Pope attacked for communion to Argentina President & Keep! Horrible Heresy?
Inquisition is on! Beware! The swords have been drawn! The rake and the pulley are out! Stakes firmly embedded! Torquemada will rise again?
Varghese Pamplanil
Dear loving CCV readers, There are many occasions, in which I don’t endorse the v
iews of our Chief Editor Dr James Kottoor for many a reasons. But for one thing I always keep my head many points down in respect to him – so great is his commitment to you all. Whenever he forwards an article to the editorial division, it follows a note, showing its importance and relevance. Sometime it may say two whole nights of cutting and stitching and sometimes an whole week of restless works. One another thing is that he is instrumental in bringing many New Age writers to this forum. The way he appreciates dissidents in views is quite appreciable. He has a great level of tolerance. I sometimes thinks that he is the only man who deserves all the laurels in the field. Today, if CCV has a regular number of readers from across the world, it is mostly due to our Chief Editor.
Just to prove my assumptions, with apologies to James, I post one sentence from the side note he sent along with this article. It goes, “For two days I was working on Pamplanil's 12 pages research article to make it easy for readers to grasp. It is a very learned article to learn from…”
Yes, this is another thought provoking article from Shri Varghese Pamplanil, one among the top voracious readers I know. Hats off sir!
Please don’t miss it! Joseph Mattappallly (asso editor – CCV)
Note: Di
d Pope Francis commit a shattering heresy by admitting a President and his ‘Keep’ to communion at the Vatican for the whole world to see? Pamplanil already wrote, see CCV, “Begone Bedroom inspectors!” and we answered: Francis is not looking into any one’s bedroom, but treating all alike, believers and atheists, recall Eugenio Scalfari, treated as his cose friend!
Triple Honesties!
Hence this article, researched and fully documented, is a MUST READ for all interested to know facts on what the Church calls,“SEX & SIN” and make their own honest decisions. We are not insinuating to accept his views or ours(CCV) but each one’s own, in order to be ‘Honest to God, Honest to oneself and Honest to others!’ – triple honesties that make one Truly Honest!
That alone is the only imperative we can and are expected to do. This is what I was taught in my thelogical doctorate studies in Rome. This is what my personal studies have taught me to this day. This honesty may and should differ from person to person, as each one of us is the BIGGEST WONDER of creation, implying no universal manmade law is applicable to any particular human – as each one of us will be a “square peg in a round hole”, rounded off by erring humans!
Sin, Sex, Biblical Myths!
Sin, sex, sense of guilt instilled into Church goers, blind belivers from tender age form the bulk of the audience he addreses in his over 12 page well documented treatise. It seems he was provoked into it by some Jesuit know-all highly placed cleric.
There are well educated authorities among the clergy and bishops. Thy should some out in the open and engage in frankly speaking exchange of views with persons like Pamplanil for the benefit of “theologically illiterate” laity. Those who throw stones hiding from a cover all COWARDS of the first magnitude but looking for public applause. Honestly I learn a lot from Pamplanil and I thank him.
Especially note his personal data. He is no bug called “humbug’ which I wish I copy to the hilt. As a bacgoround information you may also read my Chicago address, I was unexpectedly forced into on Aug.10th where the near impossibility of any Church reform in the Church of Constantine from 313 is explained in detail.
To make possible the impossible is your mission and ours; to save the sinking Titanic called the Church and its well-meaning captaine Francis hit by the hysmalayan ICEBURG called clergy sex abuse, their 3-fold criminal silence, criminal coverup and criminal climbing in the hierarchical ladder! You can and we can if we do our Mighty Bit, little drops make the mighty ocean!
Now the time is yours!
Therefore counter every one of Pamplnil’s views to the point of tearing him to pieces! Equally do the same with the views of this already self-confessed “Know-nothing!” i shall surely correct myself, if and when I am convincingly proved wrong! Remember Voltaire: “I disagree wholly with what you say, but I will go to death to defend your RIGHT to say what you think!” Right or wrong, the living role model model today for me is Francis Pappa!
The time begins NOW, so go ahead like a galloping horse with blinds, to see on the right or left, but only your individual convictions and speak them out without mincing words! james kottoor, editor ccv.
Now please read below Pamplanil, who Hates to be called the Bug called Humbug!
Horror of horrors ! “The Most Holy Communion” is administered to the divorced pro-abortion sinner President of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez and his keep, at a special Mass held at the Holy of Holies, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican at the behest of Pope Francis!
But Wonder of Wonders! The Christian god whose, so called deputies on earth, swear that their god’s main preoccupation is meticulous scrutiny of each every sexual activity of humans for consigning those who indulge in unapproved ones into the ever roaring fires in Dante’s “Inferno”. But the Christian deity did not rain sulphur and brimstone to obliterate every one and every thing in Vatican for serving the thin wafer made of refined wheat, masqueraded as the living flesh of their Saviour God, to an internationally notorious gross sinner. The earth did not rent asunder, when the undigested remains of the holy host existed ignominiously to the loo next day.
Christian sexual pessimism:
It is not true that Christianity brought self control and asceticism to a pagan world. Christianity’s increasingly stern and reductive assessment of human sexuality was shaped by Stoa, the school of ancient philosophy, which lasted from about 300 BCE to 250 CE. To this day the word “Stoic” stands for stolid, passionless behaviour. They rejected the quest for pleasure. The negative assessment of sexual pleasure that prevailed in Stoicism was further strengthened by the invasion of Christian pessimism. Gnosticism which believes in the worthlessness and baseness of all existing things had also impacted early Christian thought process.
The early Christians were accused of licentious sexual behaviour. Clement, an early Church father says “Carpocratians when they gather for feasts, have intercourses when they will and with whom they will. They think wives should be common property.”
Moral laxity was commonly charged against Christians by pagans. That licentiousness arose as a problem early is clear enough; it was attacked by Jude. The Christians believed that having been saved by Christ allowed them free to do as they wished. The problem spilled over into the 4th century. (Source, “Roots of Christianity” by Michael Walsh, ex-Jesuit priest and and prominent Catholic writer.)
Sex and Sin:
I have read many interpretations of sin. In my understanding, sin is straying from the right path!
“The church hierarchy was frightened of women that a rule was implemented for the priests, a rule which became a law in 1138. What bothered the bishops was not women as such, not even sexual activity in general terms, it was the prospect of priestly intimacy with women. Bible has not suggested any such thing. Paul said ( Timothy 3.2-5) that a bishop should be the husband of one wife and he should have children. He said that a man with experience in his own household is better qualified to take care of the church” (“The Magdalene Legacy”- Lawrence Gardiner)
“Sexual attitudes associated with Christian tradition evolved in Western culture during the first four centuries of the Common Era (CE), when the Christian movement as a defiant sect, eventually transformed itself into the religion of the Roman Empire. Certain Christian moralists of this period insisted that intercourse should not be pursued for pleasure, even among those monogamously married but should be resolved solely for procreation. Not all these attitudes were original with the Christians, who borrowed much from Jewish and philosophical, particularly Stoic tradition, but the Christian movement emphasised and institutionalised such views which became inseparable from the Christian faith. Heroic Christians went even further and embraced celibacy for the “Kingdom of Heaven” (Adam, Eve and the Serpent” – Elaine Pagels, Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion, Princeton University).
“By the beginning of the 5th century, Augustine had already declared that spontaneous sexual desire is the proof of and penalty for for universal original sin, an idea that would have baffled most of his Christian predecessors…Christian writers from the first centuries of the CE seldom talk directly about sexual behaviour and they seldom write treatises on such topics as marriage, divorce and gender. Instead they often talk about Adam, Eve and the serpent – the story of creation and when they do, they tell us about sexual matters….They speculated over how God had commanded the first man and woman to “be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth” and how he instituted the first marriage “ (Elaine Pagels ibid).
“Augustine derived many of his attitudes from the story of Adam and Eve that sexual desire is sinful; that infants are affected from the moment of conception with the decease of original sin, that Adam’s sin corrupted the whole nature itself.” (Elaine Pagels – ibid)
“Augustine by his own admission was insatiable, a man who never married and whose experience of sexual pleasures was illicit and guilt provoking. Augustine assumes that frustrated desire is universal, infinite and all consuming. He turned everything upside down by his strange integration of the myth of Adam and Eve. (Elaine Pagels – ibid)
“Why did Catholic Christianity adopt Augustine’s paradoxical — some would say preposterous views? Some historians suggest that such beliefs validate the Church’s authority, for if human condition is a decease, Catholic Christianity acting as the good physician, offers the spiritual medication that alone cure it. No doubt, Augustine’s views did serve the interests of the emerging imperial church and the Christian state”. (Elaine Pagels – ibid)
“The man who fused”Christianity together with hatred of sex and pleasure into a systematic unity was the greatest of the Church Fathers, St. Augustine (d. 430). His importance for Christian sexual morality is unquestioned …… Like many neurotics, he radically separates love and sexuality. As the Viennese historian Friedrich Heer wrote, “The catastrophic process of desexualisation of love was given an emphatic push forward in the West by Augustine”.
“A personal and theological anxiety would have made Augustine to connect the transmission of original sin, which plays a great role in his system of Christian redemption, with the PLEASURE DERIVED OUT OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.”
“There is another teaching of Augustine’s that has, likewise, has devastating consequences, namely, the way original sin is passed on to little children that is to every one. Augustine thought that when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit of Paradise, “they were ashamed and covered their sexual parts with fig leaves." He concludes that “this is where it comes from”. He surmised that what they were both trying to hide was the place whence the first sin was committed (Sermons151.8). Thus, according to Augustine, sexual intercourse or more precisely, sexual pleasure,is what carries original sin on and on, from generationto generation”. (The quotes are from “Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven” by Uta Ranke-Heinemann Ph.D in Catholic theology, the erstwhile woman Professor of Catholic theology, University of Essen, Germany)
The clerics seem to pursue “dog in the manger” policy: the dog won’t eat the grass; it will not allow the cow to eat it either.
Why do I discuss the topic again? Simple. An apparently erudite Jesuit priest has commented on what I wrote about Augustine’s preposterous views on the origin of original sin as “absolute nonsense” It seems, after all, my “absolute nonsense” has some company. I may be knowing my onions and not an utter fool to transgress the domain of the angels whatever it may be. I have already given the priest a short rejoinder.
Ritual of Christian Worship:
“At the time Christianity was born and established itself, people lived in a threatening universe. Along side the real world was another parallel, but unseen world of spirits, good and bad. The bad spirits predominated and from them one needed protection. The security of a religious belief which claimed itself the ability to lay hold of the God’s favour was enormous. The claim that the Christian magic was much greater than of non-Christians would have many to Christianity” (“Roots of Christianity, ibid).
But modern minds seemed to have rejected the whole trite with the result Catholic prescriptions have few takers in the enlightened lands. Pope Francis seem to have realised the reality and making efforts to save the floundering Catholic ship.
How the first Christians worshipped. (Ralph P. Martin in Lion Book of Christianity):
“Since the first Christians came to faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord out of Jewish background, it is not surprising that Jewish influences are seen in the patterns of early Christian worship………Its pattern of scripture readings and sermon within a frame work of praise and congregational prayers was taken over by the Jewish Christians. Luke 4:16-30 gives a valuable description of Jewish worship…… book of Acts give models of early Christian preaching, some times in synagogues ….. 1 Corinthians, gives probably the earliest description of worship in the Christian church…. Paul uses ideas drawn from the Jewish Passover, which celebrated God’s saving favour and strength in calling Israel to be his people, and rescuing them from the tyranny in Egypt…Paul used the framework of Passover meal to interpret the Lord’s Supper.
But other elements were intertwined, such as the fellowship meal, called the ‘agape’, or ‘love feast … The Christian Sunday was not made a ‘day of rest’ until Constantine decreed it in AD 321… Paul believed that the Lord’s Supper served both to unite Christians with the Lord in his death and risen life, and to join believers in a bond of union as ‘one body’ of Christ….. Worship gradually became more formalised and stereotyped in the period following Paul’s death”
A Service in second century Rome:
“At the end of the prayers, we greet each other with a kiss. Then the president of the brethren is brought bread and a cup of wine mixed with water, and he takes them, and offers up praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and the Holy Ghost and gives thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at his hands. When he has concluded the prayers and thanksgiving all the people present express their joyful assent by saying Amen. Then those whom we call deacons give to each of those present the bread and swine mixes with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and carry away a portion to those who are absent. We call this food as Eucharist, which no one is allowed to share unless he or she believes that the things we teach are true, and he has been washed with the washing that is for remission of sins and unto second birth, and is living as Christ has commanded” (Justin, Apology) .
After Emperor Constantine, as a political expediency recognised the Pauline version of Christianity, the Roman Senatorial class flocked to the Christian Church for pelf and privileges; eventually many of them became Cardinals and Archbishops of the Church. The nobles felt beneath their dignity to recognise a Galilean wandering preacher and exorcist, a carpenter’s son too, as god. So Jesus was remodelled to a virgin born Olympian/Roman god in the likeness of Zeus/Apollo.
Theodosius, the cold blooded murderer from Spain, stamped out the pagan gods and pagan worship towards the end of the 4th century. But within a period 100 years, in order to attract membership to Christianity, the Church made a somersault by embarrassing the pagan ways with a vengeance. In come the pagan Mithraism, the most popular cult of the times, especially among soldiers, and its rites with the symbolic eating of the flesh and drinking the blood of Mithras, the Bull, the god and saviour.
Over the years, the joy of sharing available scarce food was converted into aconvoluted mystery of mysteries. The Mass which is essentially, a celebration of comradeship, was turned into a pandemonium and a charade. By and large believers receive Communion with trepidation and mortal fear whether they got complete ablution of their sins from their nosy confessors.The final saying in the confessional box, as the joke goes : “I am in the habit of telling lies”. Many receive the wheat wafer pretty sure that it will disappear with their favourite breakfast of beef and parotta.
The Church conspiracy for hegemony over the minds of the believers:
Sense of guilt and sin is injected into the psyche of all Catholics from childhood. The children, unfortunate to be born to Catholic parents subjected to “water dunking” in the name of baptism to wash away original sin. By this method, the church keeps in leash and control its “goats” in perpetuity. The crook held by a bishop is not a mere symbol but the part of a diabolical conspiracy to control and manipulate the lumpen proletariat. The opium for the masses is cleverly packaged and effectively marketed.
Helmut Koesler, Morrison Professor of the New Testament, Harvard University asks “How did it happen that Christian tradition came to find sexual desire sinful and claim that infants, from the moment of conception, are infected with original sin, that Adam’s sin corrupted the whole of nature, which until then had known neither death nor labour or suffering.”
He says further, “How did it happen that the Christian church, which proclaims the infinite value and moral freedom of each individual, came to insist that human kind – made in God’s image – cannot chose not to sin. This great paradox is at the heart of Christian tradition.
The Catholic Church “glorifies poverty”. The clerics know for sure that, if the proletariat enjoys the goodies, what is left for them. This modus operandi has been successfully emulated by someisams and and their political apparatuses successfully. The idea is to keep the masses in perpetual poverty and discontent.
Another ploy is conferring sainthood to haters of life. In the past those who supported the Church in kind and deed were sainted. Thus the erstwhile bar girl who enticed Constantine’s father into the marriage, but sidestepped by the husband and later, is known as St. Helena. The cold blooded “butcher from Spain” who made Christianity the sole State religion and banished all other religions and cults, at the pain of death, is another saint. Of late the Kerala Church is in a tearing hurry to elevate many dubious characters to sainthood: “Deepastambam mahascharyam, nammakkum venam panam”.
Catholic Church “glorifies poverty” with great zeal and single minded purpose. From pulpit to pulpit comes the exhortation to the faithful to forgo all the comforts including good food. The money thus saved is urged to be deposited in the collection boxes of the church so that the clerics can go to their banks laughing or splurge the amounts on top quality imported liquors,premium scotch whisky matured for many years, rare cognacs, live in luxurious dwellings and glide by super comfortable loumesines..
Catholic Mass:
Amid incense and and music, at a highly decorated alter with various tinsels and illumination, the priest robed, in purple, ermine and gold thread lift up, amidst swirling smoke of frankincense – the vestige of the way the smell of burnt flesh of animals offered as sacrifice to some savage gods was warded off –symbolically offer the wafer and the chalice of wine with high drama, theatrical gestures and intonations make the offerings in a surrealistic atmosphere. The ritual is supposed to be a sacrifice for atonement of sins. The setting is impressive in festooned church with paintings of winged angels looking down .The mystery, pomp and show is meant above all to impress the congregation. It is purported to be for redemption; redemption from what?
The present day of the Catholic Mass has close parallel to the rites of Mithraism: eating the flesh of the god Mithras the Bull, the drinking of the blood of the deity to absorb its powers. The Catholic worship emulates many other rites and observances of Mithraism. (The Catholic Christianity has many other elements of Mithraism as pointed out earlier).
The dilemma:
The dilemma that confronts those who have some rationality whether sin can happen without volition, granted sin exists. The Church compels the faithful to believe that the Son of God and God himself did incarnate in human form and descended from heaven to the earth to save humankind from the sin inherited from Adam. The proposition that the transgression of one mythical parent Adam will pass on to the succeeding generations of the whole human race till the end of the world looks rather dicey.
The other vexed question: despite the supreme sacrifice of forfeiting his life in a horrible manner, Jesus Christ seemed to have failed in his mission as Christian theologians maintain that the human kind is still in a state of sin.. What a strange logic?. Thank the stars the Church has not taken the position that sin had got imprinted in human genes that pass on to the succeeding generations. Incidentally genes do mutate. It is putting logic on the head to agree with Augustine’s strange interpretation of Original Sin, which defies known logic.The whole rigmarole beats common sense. A rational mindis left with only two conclusions —(i) Jesus Christ was an utter failure in his redemption mission (ii) the whole thing is a sham and a hoax.
It seems that the Church is taking its followers for a roller coaster ride. The aim of the game seems to be, provide livelihood of the clerics without doing anything useful to people…..
Intermission:
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child,
But when I became a man,
I put away childish things.”
The Church requires its members to remain life long children and to believe, without questioning, its mythic tales as historical facts. I am not in the league of courageous Christian dissenters and scholars like Bishop Robinson (author of Honest to God), Hans Kung of international fame, Bishop Spong and Uta Ranke-Heinemann.
In my humble way I will go on and on; using the grey cells inside my skull ticking to keep my sanity. I will try to stay alert instead of being overwhelmed in the “encircling gloom”. I will keep on walking on keep on till my legs collapse; I will be alert not to believe the fairy tales of the church. Some of the fairy tales I am unable to digest are: Luke’s Christmas fairy tale, Matthew’s fairy tale of the childhood of Jesus, fairy tales of the Virgin Mother, the made up genealogy of Jesus. (Toynbee says that the “gentiles” of Galilee were converted to Judaism by force by the Maccabee king, Alexander Jannaeus (BCE 102- 76); so out goes the David lineage of Jesus – the Jesuit priest, please note), the fairy tales of Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Peter in Rome. Lies will be exposed in course of time; it is how history unfolds.
Varghese Pamplanil
A personal Note:
For the kind information of the Jesuit priest who took umbrage of my assessment of Augustine of Hippo, of North African Berber stock, a gross fornicator, I humbly submit, while not in the genre of “know all” Catholic priests, I might be endowed with some intelligence to be aware of what is going around me.
I have been an avid reader of printed matters from an early age of around 11 years to the chagrin of my peers who feared that I might go astray of the beaten track. In the then prevailing atmosphere, reading of books, other than religious literature without church imprimatur was considered mortal sin. Even now the church disfavour anything questioning its “infallibility”. The church still seems to suffer from its inbuilt prosecution mania.
I have been a regular visitor to U.K. since 2005, where my first son, an oncologist, and his family reside. They stay very close to Sutton Public Library, well stocked with books on various subjects including history of civilisation, myths, religions — Christianity takes pride of place, Jesus, bible, philosophy, ethics, atheism, theology (which for me is chasing unreality) etc. Books on the Jesuits are available.The library is fully automated. At a time 8 books are lent for 6 weeks, renewable. I used to spend most of my time with the books.
I am in the habit of making copious notes in addition to taking photocopies. Hence, I am reasonably confident of what I write. I think I know my onions.
By profession, I am a trained inspector/examiner/assessor of the liabilities and assets, net worth and methods of operations (CAMELS) of banks.
I try to analyse dichotomies/oddities/contradictions of a given premise. Tell tale signs or spoors that I look for.
I will never ever call any one other than my biological parent “father”. If I address any person loitering on the street “father”, it would tantamount to casting aspersions on the character of my late mother. For me, other person is, at best, my cousin brother/sister.
No uppity cleric is allowed to barge into my home uninvited and try to pry into my privacy. If any further information on me is required the Jesuit priest under reference may contact bishop Mathew Arakkal, who calls me “Pamplani Sir”
My articles are sent to my cousins bishop Joseph Pamplany and his brother Augustine Pamplany, who teaches in Little Flower Seminary, whether they like or not what I write. I have much personal regards for both of them.Blood is thicker than water.
I can not be the bug called humbug. Pardon me.
Varghese Pamplanil
