Catholic leadership is kind of a joke. It's like you go back to the third or fourth century and put John Gotti in charge of theology and sell salvation and try to sound "spiritual"...
christian religion believes that masses should be poor in order to keep them under control. then they have different rules for the rich. eg annulments for the rich where divorce is prohibited. let us not forget tax exemptions for the church. bunch of hypocrites.
That's actually a minor issue. The beef I have with these guys is their continuing meddling in our politics as well. Immigration, for instance: We should welcome and accept everyone with open arms - as long as we don't ask for the Church's properties or resources.
...they sure don't mind getting those tax breaks either (which is essentially a wealth transfer from non-religious and non-practicing religious people to religious people)
news.bbc.co.uk wrote: The Pope says God's word is the only veritable reality to build on. "God's word" is the way words are converted from reality obscuring mechanisms to reality revealing mechanisms. Words are not natural to reality, where communication is perfect because there are no words. Words are ego [think: devilish] inventions designed to disrupt perfect communication [think: communion] with a shabby substitute. Words appear to facilitate communication, but normally do not. Words support the ego and its agenda unless they are converted to restore communion. Words that point to truth are "God's word". Words that point to lies are ego devices. The Pope generally points to ego devices, and labels them "God's word". The global financial crisis is proof that the pursuit of money and success is pointless, Pope Benedict XVI has told a meeting of bishops in Rome. This is an example of how words are used to support egoic agendas. Words almost always miss the point, and are used rather to misdirect. Misdirection is Illusions 101. The pursuit of money and success is pointless because the mind that makes the world and its financial crises owns everything and therefore needs nothing. It's invention of crises IS a success, that is, if it is the intention of the mind to confuse itself. The head of the Roman Catholic Church said that the disappearance of money as banks collapsed showed that wealth meant "nothing". The Pope said that people should instead base their lives on God's word. This would be good advice if "God's word" was understood to mean words that point to truth. Otherwise, people will base their death on the ego's words. If "people" understood that they are not "people", but rather, expressions of confusion in the mind of the Son of God, they would live as they identified themselves with what cannot die. Those who think that "concrete things we can touch are the surest reality" are deceiving themselves, he said. As a rule of thumb, if you think you can touch anything, you are decieving yourself. This means that if you have fingers, "you" are decieving yourself. This, of course, depends on who "you" really are. You are not a body. Fingers, like words, are egoic devices designed to self decieve. They work to misdirect the mind from what is Self. Self is the reality. The tangibles are the unreality. There are not grades of reality. It is real or not. What is not real is pointless. So the whole world is pointless except to satisfy curiosity. This is probably not what the Pope meant, and so once again, words will instead be used to support an egoic agenda. The ego mocks before it kills. Words, as deceptive devices, do mock the dying, like clouds promising rain to drought dried droves that delinquitly default, damning the deluded, refusing to deliver a drop. Speaking to the bishops assembled at the Vatican, Pope Benedict said those who seek "success, career or money are building on sand". Words are like grains of sand, each one separated from another. Joined together, they form a beach. But the basis is still separation. Likewise, the ego uses words to support separation as reality. But separation is a false premise. If you build on such a premise, "the world" is the inevitable resulting effect. Therefore, the world is built on sand, and will pass away as it's foundation gives way and the parts are washed away by the truth: that all is one, and the one is the Son of God. The Son of God defines abundance, being total abundance. Seeking is not an attribute of what is complete, whole and total. Therefore to seek is to sell out Self, valuing nothing as something. Seeking is an egoic device. Seeking is for thrills. Thrills are experiences of pointlessness. Seeking always leads to finding nothing, unless seeking is converted to finding the truth. Truth is the end of seeking because it is the return to abundance. Seeking begins when the truth of total abundance is denied, as if there were something more than total abundance to find. This mindset is the genesis of the ego and its world, which is the lust for what is beyond totality. Beyond totality there is nothing. Therefore, all seeking is pointless. It is only in this sense that lust is a "deady sin". What is beyond the totality of Life is the futility of death. When he opened the Synod on Sunday, the Pope attacked modern culture, saying that "nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture". Word salad serves the ego, which confuses Self with self-concepts. Nations are self-concepts, made "real" by faith. Faith makes poor unless it is converted to faith in Self. Faith in Self is faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is faith in reality. Reality is total abundance and life. Reality is the "Kingdom of God", which is "within you". "Within" means it is really you. What is without is really not you. Hell is without you, and heaven is within. Both heaven and hell are in your mind, the former as a reality, the latter as a fantasy/belief. The world is a fantasy of unreality, a delusion of one mind driven out of its mind by the mad idea of separation. A separated mind is the belief that reality has been destroyed, which conjures and invokes a concept of guilt. Guilt is a culture of death, and by its destructive influence, the mind which hosts it it driven mad. The world and its nations are the effect of a mind out of its mind, driven out of its mind by guilt. The ego is the idea of separation taken seriously. What drives the world is insane. Therefore what the world experiences is insanity. People are the expression of chaotic conflict confusing one mind. Therefore all culture is destructive unless it is converted by faith in truth, which is the only faith that is "rich". Jesus