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Pope declares war on "the occult", sets up "exorcism squads"
Squirminator2k
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
they/themNorth Hollywood, CARegistered User regular
From The Daily Mail[/quote]:
This is playing havoc with my Sanity Meter, folks. If not because it's completely and utterly loony, then because I was halfway through writing a screenplay for a film about Catholic Ghostbusters and the bloody Pope has beaten me to it. In real life, no less.
Without wanting to get into a Big Beard in the Sky versus the Flying Spaghetti Monster debate here, what do people think of this decision? Is there anyone here who actually thinks that what the Pope is planning is good idea?
The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.
Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.
"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.
Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.
He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.
"The prayer is useful not only for priests but also for lay people in helping to fight demons," he said.
Father Paolo Scarafoni, who lectures on the Vatican's exorcism course, said interest in Satanism and the occult has grown as people lost faith with the church.
He added: "People suffer and think that turning to the Devil can help solve their problems. We are being bombarded by requests for exorcisms."
The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.
In theory, under the Catholic Church's Canon Law 1172, all priests can perform exorcisms. But in reality only a select few are assigned the task.
Under the law, practitioners must have "piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life."
The rite of exorcism involves a series of gestures and prayers to invoke the power of God and stop the "demon" influencing its victim.
This is playing havoc with my Sanity Meter, folks. If not because it's completely and utterly loony, then because I was halfway through writing a screenplay for a film about Catholic Ghostbusters and the bloody Pope has beaten me to it. In real life, no less.
Without wanting to get into a Big Beard in the Sky versus the Flying Spaghetti Monster debate here, what do people think of this decision? Is there anyone here who actually thinks that what the Pope is planning is good idea?
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The DM are known as anti-catholic, but that doesn't mean the Church isn't interested in occult nonsense again. Ratzinger's pretty old-school, I wouldn't be entirely surprised, and I do recall reading relatively recent statements from him and/or other higher-ups reaffirming their belief in an active demonic world.
Oh, of course. What I imagine is that the pope wants priests to be more educated to debate with atheists and provide more persuasive arguments for people struggling with faith. Into these things usually slip stranger conservative measures, urged by the most extremely conservatives priests. If there is an encyclical, there is probably a clause or two clause that states exorcism should be thought of as an option.
Unlike the white house, the vatican is pretty rhetorically savvy.
If these "exorcism squads" are real, it's just more fuel to my fire.
For example?
Yes, and the anger stems from people without a proper understanding of ecclesia. He was talking about chuch/religion in the sense of "binding fast a community."
I don't doubt that, but it does seem to come dangerously close to implying other Christian churches are heretical because they are not following the only Church Christ established.
While the church, even under the less amicable Benedict, is generally very tactful in their conduct with others, they are not in the business of parsing their statements in order to avoid the outrage of idiots.
The horrible botching he did when discussing Islam a few years back where he took up the argument of a Byzantine emperor. Let me dig up a quote.
Pappa Ratzi can't hold a candle to John Paul. He was a saint, this guy is just doing a shitty job of not doing anything stupid before he dies while the Church modernizes and catches up to the reforms and modernisations that were put in place by the last pontificate. Not that this article is anything more than bullshit, but this pope sucks. Plus I'd rather have a new Urban than a 16th Benedict.
Ummm, no, actually they very much are.
The Muslim fiasco was a indefensibly boneheaded. Ratzinger was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century. As a pope, his performance has not been nearly as impressive.
"The God Squad." Banishing Satan for great justice.
Starring Mel Gibson as Father Judas, the ladies man. "Hey, Sugar Tits."
Gary Busey as Father Killcrazy, the madman. "You ever seen death? He's seven feet tall and has a brown robe. Tell him I said 'Hi'."
And Tom Cruise as Father Gaylord, explosives. "I'm in love with God! I'm in love with God!" *jumping up and down on a couch*
With Paris Hilton as Sister Legup, espionage. "I can't wear anything under this robe. It's hot."
And Britney Spears as Sister Jigglioni *munch, munch* "Can't talk...eating..."
To the Pope mobile.
*Batman theme plays*
Yep, I'm going to Hell.
I just skim read it and didn't see anything that jumps out at me as promoting the angle the Daily Mail has gone for.
It's fun to watch Poldy get all defensive though.
Then when I read the below I start to freak out a little
For this too we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day—knowing that this is how we live life to the full. (para 39, SPE SALVI
I guess I just find martyr a loaded term
Anyways, the Vatican saying they arent against "occult" symbolism is like the mafia saying theyre against crime
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Wasn't he just reciting the quote and then later kinda denounced it? There's not much you can do when there is a flock of people ready and willing to take bits and pieces of what you say and mold it to whatever agenda they want.
True or not, it is fairly indicitive of Benedict's hardliner stance. They're really having quite a few PR problems... here in Minnesota, our archbishop has been regressing the stance on gays and lesbians, and basically called it a sin to support a practicing gay family member. Tough to love the sinner but hate the sin when everybody's sinning at such a prodigious rate just for not kicking the gays to the curb.
"How can such a good cop be such a bad priest?"
Wait, how does this true or not show that Benedict is a hardliner? The fact that a news agency reports a false story about you doing something does not really tell anything about how you really are.
His actions show that he's a hardliner; the article is indicative of how his stances are viewed, just like The Onion printing the headline "Bush Awknowledges Existance of Carbon Dioxide" is indicative of President Bush's stance on environmental issues, despite being, you know, a joke.
Hmm, free thinking and openmindedness is an obsticle to his church, eh? That's not hardliner at all...
People who divorce, have unmarried sex, are homosexuals, and/or use contraception or condoms (even to prevent the transmsision of HIV) cannot truly love. Yikes.
So yeah, many of his stances might be considered hardline. Whether you believe that they are hardline or not, the fact that many react to his stances with articles like the original post's reference is indicitive of him in some way.
And Peter Stormare as the devil.
He didn't really argue against it all that much. And if you're going to tacitly accept a negative view towards another religion, particularly Islam these days, or something along those lines, you might want to pick something a bit less fire breathingly horrible. And he's not even doing any of the awesome stuff Popes get to do so as to at least temper the bad fuck ups. Ratzinger just plain sucks.
But for some reason, John Paul II didn't get this much flak. There's gotta be something to it.
If someone for some reason decided that I was a baby-raping satanist and people believed it, it wouldn't make it true, but there would have to be something about me that makes it believable.
Not if enough people say it for no reason. Enough people were making Darth Benedicts after he was elected Pope that it was pretty inevitable that people were inclined to find him scary.