THE JUDGEMENT DAY OF RECKONING AND ACCOUNTABILITY

 

Varghese Pamplanil

 

For the last many years, headline grabbing torrid stories of pedophile, homophobic, homosexual and other sexual perversions indulged by a large number of Catholic clerics, all across the world, more particularly in US and Australia, have been flying around thick and fast, more virulent than the Spanish flu of 1918 or  the current scourge Covid — 19 pandemic.

 

The report of the Royal Commission of Australia,in more than 10 volumes,compiled after painstaking investigations spanning 5 years,scanning tons of documents, innumerous interviews and statements by the victims and credible witnesses, describes in graphic detail, the horrendous child sex abuses of the  Catholic clerics in that country. Enquiries and investigations, notably in Ireland, had exposed the murky child abuse cases by Irish clergy. Investigations in other counties such as Poland, Belgium and U.K have unearthed rampant sex abuses of the Catholic clergy. African clerics were reported to have been raping nuns as a matter of routine; but Pope John Paul II, in his usual style,  refused to take any punitive measures against the culprits.

 

Catholic sexual predators have been running amok throughout the sordid annals of the Church. The utter lies vomited by Shekinah T. V. and other channels, are for the uninformed to feast on.

 

The underpinning of Christianity is not any sublime philosophy or theology. Michael Walsh, ex-Jesuit priest and eminent commentator on Christianity, in his book “Roots of Christianity” observes: “in common with mystery religions, Christianity had offered to its adherents, the hope of life after death and unlike the other mystery religions had offered it widely. But what had once been an attractive promise,was turned into a deadly threat; the offer of “everlasting life had become means of social control”. This control was enforced by resorting to heresy huntings, inquisitions accompanied by cruel and violent methods of tortures, such as quartering the victims body, putting them  through the rake, employing of the pully; and worst of all,  burning live humans at the stake. (A visit to the cellar of Madame Tussaud’s  museum, London, will be an eye opener).

 

Walsh says further: heresies took root quickly in the atmosphere of “moral laxity and corruption of the clergy, whose behaviours do not serve as adequate models for the  laity in search of moral and spiritual guidance” especially in  periods of tumultuous changes.

 

The Council of Evreux (1195) mentions indulgences being sold by the clergy and the bishops selling Holy oil and relics. The Council of Avignon (1209) cites priests gambling and playing the game of dice, some priests opening taverns with “clerical collar” as inn sign. The Council forbade the faithful from attending masses celebrated by married priests, also of those keeping concubines. The Council also referred to the organising of orgy parties by renegade clerics, many wandering in the streets at night. Hunting, gambling as well as heavy drinking were rife. Those, in both male and female religious orders, took lovers. The cannons of the Fourth Lateran Council sought cracking down on such practices.

 

The Church could bury such hideous matters, fathoms deep, in iron clad secrecy. One may fool some people for some time, but cannot cheat all, all the times. It is  high time that  the Church let go the the ban of “sham clerical celibacy” and permit the libido primed clerics to marry more than one women,Islam  style. Morality is not latched to the sexual organs of humans, especially that of the females of the species. 

 

The game changer in recent times has been the exponential growth of the internet, Twitter, instagram and other rapid modes of dissemination of information across borders. The slow “dove” —the Holy Spirit — is no match to the emerging technologies.

 

The “actor turned zealot” Karol Wajtyla, a.k. a Pope John Paul II, was one of the worst specimen of the creature called Homo sapian. His grossly violated Commandment X,  “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife”.  His collusion with sexual deviants like Mecil of Mexico has been notorious. Now he has been exposed of his “conspiracy of silence” — Mafia style “omertà”—in the “Mac Carrick” affair. His successor the “panzer cardinal” Ratzinger continued John Paul’s  rotten legacy, till he was forced to resign as Pope Benedict XVI.

 

Hans Kung, Emeritus Professor of Ecumenical Theology at the University of Tubingin and President of the Global Ethical Foundation writes: It was not the Pope, but the Emperor who convened the earliest 7 Councils of the Church; defined the subjects to be discussed; established the order of the proceedings, moved, adjourned or conducted the councils; led them, approved the decrees either in person or through legates. The “will of the Emperor” was paramount; it prevailed on all occasions. The popes and patriarchs played second fiddle. The emperors called the tune; the clerics were reduced to mere hand clapping spectators.

 

Hans Kung adds: the rot in the Church started from the very moment, Constantianity took over the Church in the early 4thcentury.Emperor Constantine, a pagan continued to call himself “Pontifex Maximus”, and worshipped “Sol Invictus” — “The Unconquerable Sun”, till the last moment of his life. He agreed to be baptised only at his deathbed. Constantine caused the convening of the first ecumenical council in his residence of Nicaea in Asia Minor under his constant vigil, to serve his political interests.

 

Historians, notably,Graham Philips, surmise: at the time of Emperor Constantine, there were too many Christian movements throughout the Empire with varieties of different views and practices; the Gnostics of Southern Egypt practised mystical meditation, the Ebionites of Decapolis lived in communes, the Docetists of  Alexandria believed in the spiritual omnipresence of Jesus.

Arius of Alexandria taught that Christ was not coequal to with God the Father for the Father had created him. To curb Arianism Emperor Constantine convened the first Council of Nicaea in CE 325 at his palace in Nicaea, what is now Turkey,for a council to prepare the  blue print and foundation of a unified church.

 

The Emperor faced an almost impossible task; every one had divergent and mutually exclusive views and opinions in the matters discussed .  Eventually, after weeks of wrangling, the Emperor appointed his political ally, Eusebius, the head of the Church at Caesarea in Palestine,  to draft a compromise settlement. What Eusebius came up with continues to be the very essence of the Christian dogma: “God the Father and Christ the Son were of the same substance”. EVERYONE PRESENT AT THE COUNCIL OBJECTED TO SOMETHING OR THE OTHER; RESULT CONSTANTINE LOST HIS PATIENCE. HE DECREED THAT ANY ONE WHO REFUSED TO SIGN THE AGREEMENT WOULD BE BANISHED FROM THE EMPIRE; HE ENFORCED HIS RULING WITH AN IRON HAND.THOSE WHO DID NOT AGREE, WERE NOT HEARD OF AGAIN? Those who consented,became the hierarchy of the Universal Catholic Church.The First Nicene Creed of CE 325, still continue to be very basis of the Christian theology. (Incidentally the bishop of Rome, the Pope,  was conspicuous by his absence).

 

To commemorate his acceptance of Christianity, as the state religion, Constantine built a splendid church in Rome, the city thought to be having St.Peter’s tomb. SO BEGAN VATICAN, now a sprawl of gigantic High Renaissance Building spread over 44 hectares. (The excavations at the time of Pious XII, in search of Peter’s remains came up with a cache of the bones of goats, as well as the skeletons of  a child, a woman and a man. As usual the failed attempt to establish the presence of Peter, the illiterate and pretty old fisherman from the far away Galilee,trudging all the way to Rome, turned out to bea damp squib and a foolish misadventure; now buried deep as another super secret mystery).

 

(As an aside, another ridiculous yarn — Thomas, believed to be the“Twin of Jesus” by some, sailing all the way from Galilee/Jerusalem to the Malabar Coast in CE 52, two decades after Jesus’s death, for embarking a spree of the then non-existent baptism of the nonexistent high caste “gentile” Namboothiries — the Jesus movement consisted of  circumcised Jews till Paul entered the scene —and to establish 7 churches, even in far-flung jungles in the region; there were no churches till the end of the 2nd century even in Europe. The credulous faithfuls are peculiar people).

 

The patronage, privileges, monetary benefits conferred on the Church and the Christians by the emperor, led to mad stampede to the new religion. Roman pagans converted to Christianity jockeyed and scrambled for positions in the church for themselves and their kins. The weakening and eventual  fall of the Western Roman Empire in the latter half of the 4th century, due to the attacks of Germanic — foiled by the pope then in power— enabled the papacy to have both spiritual and temporal power. Consequently the centre of power shifted from Ravena to Rome.  With this development, the popes assumed temporal powers as well which dominated their attention compared to spiritual matters. The shifting of the headquarters of the  Byzantine Empire, to Constantinople, in the modern Turkey facilitated  the papacy to rule the roost and  bed rock its absolute power over Italy and Latin Christianity.

 

Many popes had been power hungry war mongers, bent upon territorial expansion of the Church, amassing  huge wealth for themselves, their families and their near relatives.  Many popes were degraded specimens of womanising, clients of the prostitutes of Rome, begetters of bastard children, sexual fiends and even homosexuals. Thus the papacy had hit the nadir of moral decadence ages ago.

 

The sublime feelings of empathy, compassion and brotherhood enunciated by  Jesus of Nazareth have been  thrown away, with utter contempt and derision, by the Church. Many top notched princes and lords of the vainglory seekers built mammoth Cathedrals. The Renaissance popes spent huge amounts of money for erecting statues by employing renowned sculptors such as Michael Angelo, commissioning painters like Raphael, Bernini, Titan and many others.

 

Michael Walsh in his book “The Conclave”observes: all sorts of violence, chicanery, and corruption, skulduggery were  resorted in the mad scramble for positions of power in the Church. Blood ran in the streets of Rome, gold changed hands in the corridors of power; high passions and low intrigues were the order of things in the Church. There is no perceptible change in the ways of the Church even today. The fresh wind brought by Pope Francis may not be of any avail.

 

The Church has lost its relevance in the modern world. It survive in the intellectually, socially, economically, superstitious, decease-ridden backward societies in Africa,  Asia and Latin America. The rural folks of Kerala, literate but not educated, carry the heavy load of ritualistic Catholic religion on their bare shoulders. The pomp and show of the Zero-Church will impress the empty headed folks only.

 

Catholic ecclesiastical still carry the trappings of Mithraism, donning golden mitres, crooked crooks and outlandish ceremonial vestments of ermine and gold as in the mode in Mithraistic worship.

 

The Kerala Church is one of its kind. The bishops pretend to be sovereigns of all they survey. Most of them are empty headed, camouflaged in ridiculous attire with ostensible show. One may feel only contempt and pity for these upstarts.

 

If the Catholic Church is keen on surviving in an enlightened modern world, let it stop the craze for money and wealth, worldly power  and phelps; let it  refrain from indulging in the chess game of amoral, goonda dominated stinking politics of Kerala, lubricated by females of easy virtue.

 

Above all, the dispose of its vast monetary and real estate assets and distribute the proceeds among the decease ridden deserving poor and suffering people, hapless widows and others wallowing in the muck of the gutter, surviving on  discarded stale food carelessly thrown into the waste heaps.

 

IT IS A TALL ORDER NO DOUBT

 

Beware history has its way of wrecking vengeance on  malefactors and evil doors. It has already started its retribution in the form of COVID- 19. If the sin merchants selling their poison for hard cash, do not stop and desist from cheating  the ignorant and the superstitious with their no good nostrums and pseudo pills of piety, exploitation , scourges and pandemic pestilences, will engulf peoples lives. No TIN GOD will come to anyone’s succour, bleating and  beseeching will be of no avail. Already Covid – 19 has created deserted churches, and above all to the chagrin of the avaricious clerics, empty collection boxes and clerics  unemployed. In the days to come, the atmosphere may reverberate with the ghoulish eerie laughter of evil forces. Beware the Day of Reckoning and Judgement is not far off.

 

All the exploitation minded,  prone to immense pride, haughty, uppity, insolent, power and influence hungry ecclesiastical may recite the words in the Gitanjali, every moment of their wakefulness:

“Here is thy footstool, and there rests thy feet, where live the poorest, the lowliest and lost.

When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the depth, where thy feet rest among the poorest, the lowliest, and lost.

 

Pride can never approach thou walkest in the cloths of the humble among the poorest,and lowliest, and lost.

 

My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest company with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest and the lost.”

 

“This is my prayer to thee, my lord — strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart.  

Give the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles”

 

It is for the ecclesiastical to walk along with the human Jesus trudging his way over the rough terrain of Galilee, bare footed might have been, instead of chasing bewitching lucre, money and wealth tantalisingly offered by Mammon. If they go along with the Nazarene, a very unlikely happening, the human kind at large will benefit. Will the haughty clerics ever discard their gluttonous eating  and wine bibbing habits(on the sly), and abandon their present opulent life style in glossy comfort and discard their gliding limousines and glitzy attires. As things stand, the answer is an emphatic NO? The alternative to them is the road to Dante’s Inferno.

 

AMMEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may also like...

1 Response

  1. George Nedumparambil says:

    A good account of the history of Christianity to this day.  Come to think of it,  today's Christians are  victims of a fraud.  Jesus had said that he came for the  chosen people.  The chosen people, barring a few, rejected him.  It would have ended there but for  St Paul.  He is the one who marketed the idea of taking jesus' message to non Jews.  All of us are therefore conned Christians.  Somewhere along the way someone in our respective families got conned by a missionary who himself was likewise conned product.  Tracing back the  history this grand scam we reach Paul.  He was not a  disciple of Jesus and never saw him.  How could Paul change Jesus' message and open up it to foreigners and pagans.  The conned Christians face the risk of being asked by Jesus on Judgment Day, assuming there is going to be one,  "Who are all of you?  I don't recognize anyone of you.  You are all impostors and off you go into the burning fire". Nice end for all hardcore Christians. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.