Quote of the Day: Lady Gaga on Pope Benedict XVI

As the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy becomes increasingly reactionary and the younger generations are leaving organized religion in ever increasing numbers the long term prospect of the Church appear moribund outside of ignorant and uneducated parts of the world (Africa is principal growth area for the Church) what the Pope believes and tries to dictate through pronouncements holds less and less sway.  Especially among thinking individuals.  Benedict XVI still foolishly believes that the world as a whole cares what he and his fellow child rapist enablers/protectors think about gays and homosexuality.  Those days are fading fast.  Lady Gaga summed it up well during an interview on French radio:

On Friday Pope Benedict XVI told French bishops: “Marriage and the family are institutions that must be promoted and defended from every possible misrepresentation of their true nature, since whatever is injurious to them is injurious to society itself.”

But the Catholic singer, a long-time defender of gay rights, hit back at his comments on French radio.  She said: “I think that gay marriage is going to happen. It must. We are not actually equal—humanity—if we are not allowed to freely love one another.

“What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope. It is not a reflection of all religious people.” 

Truth be told, Benedict and a significant number of bishops and cardinals belong behind bars - just like Monsignor Lynn of the Philadelphia archdiocese.  Thankfully, more and more Catholics seem to be grasping that reality and ignoring the Vatican's dictates at will.   Better yet, in the USA, Catholic Church membership is in decline.  Only the influx of Hispanic Catholics from other countries has temporarily masked what is actually occurring to the original core Church membership.  With Hispanic immigration down significantly, the real situation may soon become readily apparent.

Catholic Church Has Retrogressed Since Vatican II

A short Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal responding to a book review concerning the impact of Vatican II pretty scary data on what has happened to the Roman Catholic Church in the 40+ years since Vatican II. However, I believe that what has happened in terms of the decline in the number of priests and nuns has less to do with the impact of Vatican II that with the changes in the larger context of western society, including an increased refusal of the laity to just blindly follow the dictates of the senile, reactionary leadership of the Vatican. As much as Benedict XVI and his compatriots want to turn back to a 13th century world view and to cling to a "natural law" that science is showing to be false, rank and file Catholics in educated western societies are simply no longer buying the bullshit peddled by the Vatican. Only in the most uneducated and backward areas of the world is Church membership growing significantly. I believe that too will change as those Catholics attain higher levels of education and knowledge. Here are a few highlights:

*

Kenneth C. Jones compiled an "Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II," published in 2003. Among his findings: While the number of priests in the U.S. more than doubled to 58,000 between 1930 and 1965, that number has fallen to 45,000, and by 2020 there will be only 31,000. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns, but by 2002 that number had fallen to 75,000; Catholic marriages have fallen in number by one third since 1965, while the annual number of annulments rose from 338 in 1968 to 50,000 in 2002. (Regarding the annulment process, it is said that, for better or worse, psychological factors have been taken into consideration much more so post-Vatican II.) And, of course, we have the clergy sdecline in priests and nuns, decline in Catholic marriagesex abuse scandal that culminated in 2002 and continues to this day.

*

Such statistics and events are sobering for any assenting Catholic. The cause? I submit that the zeitgeist and the activities of a number of morally corrupt churchmen are responsible for the problems in the Catholic Church since Vatican II and prior to the council, for that matter.