It is estimated that over 2 million people will travel to Rome this weekend to take part in a ritual that will claim that two men are saints. Whatever a saint is. The Catholic church has various ways of determining this. One is that to be a saint the man, it is always a man, women are second class citizens in the Catholic church, has to have carried out two "miracles." Whatever a miracle is. I have an old car which does not go any more. I am always saying;"it would take a miracle to get it on the road again." Maybe some Catholic full time organizer will come along and wave his hands and get it on the road again and I will have to reconsider my position. Some chance.
It is possible to look at the huge buildings and art and music and theatre and apparatus of the Catholic church and think that this is all just some spiritual force, something totally unpolitical and uneconomic. This is what the leaders of this organization want its members to think. They have the beautiful buildings, the beautiful music, the rituals that a piece of bread becomes a long dead man's body, and a sip of wine a long dead mans blood. Again it is always a man. And of course if such a man ever existed.
It would be a bad mistake to fall for this propaganda and nonsense of the Catholic church. Better to look at a few facts. The Catholic church has 1.2 billion members, approximately 17% of the world's population. It has over 400,000 full time organizers, priests, bishops, cardinals, nuns. There is no democracy in this organization. The leaders are not elected by the members. Imagine if I set up an organization of 1.2 billion members and refused to let these 1.2 billion members elect their leader and at the same time declared that this leader was infallible, that is always right. This is a gigantic undemocratic anti women apparatus. And it is spread all over the world.
But not only is it a gigantic apparatus. It is a very conscious and politically focused apparatus and organization. It is absolutely committed to keeping capitalism in existence. After all it has its own property and power to protect. Its commitment to capitalism was shown very clearly when Stalinism began to collapse in the 1980's. The big fear of the Catholic church and its ally capitalism, was that the fall of Stalinism would be followed by democratic socialist societies which would spread internationally and undermine capitalism in the west. So the Catholic church acted.
Over this period its top people held meeting after meeting with the top strategists of US imperialism. They worked out how to intervene to make sure that Stalinism was followed by a return to capitalism. The popes of the time made trip after trip internationally to stir up their members in support of capitalism. The US ambassador to the Vatican said that the economic power of US capitalism and the morale power of the Catholic church would bring down Stalinism. He was not so far wrong. Especially as these two forces were working so closely together.
So if you happen to be watching this show in Rome today think about what you are watching and think also about the real reason why these full time organizers of this organization, popes, cardinals, bishops, priests are dressed as they are. It is to appear different and to intimidate. To keep the masses down. To keep the capitalist system going. To keep the wealth and power of the Catholic church intact.
Oh and do not be fooled by this "humble" pope. He did not oppose the mass slaughter of activists and youth that took place in Argentina under the auspices of the military dictatorship and its string pullers US imperialism. Scores of people were slaughtered and thrown out of helicopters into the ocean while still alive. That is who this pope is. And his bleating on about the poor. The system he props up, capitalism, makes poverty inevitable. And listen careful when he tries to con people into thinking he is so concerned about the poor. The Catholic church believes and preaches that the poor will always be "with us." It never preaches an end to poverty. Poverty will always be with it in its capitalist world. Only a democratic socialist world where there is an end to capitalism and these undemocratic organizations such as the Catholic church can end poverty.
"In the United States at least, churches in general are exempted from the financial reporting and disclosure requirements that otherwise apply to nonprofit groups." Read more.
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