Pope's health "seriously weakened" [announces "end of pilgrammage"]

[truthisfreedom]

no disrespect intended, but as father guido sarducci once said on saturday night live, perhaps at long last "he's-a too pooped to pope-ah."

--------------------

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=565915§ion=news

Pope's health "seriously weakened"
Mon 16 August, 2004 09:32

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Pope John Paul's health has deteriorated and the head of the Roman Catholic Church may be near the end of his life, a Belgian cardinal has been quoted as saying.

The 84-year-old Pope, who has Parkinson's disease and severe arthritis, visibly struggled as he wound up an emotional visit to the French miracle shrine of Lourdes on Sunday.

<snip>

"The Pope's health has seriously weakened. When the Pope says: 'I end my pilgrimage here', that could mean two things. That, at least was how people listening to him in the field interpreted it. It was almost his goodbye to Lourdes and maybe also to his life," the cardinal added.

<snip>

[Merlin]

1. Jesus, how will the world ever possibly get along without him?

I mean he's just indispensable, isn't he. I mean, why else would an octegenarian who is utterly incapable of functioning in a normal manner stay on long beyond the time all normal people retire to head one of the world's largest, most important organizations?

Surely he believes himself indispensible to the entire human race. And, because he's the freaking Pope, then of course, his judgement--feeble though it may be--is infallible!

But now, old John finally got the sign he needed. He went to Lourdes, and his illness got worse. For Christ's sake, Mr. Pontiff, wake up and retire! Hello! Guess what. When you can no longer speak audibly, and you can't lift your head, I don't care who you are, IT'S TIME TO TURN THE JOB OVER TO SOMEBODY ELSE !!!

:grr:

[IndianaGreen]

11. Let's see who his replacement happens to be

perhaps an Opus Dei Cardinal like Cipriani.

The Pope has a lot of followers around the world, many of whom are our allies against social injustice and the war.

[Merlin]

24. It's almost certain to be Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria...

who is strongly opposed to abortion, birth control, women priests, yada yada.

He may bring an interesting perspective and perhaps a new outreach to muslims. But he's billed as cut from the same right wing myopic material as the rest of those who make rank in the Vatican.

[LizW]

2. My 12 yo son came in the room last night

after watching a news story and said, "Mom! How old is the Pope?" I told him I didn't know, but that he is very old and very sick. He said, "Well, it's just sad. He's pitiful. They should let him retire!" :)

[BiggJawn]

3. Retirement's not an option, is it?

Is the Pope allowed to retire?

If he decided to step down, he'd be the first, if memory serves...

[jdonaldball]

4. Right. The Vatican is not an American institution

and if any Americans don't like how the Vatican operates, they can ignore it, stay out of the church or leave it.
I always wonder why the Pope gets angry flames on DU, which is a site for American progressives, not a forum for the internal affairs of any church. I mean, America is a secular republic, and Catholic issues don't directly concern American politics.
Indirectly, yes Catholicism influences American politics, of course. So do the fundie Protestants. And so does Judaism (often in good ways, the Jewish search for justice) and Likudnik Zionism (usually in bad ways.)
But don't hold the Pope personally responsible for any domestic American political issues. He has no political power in America unless Americans give it to him.
One more thing - with all his (I think) mistakes, still, that old man, as an old man who could barely speak, took Bush to task for waging an illegal war. Being an octogenarian does not mean incompetence - Ben Franklin was 81 at the Constitutional Convention.

[BiggJawn]

5. We are? (chuckle)

"... I mean, America is a secular republic..."

We know that.

Somebody forgot to tell the GOP, though....:-)

[jdonaldball]

7. HAHA! First we have to teach the GOP

what "republic" means.
Then we can work on teaching them what "secular" means.
Then we can teach them how to read.
Then we can teach them the Constitution.

[gratuitous]

13. Yeah, they're still working on "sovereign"

But back to the topic at hand. I saw of clip of Karol at Lourdes over the weekend. The guy is clearly in his extremity, and is going to go back to Rome to die.

[truthisfreedom]

6. aside from the usual offensive stances that Popes have to take, i'd say

that this particular Pope rocks. he's spoken out strongly against bush on several occasions and he's pretty firm on human rights stuff... he's ok by me. except for the usual ridiculous stuff, as i said...

[Minstrel Boy]

9. You know which Pope REALLY rocked? John Paul I.

He was preparing to re-examine the church's stand on contraception. He was a true friend of the poor, of the third world, and of liberation theology. He refused to wear the papal tiara or to be carried in the papal chair. He was regarded as a liberal reformer, and a fan of Mark Twain. Widely unknown at his elevation, he was immediately nicknamed "the smiling Pope," and warmly embraced by the masses.

Most significantly, he'd learned of the infiltration of the Vatican by the fascist P2 Masonic lodge, and of its corruption of church financial institutions. He was about to clean house.

Then he died, under mysterious circumstances, just 33 days after becoming Pope. He'd been fit, and had just received a clean bill of health from his longtime doctor. No autopsy was permitted.

In God's Name by David Yallop makes a good case for his death having been a political assassination, by deeply compromised elements within the curia and the Vatican Bank.

[truthisfreedom]

12. just goes to show you. when you discover traitors in your midst, fire

them by morning light. never let them hear about it before it's over. our country would do well to use such tactics against the new enemies of state... bushco.

[Minstrel Boy]

17. Albino Luciani didn't know what he was getting into.

And he didn't ask for it, either.

I'm not a Catholic, but after learning what I have of him, and of what he confronted, I have a great respect, affection and pity for the man.



David Guyatt describes here something of the web of intrigue and high corruption Luciani - Pope John Paul 1 - met in the Vatican:

Michele Sindona's connection to the Mafia probably dates back to WW11 when he joined in the Mafia preparations for American landings in Sicily. However, it was during the 1970's that the Sicilian Mafia choose him as their money-man. Four years later, in 1974, Don Michele's world began collapsing around him. It was later discovered that he had been skimming off the mob's narcodollars which he was charged with laundering. Incarcerated in prison for his part in the Franklin Bank crash Sindona was later found dead in his cell. A dose of strychnine laced in his coffee brought a 25 year sentence to an abrupt end. If Sindona's death was anything it was too late. His intimate involvement with another bank that crashed with massive losses was to have calamitous and far reaching effects in Italy's ruling elite as well as the spooks of Langley.

Banco Ambrosiano was the largest private bank in Italy until it collapsed in 1982 with losses approaching a massive $2 billion. At the centre of the scandal was Roberto Calvi, Chairman of Ambrosiano and lodge-brother of Licio Gelli, a shadowy "Grand Master" of the Italian P-2 (Propoganda 2) Masonic lodge. Gelli - once an oberleutnant in Himmler's SS - held the reins of power and knew how to use them, for which he was dubbed the "puppet-master". A consummate blackmailer, he kept a secret record of wrong-doing of all those he came into contact with, and wasn't shy in using it to his advantage. P2 included in its membership roll highly placed politicians, cabinet members, heads of the Italian armed forces and the intelligence services, together with leading industrialists, media magnates, judges, Mafiosi, members of the Vatican Curia and, of course, high-flying financiers - including Sindona. P-2's "elite" membership - linked by their extreme right wing political views - perfectly dove-tailed with the CIA's long standing desire to eradicate communism from the Italian political scene.

The P-2 and Banco Ambrosiano scandal broke when Calvi was found "suicided" on 17 June 1982. With his hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck, he had been suspended from London's Blackfriars Bridge, in what some saw as a ritual killing. Calvi was P2's banker and had been involved in embezzling massive sums of money out of his bank and into secretive offshore companies in Lichenstein and elsewhere; a number of which were linked to the Vatican Bank. P2 was responsible for a number of CIA backed political atrocities at the time, including the bombing of Bologna railway station in August 1980, where 85 innocents were slaughtered - and mischievously attributed to left-wing terrorists.

It took ten years before the real story came out. Francesco Mannino Mannonia a penitito (defector) from the Sicilian Mafia confirmed in 1992 that Calvi was strangled by Francesco di Carlo, the mob's Heroin "traffic manager" at the instruction of Pippo Calo, of the Corleone family. We now know that Calvi together with Gelli and Sindona were embezzling the Mafia out of a fortune. Gelli was "handling" a large sum of money for the Corleonesi, which he passed to Calvi who promptly used it to shore up his failing bank. Smart to the last, Gelli helped the mob recover "tens of billions of Lire" before bolting out of sight. Despite his best efforts he was eventually arrested in Switzerland, where he had travelled to arrange the secret transfer of $120 million of Ambrosiano's lost loot. Bribing a guard with $20,000.00 he managed to escape and once over the French border climbed aboard a helicopter for the short trip to Monaco, home of P-2's "super-lodge". From Monaco he travelled to Paraguay - a favourite bolt-hole of many of his war-time Nazi comrades - and disappeared from sight. The missing billions were never recovered.

The Ambrosiano affair was significant for revealing the web of inter-connections that existed within Italy's ruling class. On the one hand the CIA were using P-2's "covered" (secret) lodge and illicit funds to conduct covert warfare on Italy's communists. At the other extreme it demonstrated the Mafia's total infiltration of Italian business and politics; a feat achieved following their induction into Masonry. Antonino Calderoni, a Mafia defector, revealed that during 1977 Mafia bosses were formally invited to join a covered Masonic lodge and agreed to do so on the understanding that they would learn the secrets of Masonry, but would not reveal Mafia secrets. "Men of Honour who get to be bosses belong to the Masonry: this must not escape you" another Mafia defector, Leonardo Messina, revealed. "Because it is in the Masonry that we can have total contact with businessmen, with the institutions, with the men who administer power..." Messina went on to add that the Mafia's secret association with Masonry is "an obligatory passage for the Mafia on a world level."Masonry, like the intelligence community, banking and the Mafia, share a common interest in secrecy. Similarly they all have a common interest in money, especially other people's money.

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_money_fountain.htm

[Matilda]

19. Luciano was a true Christian.

I know some fellow-Catholics who have no doubt he was murdered,
because had he learned what was going on with the Vatican Bank,
he'd have pulled the rug from under them.

Part of me doesn't really want to believe he was murdered by his
own, but I do think they probably allowed him to die, by not
summoning aid until it was too late.

It's interesting to speculate on the direction the Church would
have taken had he lived - a continuation of the work of John XXIII.
But that, for some, was possibly another reason why he had to go.

It's a human tragedy.

[burrowowl]

23. Yes

we need another like him or John XXIII.

[goclark]

21. He was my favorite too

This Pope did put Bush in his high chair several times. For that I am grateful.

There was a book that I read once about all the Popes. It really bothers me that I can't remember the title. It was published in the 1970/80's. It talked about all the "mystery deaths" and the ones who stole the money.Each chapter was devoted to a specific Pope.

If anyone knows the title, please let me know.

[AFSCME girl]

15. I agree with you

Truth is Freedom. As a lifelong Catholic, I don't agree with alot of what the Church requires from it's flock and a great deal of the time I feel that I don't fit in, but I give John Paul credit for telling B*sh how he feels about certain issues.
:hi:

[truthisfreedom]

16. thanks, AFSCME girl. i'm far from Catholic but i've dated a number of

Catholic women and i've always been impressed by their personal views as opposed to the "party line." how is it that Catholics can be so enlightened, yet support a network of controllers who don't seem to notice what's happening to their flock?

[AFSCME girl]

20. I can only answer that question

on a personal level. For me, I gravitate to the beauty and reverence of the Mass itself. That is what "keeps me hangin' on" so to speak. I do often wonder what (or if) "the powers that be" realize what is happening to their flocks and what the final outcome will be. I KNOW I am not the only Catholic that feels ostracized at times.

[Merlin]

8. Well I don't like it. And I don't really care if you don't like it.

I'll take what opinions I damn well please as a Catholic-in-exile, thank you. The Pope is not the church and the church is not the Pope.

And if you think religion and politics aren't related, I'd like to know what it is you're smoking. The two are as inseparable as are politics and economics.

So Franklin attended the Phila convention as an octegenarian. You may be quite right. But as I recall he was a godam healthy octegenarian, not one enfeebled by illness to the point of virtual incapacity.

Face it. The only reason this idiot still occupies his vaunted, pompous throne is because he's so arrogant he can't imagine the world surviving without him.

Oh, and, yes, sure he lectured Bush on the war. Very quietly. But very publicly he's lecturing the American people not to tolerate a pro-choice Presidential candidate. Oh, I forgot, that isn't JP2. It's Ratzinger. Gee, maybe JP2 doesn't know a thing about it.

[Matilda]

10. You got it - we don't know who is speaking in his name any more.

The priests at my church say it is possible for the pope to retire,
and it should have happened years ago.

It's very sad to see this once alert and vibrant man now barely
able to function, but I also think it's bad for the church because
he has become a source of mockery, and when he can't walk, can't
stand, often can't speak and sometimes can't stay awake - how can
anything he is supposed to have said or done be taken seriously?
It's very hard to believe he even knows what day it is sometimes,
from the look of him.

I think for the sake of the Church itself, early in the reign of
the next pontiff, some new rules will have to be drawn up to set
some clear guidelines to be followed should another pope overstay
his welcome and become too old or too ill to be effective. And when
it comes to the survival of Mother Church, the church hierarchy
can be very tough indeed. I don't think they will let this
situation happen again.

[jdonaldball]

14. Merlin, as Americans you and I agree on "86W", and the Pope is

not American.
I agree with your first line (oh, Catholic here, but not a good one) that "the Pope is not the Church and the Church is not the Pope".
Second line: "The two (religion and politics) are as inseparable as politics and economics" - I disagree. A big part of the ongoing American experiment is to try to separate religion from politics. And at any rate, our Constitution says they are separate. Although I do see your point, but on the other hand, ideally, America is supposed to separate religion from politics, and so, if we are "progressives" then I think we should continue progressing toward this ideal.
Third, about Franklin: He died of syphilis in 1790, three years after the Constitutional Convention. In 1787 he was not well.
But even physically ill people can have wisdom.
Finally, your sig line, 86W, is what we agree on. Let's restore the republic so that you and I can keep the freedom to carry on arguing about religion and anything else we damn well choose to argue about. :-)

[Merlin]

22. Ok, let's agree in general. But one point...

I think you are confusing religion with the church. The constitution and the American ethic call for a separation of church and state.

But religion can not--and must never--be considered separate from politics. Otherwise we wind up like those poor souls who belive that faith alone is enough to save them, whether or not they strive to act toward others as Jesus taught us to.

Conversely, politics can not possibly be separated from religion. Religion goes to the heart of a person's belief system, and politics is philosophy writ large upon the world. The two ought rightly be synonymous.

This is not to say they ought to be institutionally intertwined. Therein lies the danger, imo.

So in general agreement, let's march on to defeat this miserable s.o.b. in the w.h. so we can come back later and solve all the church's problems.

Peace !

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

18. Hello

:)