Some more info on Opus Dei. opus dei PS, B bob, I went to a Jesuit University;so did my parents. Also Jesuit highschool. Tell me they won't excommunicate my poor old 80 year old mom, who is theologically liberal and hates Opus Dei?
First prime one I was just quoting Big Lebowski in saying out of your element, not league. Second off, you posted one of the most slanderous websites around, in mond.com. America is a Jesuit MAgazine and they are pretty liberal, and their main contention seems to be that Opus Dei prays too much and has too many priests and is very secretive. Liberation Theology is bad (too political for a Church). Liberal theology is not always bad (depends on the topic to me), but yeah, no your mom will not get excommunicated. I really think what is so secretive is just humility. They don't want attention. Now that I'm engaged to a girl whose parents are both supernumeraries, I really see Opus Dei as something pretty awesome. While I feel its is still not for me, I've personally seen and helped out with service projects and tons of things that they do. They really are an amazing group. You might actually want to check out opusdei.org for the other half of the story. I dealt with this website (www.mond.at) 3 years ago when I started working with a numerary and wanted to do some research on Opus Dei. They are pretty big on my campus. Here is the letter I sent the guy and to this day have gotten no response. I concealed my name and I think only B-Bob and rimbaud know it. Hi, My name is twhy77 and I'm going to be a senior at the University of Dallas in Irving. Well, first off, I am not a member of Opus Dei, although I did just watch the soccer game over at their "center". They have been "recruiting" me for a while, and I have to say I do not like it. Opus Dei is not for me. However, I do not believe their organization is as bad as you paint it to be in your FAQ. I believe wholeheartedly in their message to sanctify one's daily life, and for them, it takes a severe discipline to do this. Some people feel they need this in their lives. I work everyday with one of their numeraries and happen to be good friends with his sister, who comes from a family that has no relation to Opus Dei. Some of my major concerns with your assesment of their "cult" (man you need to read Vatican II, the whole church itself is considered a cult, their are cults within the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, a cult is just defined as a group of people gathering for religious worship. Sure, sometimes there are some wierdo cults, but they overshadow the good ones like the church.) are in A) Your description of it as a fascist organization B) Your hatred for the talks that ensue there, they have the idea that they are being a freind and just helping each other through the spiritual questions that one faces in life, not master/slave as you somewhat paint it to be C) Your assesment of them as a severe right wing cult D) Your stance that all they preach is intolerance off of a few quotes from their founder, quotes in which it seems like he is trying to get at the inequities in truth that seem heretical in the eyes of the church E) Your belief that the church is supposed to be changing theologically much like politics. F) Your belief that they have an evil ideology based on the fact that they want to bring people to a more complete fullness of the faith. I guess I have about 800 more problems with your page, but I do agree that Opus Dei is pretty whack sometimes. Here are my main points of contention A) The emphasis on Blessed Jose Maria Escriva. I was at a mass the other day in remeberance of the day he died, and I thought the whole mass was beautiful, Bishop Granthamm (not Opus Dei) really put the wonderful message of sanctifying the daily life in to his sermon, harkening back to the spiratual reforms always addressed in the past by spiritual reformers like Ignatius and Francis, who addressed places that had need for becoming more holy. Blessed Jose Maria addressed this need in the workplace, where, as I have recently experienced it working 40 hours a week for the first time in my life, a severe lack of spiritual life can occur, and they do provide a way for helping to increase that life, which is truly lived up to by its members, believe me I can attest to this I work closely with a Numerary and he is truly an awesome guy. This is the main message I have gotten out of my contact with them. Anyways, back to my story and how after Bishop Granthamm had given this wonderful sermon, at the end of mass, the local Opus Dei preist gets up says his deal about how hes not smart and everything he learned, he learned from his parents and teh Blessed Jose Maria. Well I thought he should have been learning something from Christ, at least maybe a little. B) I see no spiritual reason for the vow of celibacy by the numeraries. Sanctyfying the daily life does not have to involve teh celibate life. Priests and monks and nuns give up sex for purely spiritual reasons, and it seems to me like the numeraries have more prudential reasons behind their vows of celibacy. Well, I've ranted and raved too long but I would like to talk with you more about this stuff because I came to my school very anti-Opus Dei, and now I support heavily their message and respect them but recognize that they are not for me. Sincerely,twhy77
Oh yeah, I'd also like to say I don't hold all the same feelings I did in that letter towards Opus Dei anymore. I'm cool with them.
Twhy, I'll quote from the second article I cited about people in Opus Dei..The fact that the author did not respond to your post, though personally distressing perhaps, is I think irrelevant. To quote from the post. "3. Q: What kind of people are they? A: Mostly good people. People with good hearts who love God and want to do good things and sacrifice themselves for the work of God. Only/mostly good people are attracted by them. These people are all a bit naive because they make one big mistake: They think that the Opus Dei can not be bad, because the people there are good people and they are all very religious. You try to characterize all opposition to Opus Dei as just opposition to conservatism. This sort of reminds me of members of small communist groups that I have encountered, when I have gone to political actions. I think they are basically good people, often doing good work on such worthwhile issues as world peace or the death penalty, but............ I don't dislike these people because they are leftists, but because they are fanatics who allow no virtually no dissent, very little if any intellectual freedom and operate internally in many ways like Opus Dei. That is why they are also accused of being cults. I think you are just mistaken that virtually only Opus Dei members were able to be Catholics or keep religion alive during Franco's Spain. It is a country with millions of Catholics. Are they all Opus Dei members? Or is this an exclusion game in which only Opus Dei members are real Catholics or religious? However let me return to: "A: Mostly good people. People with good hearts who love God and want to do good things and sacrifice themselves for the work of God. Only/mostly good people are attracted by them."
glynch, while I think that Ratzinger is too conservative, I think asking whether he is a neo-fascist is completely out of line.
“Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not a enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer. His biographer needed an an.
I'm not calling you out....in fact, this doesn't surprise me in the least. But if you don't mind, I too would love to see a link where I can read more about this.
Of course the POPE can't do wrong, after all he was chosen by 180 or so cardinals. If those guys had chosen a friggin monkey people would be bowing at its feet.
I don't know enough about Opus Dei and Ratzinger's childhood to get into that. What I can say is Ratzinger and the high-profile "conservative" bishops in general (particularly in the US) have spent a lot more time affirming the official positions on abortion, condoms, homosexuality and euthanasia in political contexts than they have on poverty and war--far more grand and destructive problems on the world scale to anyone grounded in the human condition and with a big picture view of the life of Jesus. I also don't see a full court press by the "conservative Catholics" (at least the ones who crave and receive media attention) against routing out the death penalty (just as against doctrine as abortion but without the political play) and priest sexual abuses like they have with “select” other issues. Unfortunately I don't see this pope recognizing the blatant inconsistencies. I would have a lot less issue with a "conservative" pope who would be at least equally focused on enforcing the doctrines related to promoting world peace, reducing poverty, irradicating the death penalty, and jailing abusive priest as he is about fighting abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, etc. I don't have much confidence Ratzinger is the guy to do this, but maybe a lifetime appointment and getting out of the Vatican (he has been in that isolated bunker what 20+ years) and mixing it up in the real world will cause his to reflect and redirect. I am not optimistic he will help the human condition much in his new role based on the issues he has pushed before, but we will have to see.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050420/D89J5MSG0.html Israel Praises Pope Despite Past Nazi Ties Apr 20, 9:38 AM (ET) By PETER ENAV JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli politicians and rabbis on Wednesday praised new Pope Benedict XVI for his strong condemnations of anti-Semitism despite the pontiff's ties to the Nazi Party as a youth. Benedict's appointment received mixed reactions from Arabs in the Holy Land. Muslim leaders urged him to take a more active role in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Greek Orthodox officials voiced hope he help unify various Christian denominations. As a German, Benedict sets off alarm bells for many Israelis, whose memories of the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews remain painfully vivid. Many wondered whether he would embrace Jews as warmly as his predecessor. "There are good relations with him," Oded Ben-Hor, Israel's ambassador to the Vatican, told Army Radio. "Israel can certainly coexist with him. But the real test will come over the course of time." Israelis widely admired the late Pope John Paul II for his unstinting efforts to promote Jewish-Catholic reconciliation. John Paul won many Israeli hearts during a trip to the Holy Land in 2000 by apologizing for Roman Catholic wrongdoing over the centuries. He also was praised for promoting interfaith dialogue, establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and aiding Polish Jews during the Nazi era. As a young man, the new pope served in the Hitler Youth - compulsory for young Germans at the time - and during World War II was drafted into a German anti-aircraft unit, although he says he never fired a shot. Though Benedict has been a leading voice in the church in battling anti-Semitism and fostering Jewish-Catholic relations, his past raised suspicions in the Jewish state. "White smoke, black past," said the headline in the mass circulation Yediot Ahronot. "From the Nazi youth movement to the Vatican." Nonetheless, Jewish leaders said they were encouraged by the special interest by the new pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in coexistence. "Though as a teenager he was a member of the Hitler Youth, all his life Cardinal Ratzinger has atoned for the fact," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, an American Jewish group that battles anti-Semitism. Foxman himself was saved during the Holocaust by his Polish nanny, who had him baptized and raised him as a Catholic, until his Jewish parents reclaimed him at the end of the war. Moshe Zimmerman, a professor of German history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, played down the importance of the new pope's membership in the Hitler Youth. "He was 18 years old when the war ended, so everything that he had to do with the Nazi regime was as a very young man," he said. "I don't believe that there is any room for doubt that (the pope) of today is very different than the days he belonged in the Hitler Youth." In his book, "God and the World," published in 2000, Ratzinger tried to combine his belief in Christianity's ecumenical message with his views on the special role of Judaism. "That the Jews are connected with God in a special way and that God does not want that bond to fail is entirely obvious," he wrote. "We wait for the instant in which Israel will say 'yes' to Christ, but we know that it has a special mission in history now ... which is significant for the world." Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Israeli Meir Lau - a Holocaust survivor and a former chief rabbi for Israeli Jews of European backgrounds - said his many meetings with Benedict while he was a cardinal have convinced him of his good record on matters of concern to Israelis. "(The last meeting) was last year, in New York, in the Museum of Jewish Heritage of all places," Lau told Israel Army Radio. "There was a meeting of two or three rabbis with some 20 cardinals .... His entire speech was given over to a condemnation of anti-Semitism, in the strongest and most unambiguous terms." Writer Zvi Gil, also a Holocaust survivor, said he expects Benedict to continue John Paul's favorable attitude toward Jews, precisely because of his German past. "His attitude to Jews in Israel will to a very significant extent be influenced by that of his predecessor John Paul II, whose steps are well known to us," Gil told Army Radio. "And as a German I don't think he will want to move backward from these steps toward Israeli Jews." Commentators say the new pope's theology mirrors that of many Jewish religious leaders, and should not be seen as a sign of prejudice. "He's much more traditional, and his positions are a lot tougher than Jewish law," said Lau. "And Jewish law is my law." A top Muslim leader, meanwhile, urged Benedict to follow John Paul's efforts to promote interfaith relations and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "We hope that the new pope will give the church more roles in trying to solve the problems that the world is facing," said Adnan Husseini, director of the Waqf, or Islamic Trust. "We hope that he will continue the policy of John Paul II, who opposed the wall around the Palestinian territories and called for peace between the two peoples." Bishop Theophilos, the top Greek Orthodox official at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, called on Benedict to repair relations among Christian denominations, though he said he was skeptical. "I hope that he can help promote unity of the Christian churches, especially between the Eastern Orthodox and the Latin," he said. "The real obstacle to the unity of the church is the office of the pope," he added. "If ever the pope had the courage or the will to say he is the bishop of Rome, not the vicar of Christ, then the road to unity is opened. As long as the office of the pope remains untouchable, the Christian Church remains divided."
I agree with Desertscar, fascinating as the cult like behavior of Opus Dei is, or Ratzinger's relatively go with the flow behavior, when faced with the evils of Nazism as a young man, that is not the main issue. The main issue is whether the Catholic Church will act like the Christian Right in the US, mainly focused on issues like condoms, abortion, homosexuality, at the expense of starvation, war and larger evils. It is to be hoped that Ratzinger can get around to these issues in a substantive way. BTW to the majority who chose to not respond substantively, my original post said "neo-fascist?" and I made no firm conclusion that he was.
Y'all do understand that joining the Hitler Youth was compulsory for Germans during that time span right? While not happy with the Ratzinger choice, I still believe this is a clear sign that the conservative era is over in the church. Ratzinger is 78. Hopefully, his papacy will be the transition to a more progressive era.
Yeah that's not really gonna happen. Not too many progressives in College of Cardinals. What do you mean when you say progressive anyway? And the church says plenty about the dangers of war and poverty. Poverty, is a bit harder to deal with because it is mainly a government problem, plus I don't really see how the church is going to stop poverty. But JPII was pretty vehement about the Iraq war being horrible. There is more focus on the other issues though because they are of higher profile and the church has an opposing view to that of many. But the main point of the church is spiritual. And more people die due to abortions than war. glynch, I'll answer your Opus Dei questions when I get off work.
if you listen to others involved in the war on poverty and global efforts like that, they will cite John Paul as a very important figure in that. that he was huge in that effort. just because he seeks to maintain purity, as he sees it, in the church, doesn't mean he's ignoring those concerns. and i too want to know what's meant by progressive...i'm thinking it might be "progressive" to elect a Latin American or an African to be Pope, next...but i don't think you'd find their ideas on homosexuality, condoms and the like all that progressive, fellas.
My wife is an ex-Catholic. She left the church not because of a loss of faith, but rather because she felt complicit in: (a) the church's birth control policies (my wife is pro-life but pro-pill, too), (b) the church's marginalization of women, and (c) it's stance on homosexuals. I understand why the church feels it can't change (c). But the first two are alienating a lot of moderate, educated Catholics. And (a), in particular, is a not-all-that-logical insistence to follow policies that damage the church's broadest constituency. Maybe the church just wanted to delay reform and tread water for a few years - but its just lost, perhaps forever, a # of moderate Catholics. I'm United Methodist, as far as I'm anything...now my wife is, too. Thanks College of Cardinals .
Are all these issues not related to government policy and government law? That is why Popes try to influence government officals and voting populace. That abortion has lead to more lost lives than war over any substantial length of history is debatable, and compared to poverty lead diseases and conditions it is a drop in the bucket on the world wide death, destruction and misery. That is precisely the point, the many of the high profile Conservative Catholic officials have cherry picked issues and ignored others. Based on Ratzinger's previous comments, he seems some the same mold. It is no accident abortion, same-sex marriage (as if this has lead to lost lives like abortion, the death penalty, war, poverty, etc) and euthanasia (relatively few deaths relative to the others) have become so high profile and were mentioned in things like Catholic voter guides that were dissemenated. The hypocracy is not that some of the above issues have been braught up, but that poverty, war, death penality, and priest sex abuse (talk about something more actually within control of the church) have been relatively on the backburner. For those who want to read more about these issues I would recommend reading columns and books by Andrew Greeley, a scholar and priest himself (though maybe not too long if Ratzinger becomes a real centrist hardliner). I sure many will dismiss him with a knee jerk response, but his critiques are spot on. http://www.suntimes.com/index/greeley.html http://www.agreeley.com/ Those that claim you are not a "good Catholic" if you vote for pro-choice candidates or those that support gay rights should consider if they themselves vote with doctrines against war, poverty, death penalty, etc. I have no problem with a Pope and high profile Catholic officials being fundamentalist in doctrine or conservative, but at least be consistent. If you are not consistent than you have no moral high ground to discount others for picking and choosing positions on the most important issues of the day ones' Catholic faith reflects on. http://www.agreeley.com/articles/why.html
they can't "win", Desert. that's been my lament for the longest time. you're forced to choose between two candidates, both of whom support something you find offensive at some base level of values.
