By Mary Rizzo • May 11th, 2009 at 21:17 • Category: Analysis, Israel, Mary's Choice, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Zionism
For centuries “Caesaropapism” was a well know theory in ancient Europe where monarchs ruled by the idea of divine right, which stated that the king ruled both Crown and Church. The idea was pretty simple; combining the power of secular government with, or even making it superior to, the spiritual authority of the Christian Church. (Nice! from Kings’ prospective of course), but the ambitious Catholic church has another side of the story to tell and promote.
On the other side was the belief that the Pope, as vicar of God on earth, should have the ultimate authority over the state, and that what exactly came into existence in the 10th century, when the western Roman Empire fell there was complete hollowness of an emerging single powerful secular government in front of Rome; which stood as a central ecclesiastical power, So the expected squeal of events in this power vacuum was the rise of the Church to become the ultimate authority in western Europe thus transforming Western Europe into Sacrum Romanum Imperium (i.e Holy Roman Empire). Throughout the Middle Ages, the Pope claimed the right to depose the Catholic kings of Western Europe, (Nice! from popes’ prospective of course) then the unpleasant just happened. This ultimate authority of Catholic Rome began to collapse till reaching its epic collapse nearly during World War II. Under Christian Democrat governments, the sovereignty and independence of church and state were recognized and Popes lost it all, the Vatican became only a religious/spiritual icon to the Catholic Christian world, nothing more, nothing less. With the help of modern slang, it was a "game Over" for the Pope's Good old days.
Years go by peacefully in the usual manner; what's for the state is left for the state, and what's for the church is also left for the state, then all of a sudden we find the current pope frontally attacked European secularism when he used the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the European Union to castigate the leaders of the EU for their failure to recognize the traditional religion of Europe, which grew out of Rome, in its declaration of fundamental values. And we hear him accuse Europe of being “built upon a cynical form of pragmatism that compromises on all principles, sacrificing fundamental ideals and undermining the dignity of human nature and freedom”.
Then on another incidence we find him addressing bishops of Latin America, challenging them to galvanize a continent-wide evangelical crusade to rout the competing non-Catholic religions—“sects” as he called them—that have penetrated Latin America on the heels of the liberalizing wave that hit the church in the 1960s and ’70s.
Then another incidence. You open your eyes on the morning’s newspapers the day after the G8 conference and you run into an article headlined “Global Economy Needs Catholic Insights, Pope Says.” Then all this requires a conclusive Smile and a closer look at the Pope's current Plans getting into action.
Any astute observer of the above mentioned events can easily conclude that Joseph Ratzinger (The Current Pope) is aware of his deliberate and calculated agenda to wind back the clock during his papacy. He wants the Roman Catholic Church to reverse the damaging liberal social politics and rationalist theology that so weakened its political and moral authority in the decades following World War II and return to the position it once enjoyed at the peak of its power.
Benedict XVI won’t rest until he has achieved that goal! Of course everyone works for his own interest in a way that serves his own agenda (whether hidden or exposed). There is nothing lame in that, but when Religion gets stained with hidden agendas, and Politics becomes a religion, and when Benedict’s agenda conflicts with ours, that’s where we stand and question.
In the 45 years since the Second Vatican Council repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death, and when Pope Pius XII was silent during the Holocaust relations between the Vatican and Israel was deteriorating in an exponential manner but hey! that was not Benedict's fault! Well, not anymore.
In 2005, where the Vatican elected an ex-member in the Hitler Youth to be the Pope after the benign Pope John Paul II. That was strike one in the relationship between the two entities.
Then in 2009, when Cardinal Renato Martino described Gaza as a "big concentration camp". That was simply strike two and from there the relations grew more tense, where numerous verbal missiles were launched from Tel Aviv towards the Vatican accusing such words as being offensive, an insult, so far removed from truth and dignity, shocking and disappointing phenomenon, Hamas pro-Palestinian propaganda, etc….
Surprisingly enough, Benedict didn’t realize that the third strike that would initiate a global Jewish outrage on him and the Vatican was on it's way, not even waiting for him to make "the miss" by himself but rather letting one of his bishops do the trick, where in an interview with Swedish state TV broadcast on Jan. 21, Williamson denied that any Jews were gassed during World War II. He said only about 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed, but none of them gassed. And what is more surprising is this Bishop's excommunication was revoked by the Pope a while ago.
Ouch! That’s three strikes in a row. The Pope got in deep waters now, a "home run" in the political game was a far reach out of hand. And since rules in the political game differ a little bit from baseball which has far more strict rules, a "retry" is acceptable after third "strike" , where the move that will be played and accepted will only be “an obligatory mending” of the situation.
The pope was not stupid, in fact when it comes to the Church’s benefits there has to be a retry play!
The Vatican swiftly announced that Benedict did not know of Williamson's views when he agreed to lift the excommunication, and stressed that it did not in any way share Williamson's views. And thus Williamson lost his excommunication and soon became the sheep of the Vatican who got slaughtered for the salvation of the Vatican/Israel relations. Then we hear various counter missiles launched from the Pope towards the raging Jewish state saving Vatican's face as follows:
“Any minimization of the Holocaust was unacceptable”
"The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah (i.e.: holocaust) was a crime against God and against humanity, this should be clear to everyone, especially to those standing in the tradition of the Holy Scriptures."
So far, So good, then comes the next move, Benedict is going for a pilgrimage to the holy land! And he will then have the opportunity to honor the memory of the SIX million Jewish victims of the Shoah.
You may think that his basic goal is strict to performing pilgrimage and praying for peace but that’s not the case. A sacrifice for the Zionists has to be offered in to form of visiting the holocaust memorial in Israel.
But in the end of the day, the Pope swallowed the lesson pretty well. During his visit to Jerusalem and West Bank he may encourage peace plans on the usual two state solution dilemma, but more than that there will be strict red lines that shall not be crossed by whosoever. Despite being “God’s Vicar" on earth, he shall never get highly critical on the state of Israel. After all, he is just a Pope; while they are God’s CHOSEN people.
In the Mid-1990s, a statement made by Pope John Paul II during an interview in his native Poland, broadcast in Italian over a Polish radio station, the Pope revealed the Vatican’s ultimate goal of transferring its headquarters from Rome to Jerusalem.
As a matter of fact, this ultimate goal isn’t something new, although the sound of silence has been surrounding this project since the failure of the Crusades, but it has never been forgotten where Jerusalem shall be the final abode of the Vatican and history is the best witness.
The Israeli government signed with the Vatican on Dec. 30, 1993, a bilateral secret agreement termed “The Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel,” such agreement granted free access to Jerusalem’s holy sites over which Rome has legal jurisdiction, under Israeli law, including both its institutions and assets. Then after about 6 months, exactly on June 15, 1994, The Israeli government held a further agreement with the Vatican endorsing the Roman Catholic Church’s participation in negotiations to determine the future of Jerusalem! No wonder we find on the same year, the Vatican officially recognizes the Zionist state of Israel. Add to that the claims of the famous journalist Joel Bainerman, a well-known commentator on Israeli affairs,
“The end goal of the Vatican is to seize control of the Old City of Jerusalem out of the clutches of the State of Israel. To that end they have a secret agreement with Israel which obliges Israel to respect the ‘extraterritorial’ claim to their physical presence in the city. In short, we have accepted the Vatican’s right to have little Vatican sovereign embassies throughout our eternal capital of Jerusalem that same Vatican has committed itself, in public and in a written agreement, to ensure that the Palestinians have sovereignty in the Old City of Jerusalem.”
“The Vatican had thus revealed its hand. From here Rome was to go on to actively work through its proxies in the “peace process” to exploit Palestinian claims as a means of splitting the city of Jerusalem asunder, seizing the Old City and possessing East Jerusalem. This involved the management of Palestinian aggression as part of the process, regardless of the suffering and loss of life that it would inevitably incur. This would in fact be a vital part of the initiative to take East Jerusalem by force in the event of the failure of diplomatic means. The same tactic had been instigated by Germany and Rome in the Balkan peninsula to achieve a desired result with implicit UN agreement, with the Serbs becoming the pariah in the world’s view. This time, it’s the Jews who are being pilloried, in particular since the Gaza incursion, in the lead-up to a similar result as that in Kosovo: the seizure of iconic territory to be placed under the influence of Berlin and Rome with the willing acquiescence of the United Nations.”
Apparently, The conflict over Jerusalem is not tied between the traditional apparent rivals, Muslims and Zionists, but there has always been a hidden hand in this conflict manipulating it for it’s interest, adding more complexity and frustration to the Conflict, decapitating any solution from reaching the end of the black tunnel, adding more charcoal to the flame.
But after all what had appeared to us that Politics has a religion and that religion is Vaticanian.
Sameh is a 24 year old training surgeon in Orthopedics. He just started Article Writing as soon as he graduated from his medical school this year, Sameh's main interests lies in political and "Sarcastic Comedy" Articles, Currently writing comedic articles called "Living in the Republic Series" discussing Daily problems facing Arabs in the Middle East. He is now living in Cairo, Egypt.
Tagged as: Catholic, Israel, Jerusalem, Pope Benedict, Religion, Vatican, Zionism
Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of Tlaxcala translations collective. Her personal blog is Peacepalestine.
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