations; not all evolution in
theological understanding is good evolution, but meh). I’m not schooled in
theology so I leave that up to the experts, but I’m wrinkling my nose as I do.
As far as
internal strife, yeah. The tension between Bishops Grahmann and Galante was so
thick some days it was like molasses to walk through, but that situation was a
bit weird to begin with. (Normally, another bishop is brought in when one’s
about to leave, but the one there wasn’t leaving, and so the other ended up
being transferred some years later… yeah, awkward.) That tension, along with
the molestation madness exploding, along with there being a bankruptcy plan on
the shelf due to lawsuits against the diocese for local abuse issues, was
enough to make me consider leaving the liturgical work that I really really
really loved doing. Not only was I using my music education degree, I was all
up ons with ritual. I loves me some ritual! And browsing catalogs full of
vestments and shiny communion vessels and furniture…. Good times, good times. I
should’ve left it sooner than I did, but I’m still grateful for the health
insurance benefits I had through the diocese while I was still there, ‘cos
unexpected triple negative breast cancer at age 30 was a bitch. It was even
harder to see two occasional coworkers from there pass away from breast cancer.
Both were older than I was; one had the aggressive form I did and the other had
the usual kind that came back and metastatized within two years after having a
mastectomy. The survivor’s guilt was pretty horrible.
It seems
like the big thing about the Third Secret from this and from other tidbits
scattered across the interweb is that because of the corruption of the church
from within, Catholics everywhere are losing their faith. Some guy alluded to
the loss of faith of a continent being worse than a ton of people being
annihilated or something like that. This whole notion of people falling away
from churchy things is really kind of a duh nowadays though, and not just in
the Catholic realm.
Hold that
thought while I mention the Malachy thing. Another long story short (did you
get some snacks?), some guy allegedly called a dragon to weave a mist, no,
wait. So this other guy wrote some buzzwords for all the popes who’d pope over
the next few hundred years, and in some cases they’ve been eerily matchy-matchy
(especially with JPII). We’re at the end of the list, and some Catholics are
all, “this is the end!” while other Catholics are all, “there could be any
number of popes between the current Doctor and his last incarnation, and the
number could be totally different now since River Song used the rest of hers to
bring Eleven back”…. oh wait, uh…. Well, some say there could be a gap between
the next to last pope on Malachy’s list and the for reals last pope. Whatevs. There's been recent talk about it again, anyway.
Although I’m fascinated by
prophecies and would love to be the Oracle of Delphi for Hallowe’en someday
(someone get me the funny gases for authenticity, or maybe just some absinthe),
my opinion of them is best stated by Londo Mollari (Babylon 5, "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari"):
“Prophecy is a guess that comes
true. When it doesn't, it's a metaphor. You could put a gun to your head
tomorrow and pull the trigger, and then the dream is just a dream and the
prophecy is just a metaphor… and so are you."
With the
freshness of the Mayan non-apocalypse of 2012 in mind, and the buzzwords of end
times and penitence and all that jazz, and with the power plays of the bishops
and Vatican and Third Secret in mind, you know what? Ratzi is right.
Seriously.
You heard me. Ratzi is right. And one (like me) doesn’t have to like him in the
least to see that, with the concern about sensationalism. The whole thing with
atheism as an evil taking over the world though… yeah, that’s not. It’s just
life happening. Nothing to see here. Move along. Of course abusers molesting
children is sensationalist. Of course people who have had faith are losing it.
These things are connected in some cases, but in many many many other cases,
atheism is just the natural evolution of seeing what religion is supposed to do
and epically failing at it. I have friends who were devout Christians in a past
life but have dropped at least some of their beliefs because of the power of
education. Some still minister in churchy ways because they genuinely want to
help others still, especially with when deconstruction of faith happens, and
more power to them. That’s a tough path to go on.
See, in my
opinion (which is considered a bona fide fact by many), religion is supposed to
be like training wheels. You learn the basics, then ride however you want, AFTER
you learn the consequences of what might happen if you’re not responsible with
protecting yourself. At that point, you’re supposed to learn on your own about
what’s best for you. Organized religion is nothing more than “How to be a Good
Human 101, now with character stories!” It’s like, you know how those 613 laws
in the Old Testament are still followed by some Jews but are not followed by
Christians living a New Testament life? What works for some doesn’t work for
others. Some people need more structure than others in order to live a good,
decent, human life, with continual learning on how to best interact with fellow
humans. Some people live best in a comfort zone of a tight-knit supportive
community that doesn’t get shaken up by new ideas, and as long as they’re not
hurting anyone, more power to them too.
The kicker
is, there are a LOT of people who hide behind religion and use it as a shield
to cover up whatever crap they know they’re doing. You know, like
ultra-religious conservative politicians who want to legislate body parts of
others without even having any real education on how said parts work, or even
having said parts, because that’s what Jeeeeesus would want. Like well-meaning
people who are complete bigots and racists because they don’t know any better,
because they were taught a certain way and are unable and/or unwilling to think
for themselves and evolve. Like those who refuse to see things like gay
marriage as a civil rights issue completely outside of any religious context.
The real
kicker is, most atheists are way more ethical, generous, and better people than
a lot of people involved with religion. I’m not saying that everyone in a faith
system is doing it wrong. Far from it. I’m just saying that religion is just
one way to learn how to be a good person. Some people don’t need the threat of
anything divine in order to be a good person. That’s just how it is. There are also assholes in every group, and that goes for atheist circles as well as Christian circles, but thankfully there are many more good people than asses.
So. To
recap, or something, since I’m still rambling: Sensationalism with loss of
faith is really nothing big these days. In the early twentieth century, yeah,
that would be a huge deal, but not now. Damn hippies in the 60s, right? *smirk*
Loss of faith a natural thing that happens to a lot of people who grew up with
serious church attending and holy book reading and giving of money and all
that. The more one learns about a faith, and about other faiths, and about
non-faiths, the more it’s obvious that religion is mainly used to keep a
segment of people under some sort of control. Analogies of ALMIGHTY GAWWWWWD
and the Tooth Fairy and Santa are totally right on, and one doesn’t have to
like it in the least for it to be true. And it’s definitely true.
Pantheist me
still finds wonder and mystery and a sense of divinity in nature and in
science, in how we humans connect with each other across time and space, and in
how we interact and continue to grow during life. Evolution is natural. It’d
just be nice for the science to catch up more with some of the seemingly
paranormal stuff, like intuition. Humans have way more than 5 senses (some say
we have like 21 or so), and there’s no reason we need to keep limiting
ourselves just because some people insist on outdated information. Living with
outdated information is like adults still participating as a child would in
children’s church, and it’s completely unnecessary and sometimes dangerous.
Someone might try to take advantage of you, knowing that you like living in
cushy touchy feely certainties (that aren’t really certainties, but who’s going
to tell you that? Nobody, that’s who).
Evolve, if you already aren't. You'll thank yourself for it later.
