The Forum > Article Comments > The beatification of John Henry Newman > Comments
The beatification of John Henry Newman : Comments
By Simon Caterson, published 16/9/2010There are few religious thinkers more influential today than John Henry Newman, at least in the English-speaking world.
- Pages:
-
- 1
- 2
- 3
-
- All
Posted by Jon J, Thursday, 16 September 2010 2:17:02 PM
| |
You base your 'knowledge' of the fact that Newman was gay on an opinion piece written by a gay rights activist who admits that there is no certainty about the cardinal's sexual orientation, but goes ahead and asserts that he was gay anyway. It's possible that he was; it's also possible that he wasn't.
Posted by Otokonoko, Thursday, 16 September 2010 5:57:44 PM
| |
Who cares if John Henry Newman was gay, for chrissakes?
Beatify him - gives the Pope something to do, besides telling women what to do with their bodies. Posted by Severin, Thursday, 16 September 2010 9:40:19 PM
| |
The beatification of Newman has been relegated to a secondary event by Benedict/Ratzinger's ranting against atheists and attempts to brand the Nazis and Hitler as the worst of atheism.
He has been called on it by the British blogging public: see the comments here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/16/pope-benedict-xvi-atheist-extremism Posted by McReal, Friday, 17 September 2010 9:28:05 AM
| |
Newman was obviously a remarkable man but he was not a Saint. This exercise in making him a saint is all about politics, as is the entire "saint"-making-apparatus of the "catholic" church.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Spiritually based practice of the Process that is True Religion. In the various Oriental traditions, especially Hinduism LIVING Saints are highly revered in their life-times. Indeed such Realized beings are the only source, inspiration and continuous renewal of the entire Hindu tradition. They quite often perform miracles too. Orthodox Hindus would find it completely absurd that any one would be declared a saint decades or even centuries after their death. And that some kind of bureaucratic authentification process was/is in any sense necessary. This reference points out that genuine Saint-hood only occurs with the awakening of the Fourth Stage of Life. As such it requires a profound degree of psycho-physical maturity even in ordinary human terms. Which is why Saints are extremely rare. http://www.aboutadidam.org/growth/seven_stages.html Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 17 September 2010 11:06:32 AM
| |
I think the part that made me laugh out loud was where he is reported to have said:
"Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society" This, from a member of Hitler Youth. Referring to a movement whose motto was "Gott mit Uns" http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance26.html Whose leader most famously said: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Mein Kampf Ch.2 And "Everybody who has the right kind of feeling for his country is solemnly bound, each within his own denomination, to see to it that he is not constantly talking about the Will of God merely from the lips but that in actual fact he fulfils the Will of God and does not allow God's handiwork to be debased. For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God's Creation and God's Will." Mein Kampf Ch.10 Herr Joseph Ratzinger. Spinmeister extraordinaire. Posted by Pericles, Friday, 17 September 2010 11:23:00 AM
| |
Sorry, got distracted from the topic for a moment.
Cardinal Newman, eh. On the way to becoming ratified as a saint. Hmmm. To an outsider, the "justification" seems horribly thin. That's not of concern to anyone except the church itself, of course. But it is interesting to speculate exactly why the process is becoming increasingly reliant upon what can best be described as "third-party" miracles. There was a time when it was essential that the candidate had been eaten by lions (St. Ignatius), peppered with arrows (St Sebastian) or at the very least, beheaded (St Alban). (If you chose to martyr yourself as a team - as did the "Forty Martyrs of Sebaste" - you don't get to be a saint. Despite the fact that you were first stripped naked and frozen overnight, then burned in the morning. There's no pleasing some people, is there?) Over the years the qualification requirements became increasingly... detached, shall we say, from the individual concerned, and the process now seems to rely on reports of "successful" invocations. To an impartial observer, this might seem to provide the congregation with a far less potent symbol through which their faith is personified. Which is I guess progress, after a fashion. And quite typical of the times in which we live, too. But no matter. For me, Newman deserves to be canonized on the strength of "Gerontius" alone, for inspiring Elgar to write some of the most passionate life-and-death music, ever. Right up there with Mozart. Nice one John. Incidentally, does anyone know of someone who has been scratched from the waiting list? Or do they just hang around, as it were, until sufficient miracles are recorded? Just interested. Posted by Pericles, Friday, 17 September 2010 1:21:18 PM
| |
Peri (cles)- you have dishonored this Greek statesman's name, so won't use it
Here you go again making ill-considered comments. It was compulsory (you know - no choice) to join the Hitler Youth. Didn't you know that? Posted by Constance, Friday, 17 September 2010 8:18:53 PM
| |
Whether it is the careful work of Catholic spin doctors or not, there is more evidence that Ratzinger was a reluctant and disobedient member of the Hitler Youth - and a deserter, at that - than anything else. That this is used against him so frequently suggests either that there is nothing else to hold against him or that his accusers are simply too lazy to find something solid. Few men rise to his status without a skeleton or two, so I would suspect the latter is the case.
As for Newman, I should clarify my earlier comment. Whether or not he was a homosexual is really of no consequence. The processes of the Church have found him worthy of sainthood and, as such, sainthood will be conferred. Good for him. If Peter Tatchell wants to make some mileage out of it, good for him. Posted by Otokonoko, Saturday, 18 September 2010 12:10:39 AM
| |
If I had been a member of Hitler Youth, I'd want to play it down too.
But this is all about re-writing - or at least, re-nuancing - history, isn't it. >>...there is more evidence that Ratzinger was a reluctant and disobedient member of the Hitler Youth - and a deserter, at that - than anything else.<< Like so many others, he "deserted" in the final days of the war. Fair enough. I doubt he was the only scared teenager to do so, they were pretty horrific times. But that really isn't the point here. It was the Pope's reference to the "Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society", when that organization was so clearly based upon the Christian religion, and guided by a person who insisted that he was doing the Lord's work. One of the ugliest aspects of the Church is, and has always been, its unwillingness to accept that it has erred - in any way, at any time - except under the strongest and most persistent pressure. Without an acceptance that Germany, and the Nazis, were populated predominantly by Catholics, and that the wartime Papacy leaned significantly towards the Nazi camp, this remark of his stands out as both tasteless and inflammatory. The relevance of fact that Ratzinger was a member of Hitler Youth has little to do with the leanings and intentions of a teenage German in that period of history. But everything to do with the fact that he should know, first hand, that the church - his church - was in no way and by no means blamesless. Posted by Pericles, Saturday, 18 September 2010 10:29:06 AM
| |
Valid point, Pericles. I could make all sorts of excuses for the Catholic Church at the time - that the Vatican existed purely at the mercy of Mussolini, that the Church was under pressure from Hitler's 'new' and semi-pagan church - but the fact remains that, if the Church was the beacon of goodness and justice it claimed to be, it should have allowed its own martyrdom as a consequence of standing up to Hitler and his cronies.
Posted by Otokonoko, Saturday, 18 September 2010 1:26:56 PM
| |
Perocles,
Easy to say "oh the errs of the Catholic Church". Try to imagine what it would have been like living under Nazism. "Many Catholics and Lutheran openly opposed Hitler, risking death. Hitler came to power in 1933. In December of that year, Cardinal Michael Faulhaber, the "Lion of Munich," delivered a sermon in defense of biblical Judaism. When the persecution escalated, he spoke more directly to the point: "History teaches us that God always punished the tormenters of…the Jews. No Roman Catholic approves of the persecutions of Jews in Germany." In October 1938, the chief rabbi of Munich told Cardinal Faulhaber that he feared his synagogue would be burned. The Cardinal provided a truck to transport the Torah scrolls and other important things from the synagogue for safekeeping in his palace. Nazi mobs gathered outside the palace, screaming, "Away with Faulhaber, the Jew- friend!" But Faulhaber and other bishops, including Conrad Cardinal Count von Preysing of Berlin and Bishop Clemens August Count von Galen of Muenster, continued to speak out in defense of the Jews in sermons and pastoral letters. (It was von Galen went to Rome to plan the resettlement of German Jews in Sao Paulo Brazil with Pope Pius XI.) Faulhaber's books were banned, and in 1934 and 1938 attempts were made to assassinate him. He continued to preach against the Nazis until the end of the war. In Stuttgart, the Resistance developed a well-organized underground to help the Jews to escape. In Hamburg, Raphaels Verein, a Catholic lay association, helped Jews to emigrate until they were shut down by the Gestapo in 1941. Also in 1941, Fr. Bernard Lichtenberg, a priest at the St. Hedwig Cathedral Church in Berlin, declared in a sermon that he would include the Jews in his daily prayers "because synagogues have been set afire and Jewish businesses have been destroyed."8 He was arrested for subversive activities and sent first to prison and then to a concentration camp. He asked to be sent to the Jewish ghetto at Lodz, but died on his way to Dachau." Posted by Constance, Sunday, 19 September 2010 2:28:05 PM
| |
"Mit Brennender Sorge", the 1937 papal encyclica condemning the Nazi ideology. So, let's quote some Wikipedia:
it was Pacelli who added [...] the following passage: "Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and raises them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God." Release The encyclical was written in German and not the usual Latin of official Catholic Church documents. Because of government restrictions, the nuncio in Berlin, Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, had the encyclical distributed by courier. There was no pre-announcement of the encyclical, and its distribution was kept secret in an attempt to ensure the unhindered public reading of its contents in all the Catholic churches of Germany. Printers close to the church offered their services and produced an estimated 300,000 copies, which however was still insufficient. Additional copies were therefore created by hand and using typewriters. After its clandestine distribution, many congregations hid the document in their tabernacles for protection. It was read from the pulpits of German Catholic parishes on Palm Sunday 1937. Nazi response The (censored) German newspapers did not mention the encyclical at all; the offices of every German diocese were visited the next day by the Gestapo and all extant copies were seized. Every publishing company that had printed it was closed and sealed, diocesan newspapers were all proscribed and limits imposed on the paper available for Church purposes. Catholic flags were prohibited at religious ceremonies and towns with religious names (Heiligenstadt, etc) were renamed. Cont... Posted by Constance, Sunday, 19 September 2010 2:36:54 PM
| |
.../Cont.
Frank J. Coppa asserts that the encyclical was viewed by the Nazis as "a call to battle against the Reich" and that Hitler was furious and "vowed revenge against the Church". Hitler wrote that “I shall open such a campaign against them in press, radio and cinema so that they won’t know what hit them …. Let us have no martyrs among the Catholic priests, it is more practical to show they are criminals.” Thomas Bokenkotter writes that "the Nazis were infuriated, and in retaliation closed and sealed all the presses that had printed it and took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy." According to John Vidmar, Nazi reprisals against the Church in Germany followed thereafter, including "staged prosecutions of monks for homosexuality, with the maximum of publicity". 170 Franciscans were arrested in Koblenz and tried for “corrupting youth” in a secret trial, with numerous allegations of priestly debauchery appearing in the Nazi controlled press, while a film produced for the Hitler Youth showed priests dancing in a brothel. Posted by Constance, Sunday, 19 September 2010 2:38:27 PM
| |
I just saw this article and, it must be God working in mysterious ways, because, only this morning, I wrote a post about the Catholic Church and some of its sinners who seem to be more common than its saints.
Check it out if you have time! http://www.dangerouscreation.com Posted by David G, Sunday, 19 September 2010 2:45:20 PM
| |
Wow, David G. You must be proud. I do ask, though, when you will include some level of philosophy in your 'controversial, philosophical blog'. It could have some potential if you did.
Posted by Otokonoko, Monday, 20 September 2010 2:15:21 AM
| |
Sometimes it was the other way around, Constance.
>>...towns with religious names (Heiligenstadt, etc) were renamed.<< When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, the Karl Marx-Hof complex in Vienna was renamed Heiligenstädter Hof. It was only allowed to reinstate the original name after the war. Go figure, eh. But that obviously wasn't the one you have in mind, was it. For the sake of accuracy, could you tell us what was the new name of your Heiligenstadt? Because I'm sure that you don't just make these things up. Do you? "Mit Brennender Sorge" was indeed a historically fascinating document. In its original form, it was originally intended to define Naziism as heretical - which, given the religion of the vast majority of Nazis, would have been pretty powerful, I think you would agree. In the end, it was a watered-down political document, containing all the usual political compromises. The major omission being, of course, that it did not mention the Jews. Odd, that, don't you think? Any dictatorial regime would have suppressed such a document. With so many Catholics in their rank-and-file, the Nazis could hardly have publicized it, could they? But I suspect they knew that it wouldn't have a great deal of impact on the attitude of the catholic citizenry. And, as history shows, it did not. But at least it gave the papacy a fig-leaf of respectability against accusations of collaboration. Posted by Pericles, Monday, 20 September 2010 9:03:19 AM
|
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/04/catholicism.gayrights
The real irony is that if Newman were alive today he would be appalled to find himself credited with 'miracles' -- about which he was extremely sceptical. See
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11186584
for an objective account of Newman's alleged first posthumous 'miracle'. It's about as convincing as John Paul II's or Mary McKillop's. I wonder what the going rate is for testifying to a 'miracle' these days?