Thursday, June 28, 2007

Very disturbing news!

I am embarassed to admit I actually went to the web-site fox news and saw this story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287107,00.html
I tried to find it on more reliable sites such as CNN and the BBC but I could not verify it. So (hopefully!) it is some sort of mistake.

Yet, I can not say I am surprised that the present Pope Benedict XVI has once again decided to take a step backwards. From a bright young star of the progressive element he has fallen so low. I can't tell you how upset we were at Villanoce when he was "elected" through some of the most nefarious schemes in church history as the previous Pope stacked the college of Cardinals with "conservatives" and the changed the rules to simple majority. Sister Mary Kate was in hysterical tears and it took us all night to comfort her. She had her hopes set so high on a more enlightened church.

Now we see that the Bishop of Vatican City (as he should rightly be called) has gone back to a dead language and a middle ages liturgy which is designed to exclude far more than it includes. Mark my words a chill wind is blowing not just through Hollywood (as Tim Robbins noted) but through the entire world community. How fortunate we are that there are still some people courageous enough to stand up to this extreme and unhistorical papal despotism. I think we can find more than a few right here at SOV2.

This is why I am suggesting to Father Tim that he immediately set up a Society of Saint John XXIII (SSJXXIII) to counteract some of these atrocious tendencies within the modern church.

On second thought that seems rather exlcusive to use "Roman" numerals instead of the Arabic and to drop little words like "of" while including big ones like "saint." Let's call it SOSJ23.

H Robert

8 comments:

beez said...

But....

John XXIII hasn't been canonized!

H. Robert Williams said...

Dear Beez,

Yes you bring up a very good point. In fact he has not been "canonized" but you must realize that "canonization" does not confer "sanctifying grace" to use an outmoded expression. By referring to him as a saint I am going back to an older tradition which recognized the entire Faith Community as being sanctified by the spirit. Thus it is appropriate in a manner to talk about a saint Beez or a saint Tim Plarvik, or even (heh heh! Blush!) a saint H Robert.

But honestly, John the 23 really fell quite short of my ideal. He did not do enough to reverse that dreadful trend of ultramontanism which has captured so much of the world. My use of the "Saint" label was merely to form a stylish acronym SOSJ23 as opposed to SOJ23 or even worse SOPJ23 (blech!).

Titles such as saint, holy, pope, father, mother, reverend, brother, sister, and so on should be limited to strictly formal settings as much as possible. Honestly can you see Francis of Assisi wishing to be addressed as Saint Francis? (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... LOL... ROTFLOL)

H Robert

Terrence Berres said...

If you would consistently use "Spririt of Vatican 2", it avoids confusion with Fr. O'Leary's Spirit of Vatican II weblog.

H. Robert Williams said...

Dear Mr. berres,

Excellent point! Yes, O'Leary appears indeed to be using archaic and exclusive language merely on the basis of some misguided notion that the roman numeral "II" is somehow more academicaly sound than "2." From my own experience, this is almost certainly because of a deep-seated antipathy towards the people of arabic dissent.

You know gone are the days when we americans of european descent could merely say "I'm not a racist" and "I don't use deragotory words" and "I treat all people the same." First of all people who say things like that are lying in the literal sense. They do use deragatory expressions when in "private" conversation. Secondly, this tendency of self-censorship is a form of self-deception. They are not admitting to themselves teh fact that they have a problem and it needs to be confronted aggresively.

At Villanoce we found that the first step in recovering from your hidden racism is to "own it" much the way an alcoholic owns his disease. Admit these inner racist tendencies and then work to overcome them. The clearest method is to embrace the eternal feminine because the feminine aspect of your character is the one that is most open to honest self-criticism.

I think O'Leary probably needs to take a good long look at the O'Leary within and ask himself whether or not he really has breathed in the Spirit of Vatican 2.

H Robert

Terrence Berres said...

But in Fr. O'Leary's case mustn't we consider the possibility of "Spirit of Vatican [2], I, I" as an intertext?

H. Robert Williams said...

Let is us see him apply an intertextual analysis to himself (ha! ha!)

Honestly, though I agree with O'Leary most of the time and am consequently quite sympathetic, I find his style to be so congested and "sophisticated" (in the worst sense of the word) as to be nearly unbearable.

H Robert

Nick Winker said...

But to name something after some one who is dead is such a violation of the living Spirit of Vatican II, and even to name something after one person is so individual centered, it is about us, after all we are church. So it should be the society of saint us being church for eachother, or sosubcfe. See we can not capitalize any one letter because as with us, each one is important, unless of course they do not agree with us or have advanced degrees and such.

Che' Lovell said...

Hey das cardinal! You are right! especially about that not capitalizing stuff!

I think H Robert is FULL OF IT especially since he didn't let me put celebrities in our mission statement! I mean he was like "no, Che', Julia Roberts does not represent the womin spirit that guides the faith community." You know I think its because he was at college so long he's kind of out of touch or something. I mean, what's so special about Villanoce. I've never even heard of it.

Are you a fan of e. e. cummings like me?

Che'