Un lejano día de los primeros años setenta del pasado siglo, un sacerdote jesuita encontró en la calle a un antiguo alumno. Hablaron, se contaron, rememoraron episodios y en la despedida el cura preguntó (la pregunta como interrogatorio y hecho afirmativo al tiempo, especialidad de la Sociedad de Jesús por otra parte) “¿qué os enseñaremos para qué ahora mismo tu compañero Fernando forme parte de los Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey y Fuerza Nueva y Antonio sea un miembro de la UMD?” (Unión Militar Democrática) El alumno respondió raudo “El poder, padre, el poder”. Se dijeron adiós entre risas. (La conversación y los hechos son ciertos, sólo los nombres falsos).
A los jesuitas les gusta el poder desde Iñigo de Loyola, fundador sois Ignacio y general de la Compañía real, y para ello han educado a generaciones de jóvenes provenientes de la burguesía, jóvenes que debían ser inteligentes, pues en caso contrario duraban poco en los colegios de la compañía, por ello han sido confesores de reyes y abolidos, expulsados, odiados, pero ese poder, innegable, lo han sustentado en la sombra, fuera de las luces, por eso no ocupaban puestos en el escalafón ordinario de la muy católica Iglesia. Ahora que tienen menos poder incluso en la sombra, donde se ha incrustado el Opus Dei, ocupan puestos en el cursus honorem de la santa Madre Iglesia. Hay un cardenal ya jubilado, Carlo Maria Martini. Un arzobispo en la curia, el español Luís Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, secretario de la Doctrina de la Fe, la antigua Inquisición, esa por cuyo regreso reza piadosamente Juan Antonio Martínez Camino otro jesuita purpurado. Los primeramente citados tienen fama de progresistas, dentro de lo cauteloso que se debe ser con ese término dentro de la Iglesia. De Martini se dijo, fue candidato a sucesor del gran polaco; del arzobispo Ladaria no hay más que revisar hemerotecas para saber que su nombramiento no fue muy bien visto por los discípulos de mosén Escrivá, claro que muy progresista no se debe ser Ladaria cuando Ratzinger le nombra para formar parte de su club más exclusivo. Desde luego quien no puede ser calificado, ni clasificado. ni honrado con el apodo de progresista es el escudero fiel de Rouco Varela, el chico de los trabajos sucios del ilustre gallego arzobispo de Madrid (Véanse ROUCO Y LOS FARISESOS (30.11.08) y ROUCO Y SUS HERMANOS (01-01.09) aquí publicados).
El escudero fiel ha vuelto a atacar, Iñigo de Loyola seguro que se lo reprocharía, no digamos el maltratado, por Wojtyla, padre Arrupe. Al fin los dos vascos fueron perseguidos por su fe. Iñigo tuvo que huir de Salamanca, porque a los dominicos, entonces dueños de la Inquisición, por la que tanto reza para que regrese Martínez Camino, no gustaban de los Ejercicio Espirituales de Iñigo de Loyola. El padre Arrupe, quien según el mejor biógrafo de los jesuitas Jean Lacouture (antiguo alumno) buscó a los pobres ( y no sólo a los ricos) para enseñar la A.M.D.G (Ad maiorem gloriam dei, traducido por generaciones como A merendar de gorra) fue arrojado al olvido por Karol Wojtyla de mala y penosa manera. Ni pensar quiero en otro vasco jesuita asesinado vilmente en El Salvador, Ignacio Ellacuría, que no será canonizado, como ninguno de sus compañeros asesinados, por muy mártir que haya sido, según esa doble vara de medir, según ese rastrero relativismo moral de quienes forman, entre ellos el escudero fiel Martínez Camino, de la fontanería, el aparato de la Santa Madre Iglesia. Y no dejaré de citar a Jon Sobrino a quién los amigos de Rouco en la curia retiraron el nihil obstat para enseñar. Repetiré lo ya escrito en anterior artículo: Martínez Camino por estética debería pedir la baja en la Compañía que Jesús con su nombre distinguió.
Sus últimas admoniciones, su penúltima predica haciendo de vocero de Rouco, quien ya prepara su baño invernal de masas en Madrid como ya empieza a ser tradición, hablan de excomunión, herejía y ( ¡oh contradicción! ¡oh paradoja!) de la vida. Cuando estos fanáticos se ponen a repartir excomuniones la mente recuerda a Giordano Bruno, sin ir más lejos, quemado vivo por creer que la Tierra no es el centro del universo. Y se atreve a hablar de vida el escudero fiel, que pertenece a un grupo, a un club que cuenta por millares los asesinados por no estar en acuerdo con los mandatos, por otra parte, tan cambiantes como es el caso de la de Tierra como centro del universo de la Santa Madre Iglesia.
No creo que ser excomulgado asuste tanto en el día de hoy, como en la Edad Media, pero sale más barato ser excomulgado que optar por ser apostata, porque para esto último hay que pagar el diezmo y las primicias a la Santa Madre Iglesia, esa de Rouco y su escudero fiel. Ya ganan bastante por decir barbaridades diversas, la no menor esa de la virginidad de la supuesta madre del supuesto Jesús.
Esta vez las diatribas, los fuegos del infierno y los trueno salidos de la boca de Martínez Camino, el escudero fiel, se refieren al aborto, los parlamentarios, los electores, la democracia en fin. Se refieren, sobre todo, a la democracia, porque Rouco y sus hermanos quieren una teocracia del corte de esa de Irán, pongamos por caso.
Creo más, como aquí quedó dicho en EL CONDÓN COMO ARMA (15.08.08) en la educación sexual que en el recurso extremo al aborto, que dudó agrade a ninguna mujer que se vea obligada hacerlo, pero nadie es dueño de la decisión de ninguna mujer. Nadie. La ley es necesaria. Poco más hay que discutir, pero también es necesario educar, para evitar abortos.
Por eso el dulce encanto de la caverna es tan contradictorio y entretenido. Condena la ley y condena también que en Extremadura el gobierno autónomo enseñe el conocimiento del cuerpo a los adolescentes. La cosa es ser castos, puros y ejercer la continencia. El resto es herejía. Luego salen condenas a miembros de la Santa Madre Iglesia por pederastia, pero eso no es para excomulgar, ni es herejía. Incluso se llega al cinismo, tan habitual por otra parte entre los seguidores de Rouco y su escudero fiel, de afirmar que no hay dinero en la diócesis de Boston para pagar a los perjudicados por los tocamientos de los muy creyentes, los muy píos y nada abortistas sacerdotes de la Santa Madre Iglesia. Fariseos.

Pope John Paul II – (Karol Wojtyla).  November 1, 2009. With the passing of Pope John Paul II, the world had lost a moral leader fervently committed to fighting the prejudice and hatred that led to the Holocaust.  Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born and raised in the village of Wadowice, Poland, where one quarter of the village population of Jewish.  His own personal experience of Nazi oppression and the persecution of the Jews, including the deaths of childhood Jewish friends and their families in the concentration camps, strongly influenced his leadership in Jewish-Christian relations.  As Pope Paul II, he led his church to confront the most painful chapter in its history.

Pope John Paul II visits the Auschwitz camp in 1979.  In 1965, as Archbishop of Krakow – the youngest bishop to attend the Second Vatican Council – Karol Wojtyla was one of the signers of Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), the revolutionary document that repudiated the charge of deicide against the Jews and acknowledged the validity of the Judaic faith.  In 1979, in his first return to Poland as Pope, he knelt before the memorial to Holocaust victims at Auschwitz, saying: “I couldn’t not come here.” In 1986, be became the first pope to visit the Great Synagogue of Rome.  Under his leadership, the Vatican established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1993.  In 1998, the Vatican issued “We Remember: A reflection on the Shoah.”

In 2000, he acknowledged for the first time Catholic involvement in the persecution of Jews, noting “the burden of guilt” that Christians bore “for the murder of the Jewish people.” He repeatedly condemned antisemitism as “sinful” and “opposed to the very spirit of Christianity.”  That year, John Paul II made a historic visit to Jerusalem, where he honored the victims of the Holocaust with a visit to Yad Vashem, and prayed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism.  Like other devout visitors to the Wester Wall, he placed a prayer in a crevice in the Wall:

“God of our father, You chose Abraham and his descendants to bring Your name to the Nations.  We are saddened by the behavior of those who, in the course of history, have caused these children of Yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness, we commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant.”

His life and his papacy were characterized by a deep sense of compassion and humanity and a profound commitment to human rights.  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum honors the memory of this great friend of all humanity.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/church/memoriam/pope/

Last Jan. 15^th US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his and First Officer Jeff Skiles executed an emergency landing later dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson,” after their flight had been struck by birds en route from New York to Charlotte, N.C.and lost both engines. In his many public appearances since then Capt. Sullenberger has proven to be a cerebral man who carefully chooses his words. In his new book, “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters” Sully, as he is affectionately referred to, has spent a great deal of time reviewing his life and career trying to understand what experiences from his past prepared him for the five minutes of white knuckled crisis that was flight 1549. It is a revealing and surprising look at the man and God’s providence in preparing him for that trial.

This past week the Wall Street Journal featured a review written by the man who co-authored the writing of the book. Here are some selections from it:

His Youth
He was born in Denison, Texas, the son of a dentist and a teacher who had high expectations. “I grew up in a home where each of us had our own hammer,” says Sully. That was because his dad kept enlarging the family home with the help of three not-always-willing assistants: Sully, his sister and his mom. “The goal was to do everything ourselves, to earn what we didn’t know and then have at it,” Sully says. The house wasn’t perfect, but Sully knew where every nail was.

‘Sometimes I’d brood, wishing we lived in a professionally built house like everyone else,” he says. “But each time the house grew, I felt a sense of accomplishment.”

As a boy, Sully was a classic introvert who felt things deeply. In 1964, for instance, he saw news reports about a New York woman named Kitty Genovese. Her neighbors heard her screams as she was being stabbed to death by a stranger )utside her apartment. Allegedly, they did nothing to help.

“I made a pledge to myself, right then at age 13,” Sully recalls, “that if I was ever in a situation where someone such as Kitty Genovese needed my help, I would choose to act. No one in danger would be abandoned. As they’d say in the Navy: ‘Not on my watch.’”

His Father
People tell Sully that his success on Jan. 15 showed a high regard for life. Their words led him to reflection. “Quite frankly,” he says, “one of the reasons I think I’ve placed such a high value on life is that my father took his.”

Suffering from depression, Sully’s father killed himself in 1995. “His death had an effect on how I view the world,” he says. “I am willing to work hard to protect people’s lives, to not be a bystander, in part because I couldn’t save my father.”

Learning To Fly
He first yearned to fly at age five. At 16, in 1967, he began taking lessons from a no-nonsense crop-dusting pilot named L.T. Cook Jr.

Sully was an earnest, hard-working student who paid close attention. One day he noticed a crumpled Piper Tn-Pacer at the end of Mr. Cook’s grass airstrip. A friend of Mr. Cook’s had tried to land the plane and didn’t realize that power lines stretched across a nearby highway. The plane slammed into the ground nose first. The pilot died instantly.

Sully peered into the blood-splattered cockpit. “I figured his head must have hit the control panel with great violence,” he says. “I tried to visualize how it happened — his effort to avoid the power lines, his loss of speed, the awful impact. I forced myself to look into the cockpit, to study it. It would have been easier to look away, but I didn’t.”

That sobering moment taught Sully to be vigilant and alert. For a pilot, one simple mistake could mean death.

He went on to the U.S. Air Force Academy, then a military career, and continued to study accidents. Twelve fellow military pilots died on training runs. “I grieved for my lost comrades,” he says, “but I tried to learn all I could about each of their accidents.”

As an airline pilot, he helped develop an air-safety course and served as an investigator at crash sites. He’d page through transcripts from cockpit voice recorders, with the last exchanges of pilots who didn’t survive.

Influence of Charles Lindbergh
Since childhood, Sully has been fascinated by Charles Lindbergh. In “We,” Lindbergh’s 1927 book, he explained that his success was due almost entirely to preparation, not luck. “Prepared Lindy” wouldn’t have had the same magic as his nickname “Lucky Lindy,” but his views resonated with Sully.

One aspect of preparing well is having the right mindset, he says. “In so many areas of life, you need to be a long-term optimist but a short-term realist. That’s especially true given the inherent dangers in aviation. You can’t be a wishful thinker. You have to know what you know and don’t know, and what your airplane can and can’t do in every situation.”

Focus
Sully has always kept in mind the air-crew ejection study he learned about in his military days. Many pilots waited too long before ejecting from planes that were about to crash, they either ejected at too low an altitude, hitting the ground before their parachutes could open, or they went down with their planes.

Why did these pilots spend extra seconds trying to fix the unfixable? The answer is that many feared retribution if they lost million-dollar jets. And so they remained determined to try to save their airplanes.

Sully says he has never shaken his memories of fellow Air Force pilots who didn’t survive such attempts. Having those details in the recesses of his brain was helpful as he made quick decisions on flight 1549. “As soon as the birds struck,” he says, “I could have tried to return to LaGuardia so as not to ruin a US Airways aircraft. I could have worried that my decision to ditch the plane would be questioned by superiors or investigators. But I chose not to.”

Sully values the concept of “goal sacrificing.” When it’s no longer possible to complete all your goals, you sacrifice lower-priority goals. He instinctively knew that goal-sacrificing was paramount on Flight 1549. “By attempting a water landing,” he says, “I would sacrifice the ‘airplane goal — trying not to destroy an aircraft valued at $60 million — for the goal of saving lives.

Able to compartmentalize his thinking, even in those dire moments over the Hudson, Sully says his family did not come into his head. “That was for the best. It was vital that I be focused; that I allow myself no distractions. My consciousness existed solely to control the flight path.”

Performing At Our Best
“I am now the public face of an unexpectedly uplifting moment,” Sully says, and he accepts that. Still, he’s not comfortable with the “hero mantle. A hero runs into a burning building, he says. “Flight 1549 was different because it was thrust upon me and my crew. We turned to our training, we made good decisions, we didn’t give up, we valued every life on that plane — and we had a good outcome. I don’t know that ‘heroic’ describes that. It’s more that we had a philosophy of life, and we applied it to the things we did that day.”

Sully has heard from people who say preparation and diligence are not the same as heroism. He agrees.

One letter that was particularly touching to Sully came from Paul Mellen of Medford, Mass. “I see a hero as electing to enter a dangerous situation for a higher purpose,” he wrote, “and you were not given a choice. That is not to say you are not a man of virtue, but I see your virtue arising from your choices at other times. It’s clear that many choices in your life prepared you for that moment when your engines failed.

“There are people among us who are ethical, responsible and diligent. I hope your story encourages those who toil in obscurity to know that their reward is simple — they will be ready if the test comes. I hope your story encourages others to imitation.”

Sully now sees lessons for the rest of us. “We need to try to do the right thing every time, to perform at our best,” he says, “because we never know what moment in our lives we’ll be judged on.”

He always had a sense of this. Now he knows it for sure.

There is nothing in this review that indicates that Capt. Sullenberger views the events that transpired on Flight 1549 as other than worldly, no mention of luck, for example, which often functions as the secular equivalent of divine providence. However when I read the review I kept thinking of a short video I have on Paying Attention To The Sky where Fr. Robert Barron makes some short comments following a speech by George Weigel. He salutes Weigel on magnificent biography of John Paul II and says he was deeply moved by it. His favorite section of that biography dealt with the young manhood of Karol Wojtyła. Wojtyła went to the Jagiellonian University in September of 1939. — the very same moment that the Nazi’s arrived in Poland. Very quickly Polish society became incapacitated, if not utterly decapitated. Many of the professors of Karol Wojtyła were killed outright or sent to camps.

“What did he do?”asks Barron. He answers: “During that terrible time he went underground. With a few friends from the Rhapsodic Theater he would gather behind closed and locked doors reading texts of Polish literature, often by flashlight. Many who were on their way to those meetings or going home from them were arrested, some killed by the Germans.”

Barron poses the question again: “What was he doing, Wojtyła and his friends?” And replies: “They were preserving more than Polish literature. Because ingredient in that literature were all the ideas that George Weigel was just speaking of. Ingredient in all that great literature was the Catholic imagination. During those terrible years Karol Wojtyła hunkered down and with his friends he preserved it. In 1945 the Nazis were expelled and they were replaced by only a slightly less repressive Communist presence. During those terrible years what did Karol Wojtyła do? He hunkered down and with many of his young friends and colleagues whom he trained in Catholic spirituality in Catholic literature in Catholic theology in the formation of a Catholic mentality and culture.”

And then of course as we know through God’s amazing Grace that beleaguered young man became the Pope and at the propitious moment at a very dark time in Polish history again he returned and this time with the full power of the papacy behind him he unleashed the life he had preserved during those terrible years. He unleashed these young people whom he had formed who were now leaders in society — editors and teachers and business leaders — and with full force and authority he sent them out. And, as we know, it transfigured Polish society — it transfigured the world. 

The biblical image that Barron calls to mind is Noah’s ark. “During that terrible time when human sin had overwhelmed the human project, God preserved Noah and his family and a remnant of his creation on the ark, carefully preserving a microcosm of what God desired. But that life was not meant to hunker down behind the walls of that ark. At the propitious moment when the waters had receded Noah opened the windows and he opened the doors and let that life out. That is precisely what Karol Wojtyla did.”

 That is precisely the dual call of the Catholic church claims Barron. The culture will always be to a greater or lesser extent hostile to the Church’s project. And therefore we Catholics will always be called upon to in some degree to hunker down and to preserve a form of life, whereever that happens for us, above all in the liturgy, the source and summit of the Christian life.

At this point Fr. Barron demurs: “May I say that the fact that 70 to 75 percent of our brothers and sisters who stay away from the source and summit of the Christian life on a regular is a tragedy. If you had told to Henri de Lubac or Jean Danilieu or Hans Urs von Balthazar, the great fathers of Vatican two, if you had told them that in 2008 75 percent of American Catholics would be staying away from the liturgy? They would have thought the project had failed. They wanted to revive the liturgy — this place where the catholic form of life is on display and cultivated.”

“Where else does it happen?” asks Barron. He answers: “It happens in our great intellectual life: Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Dante, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, John Paul II, Teresa of Avila, the Little Flower. We have this very rich intellectual and cultural tradition. We must preserve it. We must love it. We must pass it on to our children.”

Barron tells us a personal story to illustrate this: “When I was 13 years old, 1973, at the height of a lot of the post conciliar confusion in Catholic schools and education, I sat in a classroom at Fenwick High School and heard one of the Dominican friars teach us the five arguments of Thomas Aquinas for God’s Existence. It changed my life. It set me on a path that I’ve never gotten off of.” “When we preserve our great intellectual tradition and pass it on to our kids,” he says, “We keep this Catholic thing going.

Barron sums up: “Now. That’s the moment of preservation. But the second great moment of the Church’s life, as exemplified in John Paul II, we must find in prudence those propitious moments when we let that life out. And that’s the Vatican II vision. That’s the Vatican II vision of the role of the laity.

Yes to be great Catholic lawyers not incidentally Catholic; to be great .Catholic politicians, not incidentally so. To be great Catholic teachers and writers. To be great Catholic journalists and actors. That is how we transfigure the world by spreading the seed that we carefully preserve. There’s the work of the new evangelization. That we might let loose this life, this dunamis, as Paul called it, this power of the gospel for the transformation of the world. That is the properly subversive role of the great evangelization.”

If you have seen the little video I feature here, you will know this is a rousing ending and Fr. Barron leaves his audience roaring approval. It truly is unforgettable. And do you see how it dovetails nicely with the Catholic view of God’s providence and the life of Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger? It is sad that Sully doesn’t seem to be aware of how his life has been touched by God’s providential grace but he innocently describes exactly that. In some ways the book may be more powerful for the fact that it calls upon us to provide what Paul Harvey used to call “The Rest of the Story.”

Por una CNDH autónoma y revigorizada

Bernardo Barranco V.

Emilio Álvarez Icaza aspira con toda legitimidad a presidir la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH). Su trayectoria, conocimientos y temple avalan que en este momento sea el mejor postulante, dicho con todo respeto a los demás aspirantes. No puedo disimular mi satisfacción por su valiente de-sempeño al frente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal (CDHDF), la consolidó como órgano autónomo y confiable, moderno y eficaz, una instancia ciudadana al margen de los intereses de los partidarios. Conozco a Emilio desde hace muchos años, gracias a Raquel Pastor, su esposa, con quien trabajé varias investigaciones sobre la Iglesia mexicana. Igualmente conocí a su padre, José Álvarez Icaza, quien es toda una leyenda en la historia del catolicismo contemporáneo en México; observador en el Concilio Vaticano II, encabezó entre los laicos de nuestro país posturas progresistas y comprometidas con la justicia social; finalmente, don José fue un desilusionado amigo personal de Karol Wojtyla antes de que se convirtiera en Papa. Independientemente de afectos y simpatías, creo que la postulación de Emilio fortalecerá el carácter ciudadano del cargo porque sabrá tomar distancia, sin cerrarse al diálogo, con los intereses y caprichos de la clase política. Siguiendo la reflexión del politólogo italiano de la escuela de Bolonia, Roberto Esposito, quien escribió Las categorías de lo impolítico, podemos inferir que más que apolítico o antipolítico la responsabilidad del ombudsman es desplegar una postura y ejercicio institucional desde otro lugar o terreno diferente donde se desenvuelven los actores políticos tradicionales. Emilio es apoyado por las más serias organizaciones de la sociedad civil en el tema de los derechos humanos. El pasado viernes 9 de octubre registró su candidatura acompañado de figuras emblemáticas de la democracia mexicana como José Woldenberg, Denise Dresser, Clara Jusidman, entre otros. Woldenberg, ex presidente del Instituto Federal Electoral, fue muy enfático al declarar por qué apoyaba la candidatura de Álvarez Icaza: “primero, porque no es un improvisado; segundo, porque trabajó muy dignamente al frente de la CDHDF; tercero, porque hizo valer la autonomía de la institución, piedra fundamental en la comisión, y con su designación se subrayaría esta intención; y cuarto, por la pasión con la que Emilio ha llevado a cabo su misión”. Sin embargo, el proceso está lleno de obstáculos. El primero es que existe una lamentable tendencia regresiva de los partidos políticos que han impuesto a los órganos autónomos, integrantes a modo. Se ha venido constatando cómo en los diferentes institutos electorales, tribunales y en el propio instituto de transparencia se imponen los intereses partidarios. Es decir, mediante acuerdos pactan con la lógica del contrapeso el nombramiento de consejeros y magistrados que se convierten en actores de consigna predecibles. Esto vulnera el sentido autónomo e independencia con que originalmente se diseñaron dichos órganos y, por tanto, la credibilidad institucional se pone en riesgo. La Jornada ha venido informando sobre supuestos acuerdos cupulares entre senadores priístas y panistas para elegir al sucesor de José Luis Soberanes. Por su parte, la senadora Rosario Ibarra de Piedra denunció “tener información bien confirmada” sobre un acuerdo entre el coordinador priísta, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, y el bloque de senadores panistas para que se elija al ex visitador Mauricio Farah titular de la CNDH, a cambio de la ratificación del procurador general de la República, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, ocurrida hace dos semanas. (La Jornada, 8/10/09). Igualmente, ha brotado el nombre de Javier Moctezuma Barragán como parte de acuerdos que priorizan los intereses de grupos y de corto plazo, más que el desempeño estratégico de salvaguardar los derechos humanos en un momento crítico del país. El segundo obstáculo es que observo con preocupación cómo los sectores más conservadores de la Iglesia católica se han venido manifestando y presionando contra la candidatura de Emilio. Invocan los datos “duros” otorgados por una organización membrete llamada Comisión Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, AC, que constata la “pobreza” operativa de la comisión que presidió Álvarez Icaza. José J. Castellanos, inquieto activista de la ultraderecha católica, escribió en un artículo: “La CDHDF fue un organismo de bajo perfil y alta complicidad con el Gobierno del Distrito Federal por razones políticas y complicidad ideológica. El comisionado fue electo a modo, aunque para justificar su actuación tuviera que aparecer de vez en cuando y no siempre con firmeza y energía, para atender casos mediáticos donde resultaba imposible guardar silencio” (www.comunicadorescatolicos.org.mx/content/view/277/1/). La realidad es falseada ahí, ya que en el fondo la ultraderecha católica no perdona las posturas más bien laicas que contra el aborto asumió Emilio Álvarez Icaza en 2007. No obstante, hay que recordar que Emilio proviene de una familia de abolengo católico, que numerosas personalidades que lo apoyan son católicas, así como numerosísimas organizaciones sociales como varias Cáritas de diferentes estados del país, órgano eclesiástico presente también en el plano diocesano encargado del desarrollo y la caridad. Los ciudadanos debemos estar atentos a las decisiones trascendentes de los conductores políticos, tanto en el fondo como en los procedimientos. El Senado tiene una prueba importante, ya que va a concertar las miradas y la atención del país, únicamente espero que esté a la altura de las exigencias que México vive actualmente. El proceso –sin retórica– tiene que dar la cara a la nación y solamente espero que no salgan con chambonadas que sólo ellos entienden.

La Jornada, 14 de octubre de 2009

Dzisiaj przeczytałam w Wyborczej, że na rynku już jest książka pt. Brat Karol, siostra Wanda o przyjaźni/miłości Wandy Półtawskiej z Karolem Wojtyłą. Muszę kupić. Wezmę ze sobą do Egiptu, gdzie jadę za kilka dni. Mam płynąć przez tydzień po Nilu, więc na czytanie czas będzie, bo ile można się przyglądać mętnej rzece i pustynnym piaskom?

15 października br. na rynku ukaże się książka “Brat Karol, Siostra Wanda” – opowieść o przyjaźni Karola Wojtyły i Wandy Półtawskiej autorstwa Aleksandry Klich. A już 12 października na łamach “Gazety Wyborczej” pojawi się cykl redakcyjny “Godzina kobiet w Kościele”.

W swojej książce Aleksandra Klich przedstawia niezwykłą historię przyjaźni ks. Karola Wojtyły, późniejszego papieża, i lekarki z Krakowa Wandy Półtawskiej. Choć ich znajomość była bardzo bliska i trwała ponad pół wieku, nazwisko przyjaciółki papieża prawie nie pada w biografiach Jana Pawła II. Gdy sama Półtawska opublikowała fragmenty swoich pamiętników i część prywatnej korespondencji z Wojtyłą, spotkała się z krytyką hierarchów Kościoła, w tym bliskich współpracowników papieża. Aleksandra Klich napisała o tym głośny reportaż dla “Gazety Wyborczej”, który zainspirował jej dalsze poszukiwania reporterskie.

Jak dowodzi Klich, Półtawska miała wpływ na poglądy oraz decyzje Wojtyły w ważnych sprawach – dotyczących etyki katolickiej, polityki Kościoła w sprawie antykoncepcji, aborcji, in vitro oraz kwestiach personalnych. Wojtyła natomiast był dla Półtawskiej nie tylko duchowym przewodnikiem, ale też wyznaczał jej zadania w działalności naukowej, społecznej, kościelnej.

- Książka Aleksandry Klich jest równie obiektywną, rzetelną faktograficznie, jak pasjonującą literacko opowieścią o tym wątku życia naszego papieża – mówi Jan Turnau, redaktor “Gazety Wyborczej”.

Aleksandra Klich jest dziennikarką “Gazety Wyborczej”, Ślązaczką, polonistką, katoliczką, feministką, autorką książek: “Bez mitów. Portrety ze Śląska” i “Cały ten Kutz. Biografia niepokorna”.

Książkę “Brat Karol, Siostra Wanda” wzbogaca esej o przyjaźniach wybitnych ludzi Kościoła z kobietami, rozmowa z teologiem Jarosławem Makowskim o roli kobiet w Kościele oraz poświęcony Wandzie Półtawskiej film dokumentalny na płycie DVD pt. “Duśka” w reżyserii Wandy Różyckiej-Zborowskiej. Producentem filmu jest TBA Group.

Publikacja, przygotowana w ramach Biblioteki Gazety Wyborczej, będzie dostępna od 15 października br. w kioskach, salonach Empik, księgarniach, na KulturalnySklep.pl oraz pod numerem infolinii 0 801 130 000 w cenie 34 zł.

Jej wydanie wspiera kampania promocyjna prowadzona na łamach dziennika “Metro”, “Gazety Wyborczej” i jej dodatków.

W związku z wydaniem książki, “Gazeta Wyborcza” 12 października rozpocznie cykl redakcyjny “Godzina kobiet w Kościele”. Codziennie na jej łamach będą pojawiać się artykuły, reportaże i wywiady poświęcone roli kobiet w Kościele, próbujące odpowiedzieć na pytania: jak katoliccy księża postrzegają kobiety? czy Kościół je dyskryminuje? czemu polskie feministki nie rozmawiają z biskupami? czy kobiety powinny prowadzić nabożeństwa? czy powinny być w większym stopniu aktywne w kuriach, sądach kościelnych, na wydziałach teologicznych?

Do dyskusji zaproszeni zostali wybitni teologowie, historycy Kościoła, księża oraz – przede wszystkim – same kobiety. W cyklu ukażą się m.in. “Feministyczna rewolucja Chrystusa” – wywiad z ks. prof. Alfonsem Józefem Skowronkiem, o tym czy polski Kościół dyskryminuje kobiety, wyniki badań na temat postrzegania kobiet przez polskich księży, tekst teologa Jarosława Makowskiego “Same sobie winne – czemu kobiety nie walczą o należne im miejsce?”, a także esej Aleksandry Klich “Co zawdzięczamy Wandzie Połtawskiej?”.

Fanzaga esordisce dicendo che sulla stampa odierna non ci sono molti temi da trattare, ma la puntata si rivlea invece ricca di spunti interessanti.

Il tema più interessante è il commento ad una lettera pubblicata su Il Corriere della Sera e relativa risposta di Sergio Romano sul ruolo avuto da Karol Wojtyla nel crollo dell’URSS.
Sergio Romano , che è stato per inciso anche ambasciatore a Mosca, sostiene infatti che la disfatta del comunismo sovietico sia da attribuire principalmente dai problemi economici.
Fanzaga ovviamente, da massimo esperto di storia sovietica qual’è, si indigna con Romano, asserendo in sostanza che quest’ultimo non capisce il ruolo degli ideali spirituali nella Storia. A riprova della sua teoria, porta la tesi secondo la quale dietro l’attentato di Alì Agca a Papa Giovanni II ci fosse il KGB , per timore appunto dell’influenza del Papa a livello politico.

Audio 1

Io non vorrei entrare nel merito della “polemica”: sicuramente Giovanni Paolo II ha avuto una ruolo attivo nel processo di disgregazione dell’URSS. Influenza manifestata sia con l’atteggiamento pubblico, sia invece dietro le quinte con una notevole influenza a livello politico. D’altro canto invece basta studiare un po’ di Storia per sapere come le carenze, le inefficienze e le iniquità del regime sovietico abbiano funzionato realmente come enzima per la disgregazione, come miccia in una polveriera. Mi sembra davvero sterile da parte di Fanzaga tirare anche in questo caso l’acqua al suo mulino. Se leggete l’articolo sopra linkato vi accorgerete infatti che non vi è da parte di Romano nessun tentativo di sminure o negare il ruolo di Wojtyla.

Quello che invece è interessante è l’esempio che Padre Livio adduce per rincarare la dose: gli Stati Uniti d’America, un grande paese dai grandi ideali, senza i quali il Paese stesso collasserebbe.

Audio 2

Il più grande “crimine politico” che personalmente imputo a Wojtyla è quello di aver così fortemente ed ostinatamente combattuto con il comunismo (e menomale, l’URSS era una dittatura!) e contemporaneamente stretto alleanza con l’altro sistema politico economico, il capitalismo.
Perchè credo che sia sotto gli occhi di tutti che la logica del profitto non va a braccetto con la logica della solidarietà. Quali sono questi ideali degli USA, oltre al pensare di portare la democrazia in Paesi che più della metà degli statunitensi non saprebbe localizzare su una cartina geografica? Avere il televisore sempre più grosso, l’automobile sempre più potente? O non essere curati se non si hanno i soldi necessari? O forse è la libertà di potersi arricchire, che sicuramente mancava nell’URSS. Ma chi si arricchisce? La pubblicità ha intontito a questo punto tutti quanti fino al punto di poter pensare davvero di “farcela”? E poi che importanza ha?
Il mio pensiero, tra l’altro, credo che sia addirittura in linea con quello di Papa Ratzinger, il quale tempo fa ha dichiarato, parlando di capitalismo, che
“Quando prevale la logica della condivisione e della solidarietà, è possibile correggere la rotta e orientarla verso uno sviluppo equo, per il bene comune di tutti. La ricchezza fruttifica solo se è condivisa con i poveri. In fondo si tratta della decisione tra egoismo e amore, tra giustizia e disonestà, in definitiva tra Dio e Satana”.
A me questo sembra un discorso da comunista. Forse semplicemente la Chiesa 20 anni fa non ha avuto la lungimiranza di capire che il capitalismo non era suo amico.

Chiuso il capitolo URSS, ancora due segnalazioni:
Parlando di economisti Fanzaga ricorda che gli questi fanno come gli aruspici romani, i quali analizzavano il fegato delle galline per capire cosa succedeva.

Audio 3

Io tanta ilarità non la sfoggerei se fossi nel buon Livio, al quale ricordo che la Chiesa ancora oggi ritiene importanti pratiche quali l’esorcismo, sul quale consiglio ai lettori di informarsi brevemente.
Questa differenza tra gli aruspici che sacrificavano le galline e Padre Amorth che se ne va in giro a certificare la possessione dal maligno non la vedo. Se non che gli aruspici adottavano tali pratiche diversi secoli fa.

Commentando infine la prima pagina del Corriere (“Venezia s’inchina a Chavez”) Fanzaga dice una cosa giusta, ovvero che Chavez è tanto idolatrato perchè è un partner commerciale importante per le importazioni petrolifere italiane. E aggiunge che è un po’ come Gheddafi, un dittatore, ma che il leader libico è più intelligente.

Audio 4

Capisco che Fanzaga debba giustificare la vicinanza a Gheddafi di un Governo “amico”, ma distinguere tra due dittatori per la presunta intelligenza di uno dei due mi pare squallido.
E tornando alla cosa giusta detta da Padre Livio, devo dire che la ritengo giusta solo a metà. Di certo ci sarà una parte dell’Italia che vede di buon grado Chavez per fini meramente utilitaristici, ma credo che in tanti, anche alla base, stimino e idolatrino Chavez perchè vedono in lui un oppositore al modus operandi e al modello proposto e ormai imposto dagli USA. E non perchè a questa gente ne venga in tasca qualcosa.
Personalmente posso apprezzare Chavez per l’atteggiamento di non sudditanza che adotta in politica estera con gli USA, ma bisogna ricordare anche che all’interno del suo Paese è un dittatore, senza quindi arrivare all’idealizzazione.
Segnalo infine una notizia che leggevo qualche giorno fa. Chavez si appresta a vietare la vendita di giochi di armi e di armi giocattolo in Venezuela. Posizione interessante, anche a livello pedagogico, se fatta puramente nell’interesse dello sviluppo dei ragazzi. Peccato poi che combinazione voglia che uno dei videogames più diffusi in Venezuela sia un War Game ambientato in un futuristico e devastato venezuela sotto la dittatura di un militare golpista. Ogni medaglia ha il suo retro. Come la depenalizzazione del falso in bilancio d’altronde. Solo che in Venezuela la legge la fa un dittatore e in Italia no. Ma che la faccia sempre a comodo proprio penso ci siano pochi dubbi.

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Audio 1 http://italianhost.org/mp3host/images/d97luz71i8aet026vlg.mp3
Audio 2 http://italianhost.org/mp3host/images/f2tg2exrhmgqjybia4o.mp3
Audio 3 http://italianhost.org/mp3host/images/4mm3tyb40pjtd9q45tvb.mp3
Audio 4 http://italianhost.org/mp3host/images/jekij9zmqobefgvdsxn.mp3

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Il Caffè:

Vietato baciare la statua di San Gennaro a Napoli per il virus H1N1: questo virus impenitente è peggio di uno sfollagente (il padreterno ci mette poco a metterci in riga).

Wybór Karola Wojtyły na papieża jest dla Polaków ważniejszy niż wybuch II wojny światowej – wynika z sondażu CBOS opublikowanego w dzisiejszej Rzeczpospolitej.

Wybuch wojny za najważniejsze wydarzenie w dziejach kraju ostatniego stulecia uznało 21 proc. respondentów. Wybór papieża był takim wydarzeniem dla 57 proc. badanych – podaje Rzeczpospolita.

http://info.wiara.pl

fonte: l’economista mascherato

http://leconomistamascherato.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-peccati-della-banca-vaticana.html

mercoledì 24 giugno 2009

I PECCATI DELLA BANCA VATICANA

Da: SVIZZERA Connection

I PECCATI DELLA BANCA VATICANA

I pagamenti alla Democrazia Cristiana erano di competenza dei due uomini di fiducia di Gardini, Sergio Cusani e Luigi Bisignani. La raccolta fondi per la quota di questa tangente passò per affari immobiliari fittizi di Gardini a Roma a carico della Montedison. I fondi così procurati figuravano in forma di cosiddetti CCT. I CCT sono obbligazioni di cassa della Repubblica italiana al portatore e avrebbero potuto compromettere i loro destinatari, mediante il numero di serie, se fossero stati venduti ad una banca. I democristiani insistettero per avere denaro contante. Poichè Cusani, l’uomo di fiducia di Gardini, aveva buoni rapporti con il Vaticano e con la banca vaticana IOR, il procuratore Di Pietro suppose che lo IOR avesse riciclato una parte delle tangenti Enimont, vale a dire cambiato i CCT in denaro contante. Nell’ottobre 1993 Di Pietro presentò al Vaticano una richiesta di assistenza giuridica. Senza grande speranza, in verità, perchè Pio Cipriotti, giudice supremo del Vaticano, non l’aveva mai concessa prima alla giustizia italiana. Già dopo il crollo del Banco Ambrosiano nell’anno 1982 il Santo Padre aveva rifiutato la collaborazione e aveva protetto Paul Marcinkus, l’arcivescovo a capo dello IOR, gravemente incriminato. Karol Wojtyla preferì vendere il Banco di Roma per la Svizzera, filiale IOR, alla SBG e rabbonire i creditori danneggiati dell’Ambrosiano con i 241 milioni di dollari così ricavati. (28) Nel 1987 il papa rifiutò una richiesta di estradizione a Milano dell’arcivescovo Marcinkus, richiamandosi ai patti lateranensi, stipulati con Mussolini nel 1929. Ma nel dicembre 1993 il Vaticano, suscitando lo stupore generale, ebbe un ripensamento e, per la prima volta nella sua storia, concesse assistenza giudiziaria all’Italia in un caso di corruzione. E si trattò di una sorta di confessione che rivelò che anche nella Banca vaticana si pecca. (29) Sergio Cusani aveva collaborato con Luigi Bisignani che fungeva, senza legami con altri, da intermediario con il Vaticano. Bisignani era una figura pittoresca: giornalista dell’agenzia ANSA, membro della P-2 e consigliere di Licio Gelli, lavorò più tardi come uomo di collegamento di persone potenti, come Giulio Andreotti, con il Vaticano. Era anche buon amico dell’amico di Andreotti Lamberto Dini, più tardi direttore generale della Banca d’Italia e presidente dei ministri italiano. Dal 1989 Bisignani lavorò anche come “consulente esterno” di Raul Gardini. Bisignani, Cusani e il manager della Ferruzzi Carlo Sama, trattarono con monsignor Donato de Bonis, presidente dello IOR, la fondazione dell’Istituto San Serafino con domicilio presso lo IOR. Scopo della fondazione doveva essere quello di versare ai partiti italiani e ad altre opere caritatevoli generosi contributi. Bisignani riempì la cassa della San Serafino con obbligazioni statali da riciclare. Una parte del controvalore delle obbligazioni lo ricevette dallo IOR in contanti. (30) I partner della trattativa erano in stretti rapporti anche a livello personale. Monsignor De Bonis aveva unito in matrimonio in Vaticano il manager della Ferruzzi con Alessandra Ferruzzi, la figlia erede del gruppo industriale. Dopo che si era dimesso da presidente dello IOR, nel settembre 1993, il papa nominò Monsignor De Bonis prelato dell’Ordine di Malta.

MERCHANTBANK CRAGNOTTI & PARTNERS

Abbiamo già appreso da alcune testimonianze che gli acrobati della finanza pensano volentieri per “strutture”, che oltrepassano paesi e legislazioni, eludono governi e parlamenti. Non si preoccupano di limitazioni economico-politiche nazionali. Sono instabili come il capitale che le attraversa. Cambiano sempre nome, domicilio, forma giuridica e personale – in totale conformità con le esigenze del giorno. Ad una buona “struttura” si addicono amministratori leali perché bisogna sfruttare al massimo ogni pertugio. Al di là di tutti gli intrecci organizzativi, una “struttura” è una rete di persone e di fedeltà mafiose. Un esempio è la “struttura Cragnotti & partners”. Sergio Cragnotti era un manager in carriera della Ferruzzi nel settore finanziario e negli anni ‘80 era considerato il braccio destro di Raul Gardini. Nel 1990 comprò alla Matsack UK Ltd. di Londra nella Dublino irlandese una società di comodo senza impiegati di nome Standuff Limited, nel cui consiglio di amministrazione egli entrò con il suo collaboratore Paolo Opromolla. Più tardi anche Giuseppe Berlini, tesoriere dei fondi neri Ferruzzi a Losanna, e Jean Marc Vernes, alleato di Gardini in Francia, entrarono nel consiglio di amministrazione Standuff. A metà del 1991 la Standuff cambiò nome in Cragnotti & Partners. Da Raul Gardini, Arturo Ferruzzi e Carlo Sama in giù, l’intero top management responsabile degli affari finanziari internazionali della Ferruzzi – Montedison entrò nel consiglio di amministrazione, non escluso l’uomo di fiducia di Gardini, Sergio Cusani .(31) Già nel febbraio 1991 Cragnotti aveva fondato a Lugano la Cragnotti & Partners, Services, con domicilio nello studio legale Sganzini & Partner. A questa società seguì nel marzo 1991 la Cragnotti & Partners Finance, pure a Lugano. Del consiglio di amministrazione della C & P Finance facevano parte l’allora consigliere nazionale ticinese FDP Geo Camponovo di Chiasso, l’avvocato Carlo Sganzini, il manager della Ferruzzi-Montedison Paolo Opromolla e il presidente della Curator, Giancarlo Cappello. (32) Presidente della Cragnotti & Partners Finance era Roberto Marziale, consigliere delegato della Montedison International a Viganello. Marziale era, allora, nonostante avesse appena 30 anni, un esperto specialista finanziario internazionale. Aveva cominciato nel 1984 come praticante presso la Ferruzzi Services a Ginevra, era passato nel 1987 alla Montedison Finance Lugano, prima di diventare presidente della Montedison International. Marziale era anche consigliere d’amministrazione di Fal NV (Curaçao), dove, nel 1993, si era prodotto il buco già descritto di 320 milioni di lire. Inoltre Marziale era presidente finanziario della filiale Enimont a Lugano-Viganello. Quando nell’estate 1993 le pustole purulente si aprirono e Cragnotti entrò a far parte dei sospettati nello scandalo Ferruzzi-Montedison (33), il più scaltro Marziale se ne era già andato alla C&P. Nel maggio 1991 era stata fondata la Cragnotti & Partners Capital Investment Luxemburg. Azionista principale di questa Joint- venture era la C&P ( Dublino) con il 45 %, inoltre quasi due dozzine di banche famose detenevano quote di minoranza: ad esempio lo Schweizerische Bankverein l ‘8,1 %, la Rabobank (Svizzera) il 6,1 %, il Banco di Napoli il 5,1 % e il Crédit Lyonnais il 3,7 %. Del consiglio d’amministrazione facevano parte Giuseppe Garofano, manager della Montedison-Ferruzzi, Roberto Michetti e Paolo Opromolla. Mancavano Gardini e Cragnotti, dopo la rottura di Gardini con la famiglia Ferruzzi. I consiglieri d amministrazione svizzeri erano l’ avvocato di Lugano Lucio Velo, Robert Villiger, legato al Bankverein e Hans C. Schulthess, uomo della fiduciaria Fides (34). Che la C&P Capital Investment lussemburghese avesse grandi progetti, lo mostra l’entrata di Stanislas Yassukovich nel consiglio di amministrazione. Negli anni ‘70, Yassukovich era la superstar degli euromercati e divenne più tardi presidente dell’associazione londinese di categoria Securities Association. Egli avrebbe dovuto procurare credibilità e rispettabilità alla C&P a Londra. All’inizio del 1994, Yassukovich lasciò di nuovo la C&P.(35) La C& P ha retto al tifone Mani Pulite, anche se fortemente ridimensionata.

C’E’ VITA DOPO ENIMONT?

Dopo aver comprato nel 1994 le aziende alimentari IRI Cirio Polenghi De Rica (conserve, latte), allora privatizzate, Cragnotti annunciò sulla stampa il suo ritiro dagli affari finanziari. Diventò un industriale romano e si dedicò all’incarico di presidente dell’AS (Associazione sportiva) Roma e al “Messaggero”, un giornale che aveva rilevato dai Ferruzzi dopo il loro crollo. Cragnotti non ha tuttavia interrotto del tutto i rapporti con la C&P da lui creata. I tre procuratori della sua Cirio International BV, Amsterdam, filiale di Lugano, e precisamente Gianni Patuzzo, Daniele Poggi e Raffaele Riva, firmano tutti e tre anche come procuratori della C&P Finance (Lugano). Poggi è inoltre procuratore della succursale di Lugano della società Cragnotti Compagnia Mobiliare SpA a Roma. L’ ex presidente della C&P Roberto Marziale ha dato le dimissioni e ha fondato la società finanziaria Sagres da lui presieduta. Consiglieri d’amministrazione della Sagres sono: Lucio Velo, consigliere d’ amministrazione della C& P in Lussemburgo, il socio di Velo Andrea Balerna (direttore della TS Truster) e Brunello Donati (consigliere d’amministrazione della Atlantis di Friburgo). Del consiglio di amministrazione della Sagres fa parte anche Silvano Grassi (direttore della filiale di Lugano della Società Finanziaria Chimica, una filiale dell’Enichem). Con ciò risulta chiaro che l’ ENI non nutre alcun risentimento nei confronti dell’ ex manager della Ferruzzi-Montedison Marziale. Che il rapporto tra ENI e Montedison sopravvivesse anche alla terribile avventura Enimont, costata la vita a due grandi presidenti, Raul Gardini e Gabriele Cagliari, lo dimostra il consiglio d’amministrazione della C&P Services (Lugano). Qui sedevano tranquillamente uno accanto all’altra al tavolo delle sedute, alla fine del 1995, la rappresentante dell’Enichem Fiamma Bindella e l’uomo della Montedison Fabio Gaggini. Si scambiavano solo ricordi? Ci farebbe veramente piacere sapere che affari venivano qui trattati.

Note:

28) La SBG diede alla banca acquistata il nuovo nome di Banco di Lugano.

29) Oltre che nello scandalo Enimont, il Vaticano era implicato in altri affari di tangenti. Al centro c’era il corrotto cardinale Fiorenzo Angelini, nel cui ufficio il pittore comunista italiano Renato Guttuso, poco prima della morte, passò alla fede cattolica. Dal 1970 Angelini era responsabile del settore sanità in Vaticano ed era inoltre presidente dell’associazione italiana dei medici e dei farmacisti. Egli interveniva di volta in volta presso Duilio Poggiolini che, nel ministero italiano per la salute, era responsabile dell’accettazione dei farmaci. Le ditte farmaceutiche che lo corrompevano, ottenevano che le loro nuove medicine comparissero subito nella lista dei farmaci mutuabili. (vedi p.56 segg.)

30) Calvi, Fabrizio et Sisti, Leo: ‘Les Nouveaux Réseaux de la Corruption’ . Parigi, 1990, p.238

31) Companies Register, Dublino.

32) Il socio di Cappello Ernst Esslinger era revisore della Montedison International (Lugano).

33) Nel 1994 Cragnotti fu condannato in prima istanza a Ravenna per reati economici ad una breve pena detentiva. Già nel 1993 era stato escluso dal commercio nell’Ontario canadese per insider-trading.

34) Tribunal d’ Arrondissement de et à Luxembourg, Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés

35) ”Financial Times”, 7.3.94

Den 1 november 1978 bevistade jag  en välbesökt presskonferens i Wennergren-skrapan i Stockholm. Detta i anledning av att säkerhetsexperten Dragan Jovius, som jag kände väl, gav ut sin bok Sovjetspionage i Sverige – dess taktik och verksamhet (S:t Georgs förlag). Till presskonferensens muntrationer hörde att Jan Guillou blev nekad inträde; man måste nämligen ha en speciell inbjudan, och det hade nu inte Guillou.

Men det var inte bara munterhet vid presskonferensen. Bland inbjudna gäster fanns även en drygt 40-årig, lätt fetlagd och undersätsig man med tjusarmustasch och rikligt med pomada i håret. Han hade en yrkesbakgrund inom svensk underrättelsetjänst och ansågs vara en “stenhård antikommunist” och därför sovjetätare. Mannens namn var Stig Bergling. Han dömdes påföljande år till livstids fängelse för grovt spioneri efter att ha gripits i Israel av underrättelsetjänsten Mossad.

 Den Stig Bergling jag träffade vid ett par tillfällen.

Jag hade stött på Bergling åtskilliga år tidigare, då han dök upp vid de försäljningsaktioner som anordnades i Stockholms city varje helg av den antitotalitära organisationen Demokratisk Allians inom vilken jag var engagerad. Jag minns inte exakt vad han sade vid dessa tillfällen, men troligen orerade han vitt och brett om hur fantastiskt bra vi ungdomar var som vågade stå upp mot kommunismen och gå emot vänstervridningen i samhället.

Landsförrädaren Stig Bergling dömdes alltså till livstids fängelse efter att bland annat till Sovjetunionen ha lämnat ut den så kallade befästningskoden med datoriserade uppgifter om samtliga försvarsanläggningar i Sverige. 1987 avvek Berling från en permission och lyckades rymma till Moskva. Han levde därefter omväxlande i Ryssland, Libanon, Ungern och Israel innan han återvände frivilligt till Sverige 1994. Han fortsatte här att avtjäna sitt straff innan han 1997 blev villkorligt frigiven.

Stig Bergling, alias Eugen Sandberg, alias Stig Sydholt, född 1937, är numera inhyst i ett äldreboende i Stockholm. Han har fortsatt att göra avtryck i massmedia. 2006 väckte det visst uppseende då det framkom att han blivit medlem i Vänsterpartiet, med en partipolitisk bakgrund som landsförrädarpartiet par preference i Sverige; dess närmaste föregångare, Vänsterpartiet kommunisterna, var hårt Moskva-styrt ända fram till sovjetväldets implosion 1991.

I en debattartikel i Expressen den 13 juli 2008 uttalade Bergling/Sydholt sitt starka stöd för den omdiskuterade FRA-lagen, bland annat med följande händelsevis alldeles korrekta motivation:

“Det kalla kriget avslutades aldrig i Ryssland, samtidigt som resten av världen lät sig duperas om avspänning och fred. Den ryska generalstabens underrättelsetjänst (GRU) har vuxit sig så stark att den blivit en stat i staten.”

Såvitt jag vet har Stig Bergling aldrig visat någon ånger över att sannolikt ha åstadkommit mer skada för Sveriges militära försvar än någon annan spion, också i jämförelse med “spionöversten” Stig Wennerström som dömdes till livstids straffarbete 1964 och släpptes tio år senare. Exempelvis den beryktade Enbomligan var rena småhandlare vid en jämförelse med Berglings spioneri.

Stig Bergling tillhör den kategori landsförrädare som inte drivs av någon som helst övertygelse, utan gör vad de gör på grund av pengar, spänning och/eller känslan av att känna sig betydelsefulla. Dessa personer besväras inte av något samvete eller fosterlandskärlek, men kan i efterhand söka försvara sitt agerande med att de – exempelvis – i själva verket befrämjade världsfreden. Wennerström påstod på fullt allvar i sina memoarer att det var bra att ryssarna fick västliga hemligheter, eftersom detta var tjänligt för balansen mellan stormakterna under det Kalla kriget. Själv var han naturligtvis den största av fredkämpar.

Också Bergling har varit inne på liknande tankar i TV-intervjuer – hans spioneri har gynnat såväl Sverige som nationalstat som freden i världen. Och det är inte så märkligt att personer utan vare sig övertygelse eller samvete tillgriper sådana befängda ursäkter, som väl bara de allra mest naiva och historielösa medlemmarna i Röd ungdom kan tro på. I avsaknad av inre övertygelse måste de sannolikt inför sig själva rationalisera sina illgärningar för att över huvud taget orka stå ut med att leva.

Det vore lätt för mig att säga att jag känner förakt för i grunden ynkliga personer som Bergling och Wennerström, men sanningen är att jag känner stort medlidande. Här en länk till ett insiktsfullt blogginlägg om Bergling:

http://safflemannen.se/?p=9956

Men är alla spioner ynkliga och värda förakt? Så kan man möjligen resonera om man anser att det egna fosterlandet är det högsta goda och därmed alltings mått. Detta är dock inte min uppfattning. Det helt avgörande är, utifrån min måttstock, huruvida en person med sitt spioneri främjar det onda eller goda. I fallen Bergling och Wennerström är det enkelt – de lämnade under det Kalla kriget ut statshemligheter till fientlig makt, som därtill var världens kommunistiska supermakt, Sovjetunionen, motståndare till den fria världen och därmed värden som frihet, demokrati och yttrandefrihet. Bergling, Wennerström och deras gelikar förtjänar därför dubbelt fördömande.

Sedan har vi spioner och “landsförrädare” såsom Oleg Penkovskij och Ryszard Kuklinski.

Oleg Penkovskij hade 1960 utsetts till överste i den sovjetiska militära underrättelsetjänsten GRU. Bakom den oklanderliga sovjetmasken dolde han ett gränslöst förakt för det kommunistiska Sovjetunionen, säkerligen delvis beroende på att hans fader hade varit officer i tsararmén och medlem i de vita styrkorna under inbördeskriget mellan röda och vita 1917-20. Penkovskij bestämde sig för att förse Väst med hemligheter sedan han i Moskva stött på den engelske affärsmannen och säkerhetsmedarbetaren Greville Wynne.

 Penkovskij offrade sig för friheten.

Penkovskij överlämnade en mängd topphemliga och strategiskt högintressanta dokument till Storbritannien och USA under några år i början på 1960-talet och bidrog därmed i hög grad att stärka Västs försvar gentemot Sovjetunionen. Till slut avslöjades emellertid verksamheten, och både Penkovskij och Wynne greps av KGB. Penkovskij fick det i sammanhanget enda tänkbara straffet – döden – under det att Wynne dömdes till åtta års fängelse.

Penkovskij avrättades efter grym tortyr, medan Wynne efter en tid utväxlades mot sovjetspionen Gordon Lonsdale (egentligen Konon Molody) som gripits i London. (Om Penkovskij, Lonsdale och andra spioner kan man läsa i boken Sanna historier om spioner, Historiska media).

Ryszard Kuklinski (1930-2004) överlämnade under tioårsperioden 1971-81 stora mängder hemligstämplade, främst sovjetiska, dokument till USAs underrättelsetjänst CIA. Kuklinskis fader hade varit antinazistisk motståndsman under Andra världskriget och dog i koncentrationslägret Sachsenhausen. Också sonen skulle bli motståndsman på sitt sätt, men då under den sovjetkommunistiska ockupationen av Polen.

Förre CIA-chefen George Tenet har sagt att Kuklinski var “en av det Kalla krigets sanna hjältar” och vidare:

“Denne passionerade och modige man bidrog till att det Kalla kriget inte blev hett när han försåg CIA med värdefull information  på vilket så många viktiga säkerhetsbeslut vilade. Han gjorde det för den ädlaste av orsaker – att främja frihetens och fredens helgade ideal i sitt hemland och över hela världen.”

 Kuklinski – polsk patriot och frihetsvän.

Kuklinski valde således att arbeta för Väst just därför att han var en äkta polsk nationalist och därmed såg till sitt lands sannaste intressen. Som tack för hjälpen fick Kuklinski av den amerikanska underrättelsetjänsten utmärkelsen Distinguished Service Medal samt en bostadsort i USA. 2006 invigdes ett museum i Warszawa till Kuklinskis minne av den polske försvarsministern Radoslaw Sikorski.

Genom sin tjänstgöring inom den polska armén kom Ryszard Kuklinski i kontakt med dokument som vittnade om sovjetiska planer på ett militärt angrepp mot Västeuropa. I dessa planer ingick att Polen i ett krigsläge skulle komma att offras och riskera att utsättas för 400-600 kärnvapenträffar. Kuklinski insåg att han måste förhindra detta och sökte samband med CIA; han överlämnade i Polen vid 63 tillfällen hemlig information till CIA.

Militära bedömare anser att det material Kuklinski vidarebefordrade fick ett avgörande inflytande på NATOs militära planering för Europa, vilken korrigerades på basis av den information Kuklinski bistått med. CIA vidarebefordrade jämväl viss information till Vatikanstaten, som vid denna tid styrdes av den polskfödde påven Johannes Paulus II (Karol Wojtyla), som ju var en av de personligheter som allra verksammast bidrog till Västs seger i det Kalla kriget.

Denne polske hjälte fick dock betala ett högt pris. Själv dömdes han till döden av en militärdonstol i Warszawa 1984, och hans båda söner omkom under misstänkta omständigheter i USA på 1990-talet.

En av de mest intressanta landsförrädarna i modern tid är Jonathan Pollard, den ende amerikanske spion som dömts till livstids fängelse utan att ha varit anklagad för högförräderi. Dessutom spionerade han för ett allierat land, Israel, ett brott för vilket det normala straffet är två till fyra års fängelse. Den 55-årige Pollard är nu inne på sitt 25e år bakom lås och bom.

Jonathan Jay Pollard föddes i ett judiskt hem i Galveston, Texas 1954. Han var ett begåvat barn som tidigt blev medveten om sin judiska identitet. Han var vid gripandet en civilanställd analytiker vid den amerikanska flottans säkerhetstjänst i Washington, D. C. Pollard ansågs vara en kompetent om än något excentrisk tjänsteman. Ett av hans förslag hade varit att man skulle lagra underrättelseinformation från den vita minoritetsregeringen i Sydafrika. Förslaget bedömdes så kontroversiellt att Pollards möjlighet att få tillgång till hemlig information tillfälligt drogs in.

 Jonathan Pollard, orättvist dömd?

Det var när Pollard upptäckte att USA, trots ett ömsesidigt avtal med Israel om utbyte av säkerhetsinformation, inte vidarebefordrade viktiga uppgifter till israelerna om hot från arabvärlden och terrorismen. Han började då kopiera hemliga dokument som han mot betalning överlämnade till israeliska kontakter; Pollard fruktade att den judiska staten stod inför hotet om en ny Förintelse. Enligt somliga underrättelseuppgifter skall Jonathan Pollard ha överlämnat så många som en miljon hemliga handlingar inklusive satellitfoton.

När Pollard som en  följd av sin spionageverksamhet till slut blev okoncentrerad på jobbet fattade hans överordnade misstankar. Innan han greps 1985 körde han och dåvarande hustrun, Anne Henderson Pollard, i sin bil i rasande fart, med FBI hack i häl, i riktning mot den israeliska ambassaden. Paret lyckades ta sig in på ambassadområdet men avvisades bryskt av en säkerhetsvakt, varefter de greps, åtalades och dömdes. Hustrun var snart ute igen, men inte Pollard.

Fallet Jonathan Jay Pollard är komplicerat och motsägelsefullt, och jag tänker här inte gå in på alla dess enskildheter.  Klart tycks emellertid vara att försvaret inte skötte sina åligganden på bästa sätt, och det verkar också som om domstolen agerade under starka påtryckningar från USAs regering när den dömde Pollard till livstids fängelse. Den välkände judiske amerikanske advokaten Alan Dershowitz har i en TV-intervju som sin mening framfört, att orsaken till att Jonathan Pollard alltjämt hålls i fängsligt förvar är hans judiskhet – vilken icke-jude som helst i hans situation skulle ha frigivits för länge sedan.

Varken Pollard själv, hans nuvarande hustru Esther Pollard eller hans anhängare i Israel eller på andra platser har givit upp hoppet om hans slutliga frigivande. Man förnekar inte att Pollard bedrivit spionageverksamhet men hänvisar till, att straffet är alldeles för hårt i förhållande till brottets art och att han, trots allt, spionerade för en allierad makt. Pollards officiella hemsida “Justice for Jonathan Pollard” finns här:

http://www.jonathanpollard.org/

 Esther Pollard hänvisade i en intervju i det israeliska TV-inslaget “Frontline” 2007 till att det finns liknande fall där domarna blivit helt annorlunda. En person som avslöjats spionera för Kina dömdes således till tre månanders fängelse, medan Michael Schwartz, som överlämnade hemligstämplad information till Saudiarabien, inte behövde skaka galler alls!

Av de spionfall som redovisats här ovan står det klart att Stig Bergling och Stig Wennerström är “dåliga” spioner då de, helt utan ideologisk motivation, sålde ut sitt fosterland för en grynvälling. “Flottspionen” Hilding Andersson och medlemmarna i Enbomligan hade i alla fall en ideologisk övertygelse som grundplåt.

Penkovskij och Kuklinski är däremot “bra” spioner, eftersom de ville rädda sina länder – Ryssland och Polen – undan det totalitära förtrycket och göra en insats mot den omänskliga kommunismen.

Med Pollard är det mer komplicerat. Han förrådde sitt påtagliga fosterland USA till förmån för det andliga hemlandet Israel. Man kan säga att han handlade fel, men utifrån en god bevekelsegrund, och fick ett omänskligt straff. För mig framstår det som en gåta att USAs regering låter honom försmäkta i sitt fängelse år efter år medan personer som begått liknande brott klarat sig lindrigt undan.

Or the Theology of the Soapbox

What follows in another one of my long expositions on the Theology of the Body.  I have to give a loud content warning at the outset.  There is some frank talk here about sexuality, or rather, my complaints that there is too much frank talk about such matters.  I would have asked Dawn Eden to publish this one, but she has very courageously retired from blogging.  I have to commend her on her decision; however, it is not without regret on my part.

I again want to let those I disagree with know that my intentions are honorable and I do not question their integrity or commitment to the faith.  I can take my lumps if I deserve them.

In a recent apologia for Christopher West, Father Thomas Loya makes grand assertions:

Christopher West is a bit of a mystic—in the best sense of the word. His work, which seems strange to some, is actually that of a pioneer. And like all pioneers, West is taking a lot of arrows for his courage. In the face of much resistance, West is courageous enough to invite all of us to do just what John Paul II invited us to do: to think and talk in spousal categories.

He goes on to put the author and speaker in good company:

West’s use of this kind of imagery is rooted deeply in the Catholic tradition.  Hence, if we want to condemn West for certain comparisons he makes, then it seems we must condemn a great many saints as well.  St. John Chrysostom told married couples to remember that Christ united himself to the Church “in a spiritual intercourse.”  Teresa of Avila writes of ecstasies she experienced in “nuptial union” with Christ.  St. Bernard of Clairvaux had mystical experiences of nursing at Mary’s breasts. St. Louis de Montfort repeatedly refers to Mary’s milk and breasts as a source of consolation for Christians.  Bishop Fulton Sheen – assuring his audience that he was quoting St. Augustine verbatim – proclaimed that Christ “came to the marriage bed of the Cross, … united himself with the woman [the Church], and consummated the union forever.”  And he didn’t hesitate to share publicly Augustine’s idea that the blood and water from Christ’s side was, as it were, his “spiritual seminal fluid.”  For those with eyes to see, these precious theological jewels are not a cause for scandal.  They make perfect mystical sense; they are beautiful and profoundly healing.

No Mystics or Martyrs

In truth, these “precious theological jewels,” are not a cause for scandal, nor has anyone that I know of been scandalized by them.  This is another straw man argument put forward in defense of Christopher West without addressing any of the real issues that have been raised by those who have problems with his presentation of TOB.

I know very well that there are many people who disagree with my analysis of the West/TOB issue.  I do not claim to have any mystical insight, nor do I believe that anyone who disagrees with me is my persecutor, nor do I know of anyone else on my side of the issue who believes he or she is suffering the slings and arrows of defenders of West.  Considering the influence West already has, I think it would be more productive if these elevations to mystic and martyr were dropped in favor of an effort to engage in a real intellectual discussion of the issues.

I do not know of anyone who has minimized the value of John Paul II’s presentation of the faith in “spousal categories,” nor anyone on my side of the issue who has criticized a saint.  On the contrary, it is West who takes the saints to task for their alleged prudery.  But let me comment on Father Loya’s saint references one by one.

Saintly Eroticism?

The context of St. John Chrysostom’s remark is a discussion about the holiness of marriage insofar as it was denied by heretics who themselves engaged in sexual depravity.  It was not an exhortation to have a holy preoccupation with sex.

St. Theresa of Avila and other mystics, like St. Bernard, often comment on nuptial and erotic imagery of the Song of Songs, but this does not translate into the sexualization of their mystical experiences with Christ or into a constant preoccupation with the natural and holy pleasures of marriage, as I have pointed out elsewhere.  If the contrary is true, I would like to see someone actually make a reasoned argument for the position, rather than simply assert that it is true because saints commented on the Song of Songs.

As for St. Bernard’s mystical experience and St. Louis’s de Monfort’s references to Maria Lactans, are West and Father Loya really suggesting that these experiences and meditations were sexually erotic?  That assertion, quite frankly, would be blasphemous.  If that is not what is meant, I would like to know what the correct interpretation is.  (I have dealt specifically with West’s over-extended and flatly mistaken interpretation of St. Louis, elsewhere.)  If grown men who have a natural and vehement sexual attraction to women find it difficult to have the same regard for a woman’s body as a nursing infant, I do not think this should be faulted them.  Do you?  It is no shame to admit that we are not St. Bernard.

The quote of St. Augustine by Bishop Sheen is conveniently edited to exclude the statement of the saint that Christ came to “a bed of pain, not pleasure.”  Father Loya has done this more than once, as I have learned from Dawn Eden.  In any case, as much as I believe St. Augustine is scapegoated for modern prudery, I can hardly imagine the great doctor of the West preaching and teaching that we ought to have a holy preoccupation with sex.

Since when does nuptial and erotic imagery in the bible and the writings of the saints translate into a constant, marketed, mystic and martyred fascination with sexuality?  Since Christopher West has asserted it and suggested that those who doubt it need to look within themselves and ask why they are uncomfortable with thinking in this way.  And now Loya plays the absolute moral authority card by declaring West mystic and martyr.

Pious Sex Obsession

Let us be clear: The real issue is not whether the Theology of the Body is an important contribution to the Church’s new evangelization, but whether as a single corpus of magisterial teaching it constitutes the new evangelization, and whether its valid interpretation is a mandate for a fascination with the erotic.  I am willing to drop the veiled language only in the sense that we need to make plain that all this revisionist apologetics has become a pious justification for the contemporary obsession with sex.

Loya quotes John Paul II, where he says that “consciousness of the spousal meaning of the body constitutes the fundamental component of human existence the world” (TOB 15:5).  But why are we supposed to believe that this mean that we must keep our minds focused on sex?  And then Loya quotes the Holy Father again in Mulieris Dignitatem, where he says that “the Eucharist is the … sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride” (26).  But why are we to conclude, then, that the pope wants us to think sexual thoughts?  John Paul II’s Theology of the body is so philosophical and dense that “experts” have succeeded in squeezing more out of the text than is warranted because they are very effective apologists and rhetoricians.

Manichaean Bogeyman

Father Loya has his own question which I am happy to answer once he clarifies if for me:  “Could it be that those tainted by a Manichaean suspicion are actually projecting their own issues on to West?”  And who would these persons “tainted by a Manichaean suspicion” be?  Perhaps those who disagree with West, precisely because they disagree with him?  This is a classic example of the fallacy of the complex question.  So who is projecting?

Lest you think I exaggerate, lest you think that we are not being told to shed our inhibitions and get erotic, behold the language of Father Loya’s Holy Week meditation:

So, is your sex life improving? It should for those who have really understood and embraced the season of Lent. We said last time in this column that the season of Lent was great for our sexual lives.  Now it gets even better!

. . . . The events of the week leading up to Christ’s death on the Cross are like a mystical “foreplay.” In fact, Jesus is even stripped naked during this process. What happens on the Cross is not just the death of Christ but the consummation of a mystical marriage between God and His Bride. This is why Christ looks down from the Cross at his mother and calls her “Woman.”  He echoes the name Adam gave to Eve because in this climactic moment, Christ becomes the new Adam and his Mother becomes the new Eve.

. . . . This is why in my church we sing with great exuberance on the days of Pascha (EasterJ “Christ emerges from the tomb like a bridegroom from the bridal chamber and fills the women with great joy!” Wow! Now is that sexual or what!?

Lent is “mystical foreplay”?  And Holy Week the best part of our sex lives?  No, the problem here is not that prudery reacts against something holy, but that common sense reacts against the vulgarization of something holy.

Sex Sells

But we are told this kind of language is necessary because people are deeply wounded in their sexuality and need to be talked to frankly about it.  That is certainly a valid consideration. Good people will have to be free, within measure, to decide for themselves where the line ought to be drawn.  My inclination is not to burden apologists by all kinds of secondary rules about what they may or may not say; however, a good argument does not justify a bad conclusion.  I contend that a holy fascination with sexuality is not in any way mandated by John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

The problem with marketing language designed for our oversexed age, is that it canonizes and intellectualizes the modern sex obsession.  That objections to this are rooted in Manichaeism is a red herring, because the people claimed to be in most need of healing through TOB are those who already have little in the way of sexual inhibitions.  Furthermore, the advance levels of indoctrination into this popularization of TOB are not less explicit, but more explicit.  So the erotic preoccupation really has little if anything to do with apologetical exigencies.

Hermeneutic of Discontinuity

In fact, this sex fascination is based on a hermeneutic of discontinuity and is not a development of doctrine at all, because, as Newman would point out, its “action upon the past” is not “conservative.” That is, on the contrary, it “obscures,” not “illustrates”; corrects, not “corroborates,” “the body of thought from which it proceeds.”  Thus, it is a corruption of doctrine, not a development.  Any recourse to mystic intuitions in support of this kind of speculation or martyrdom when it is opposed just sinks the position further into fallacious argumentation.

I do not oppose this with such vehemence because I dislike West or Loya, or because I am jealous (another really swift argument), but because the assertions I criticize are false.  The topics being discussed are extraordinarily important. The more those who disagree with me call my part of the discussion foul play, the more I am convinced that what they espouse is harmful.

Mystery and Martyrdom

In fact, chastity is a mystic reality, precisely because it is the mystery of martyrdom.  This is the doctrine of marriage, according to St. Paul, which teaches that marriage is a great mystery, precisely because the Bridegroom gave Himself up for the Bride (Eph 5: 32, 25).  As John Paul II states:

The Church is herself in the degree to which she, as body, receives from Christ her head the whole gift of salvation a fruit of Christ’s love and of his giving for the Church: fruit of Christ’s giving to the end.  The gift of self to the Father through obedience to the point of death (see Phil 2:8) is at the same time, according to Ephesians, an act of “giving himself for the Church.”  In this expression, redeeming love transforms itself, I would say, into spousal love: by giving himself for the Church, with the same redeeming act, Christ united himself once and for all with her as Bridegroom to the Bride, as the husband with the wife, giving himself through all that is included once for all in “giving himself” for the Church (TOB 90.6).

“Redeeming love,” “spousal love,” “giving himself,” and “obedience to the point of death,” are all dimensions of the same love, the focus of which is oblative and sacrificial.  Certainly erotic pleasure is related to sacrificial love as receiving is to giving, but even the theological meaning of giving of one’s body in Christian marriage is more about sacrifice than possession, more about selflessness than pleasure.  Christ spousal love is the act of “giving himself” to his bride on the cross in the embrace of death.  The paradox is that the keenest joy and pleasure, even in the marital embrace, is experienced when there is complete selflessness.  The eros God intends for us is gained, not by focusing on it, but on agape.

This primacy of oblative love reveals the full context of St. Augustine’s remark, only selectively quoted by Father Loya:

The heavenly bridegroom left the heavenly chambers, with the presage of the nuptials before him.  He came to the marriage bed of the cross, a bed not of pleasure, but of pain, united himself with the woman, and consummated the union forever.  As it were, the blood and water that came from the side of Christ was the spiritual seminal fluid.

Pope Benedict XVI clarifies this in Deus Caritas Est when he calls the death of Christ on the cross “love in its most radical form,” from which “our definition of love must begin.”  This “act of oblation” is given an “enduring presence” in the Eucharist through which we “are drawn into Jesus act of self-oblation (12, 13).  The pope says:

The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God’s presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental “mysticism”, grounded in God’s condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish (13).

So yes, the Eucharist is “the sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride,” but this statement is not a pretext for dwelling on the marital embrace.  It is not holy eroticism.  There is far too much in the world today that, a la Dan Brown, turns eroticism into piety and prayer.  This is not the “sacramental mysticism” of the Church, but the “human mystical elevation” of the pagans which the pope criticizes.

Let’s Talk Sex, Not

Lest I be misconstrued, I must refer once again to the context of my remarks, which is in no way determined by an antipathy toward erotic love, or by the machinations of the Manichaean demon.  The fact is that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is being used by others to justify a fascination with erotic love and the institutionalization of sex talk as the new evangelization.  The pretext for this is the presumption that the absence of this kind of talk and discomfort with it is due to prudery.

Prudery is a problem, as I have attested many times before, but it is simply not true that prior the sexual revolution, Vatican II and John Paul II there was no mainstream corrective offered here in America by prominent Catholics.  Dawn Eden has done some research on this subject and has discovered, for example, that in 1958 Msgr. George A. Kelly edited and published a highly successful and acclaimed manual on marriage that addressed prudery in very explicit terms.

Monsignor Kelly was prominent priest of the Archdiocese of New York, appointed by Cardinal Spellman to be Family Life Director in 1955, and who in 1977 founded the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.  Monsignor Kelly’s Catholic Marriage Manual “sold a quarter-million copies and netted him almost a quarter-million dollars in royalties, every penny of which went to the New York Foundling Hospital.”  It received Cardinal Spellman’s imprimatur, and was highly and widely praised by members of the Catholic media and academia.

Chapter 3 of the manual was written by Bernard J. Pisani, M.D. and entitled “A Catholic Doctor Looks at Marriage.”  There Dr. Pisani addressed prudery in no uncertain terms:

Since sex is God’s creation, it is presumptuous for any creature to call It “dirty” or “vulgar.” Yet misunderstanding of the goodness of sex when its use conforms with God’s law is the cause of many difficulties in marriage. These problems stem from the prevailing point of view of a century ago that the sex act was not “nice” under any circumstances. Sex was something shameful, a necessary evil that should be kept hidden from children as long as possible. Remnants of that puritanical point of view remain. Often a woman in her twenties, who is ready to enter matrimony, has the fixed notion taught by her parents that the act of physical love is an animal function which should be tolerated when necessary but never enjoyed. She has been warned since adolescence about the evils of sexual intercourse. Because of their own misunderstanding her parents were unable to draw the necessary distinction between the improper use of sex outside of marriage and its proper role inside marriage. They regard God’s creation as a necessary evil at best.

What is more noteworthy is that doctor Pisani addressed the question of “mutual climax” at more or less the same time that Karol Wojtyla was delivering his talks in Lublin that included the same notion.  The written work Love and Responsibility did not appear until 1960 and was not published in English until 1981, twenty-three years after American Catholics had the opportunity to read these words of Dr. Pisani:

Since the typical male will reach a climax sooner than his wife unless he controls himself, he should learn to delay the peak of his excitement and to caress and stimulate his wife so that they achieve release in unison.  Young brides especially should realize that the reaching of such an adjustment often requires considerable time. Because the act of sex is such an intimate activity, its enjoyment requires the gradual flowering of mutual understanding and a sense of freedom. The husband must learn to recognize his wife’s reactions at the various preliminary stages and to govern his own impulses accordingly. Satisfactory adjustment in the sense of simultaneous release may require many months or even years to achieve, and perhaps may never be achieved on a regular basis. You will help this adjustment if you discuss your relationship with love, frankness and an understanding of your partner’s fundamental nature and specific responses.

So much for West’s claim that the Holy Father was revolutionary on this point.  And to think this was first put into print in the body-hating, sex-despising U.S. of A.  The popular American interpretation of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which at heart is a formula to overcome prudery is based on a myth that the Church had no effective means or even the awareness to address the problem.  This is not to say that John Paul’s teaching is not a tremendous contribution, only that the American interpretation is based on a historical falsehood used to justify a hermeneutic of discontinuity.

One thing can be learned from the time in which prudery was being addressed by the Church without the “theological time bomb” that has become a pretext for focusing on the erotic:  It is actually possible to address problems of sexuality and prudery without ripping down all the veils, vulgarizing our catechesis and making sure we train ourselves to look on nakedness without shame.

The Theology of Clothing

In fact, it seems that in 2000 Cardinal Ratzinger might have been offering a corrective when he dealt with the modern liturgical penchant for unveiling everything.  He wrote that “the theology of clothing becomes a theology of the body.”  His use of John Paul’s appellative for this modern corpus of teaching on marriage and sexuality cannot be coincidental.

The context of Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks on this topic in The Spirit of the Liturgy is his discussion of the meaning of priestly vestments, which signify, in the words of St. Paul, the clothing of our perishable nature in immortality (1 Cor 15:53).  Though the context is different from our immediate concern, it is, in my opinion, at least analogous and validly applied to our topic.  The Holy Father himself makes reference to the Theology of the Body and concludes his discussion with a reference to the clothing of the newly baptized in the white garment, which is “an expression of the purity and beauty of the risen Christ” (220).  It is at least interesting that the new man in Christ, redeemed in body and soul, and incorporated into the body of Christ through Baptism, is not stripped but clothed.  In any case, here is Cardinal Ratzinger at length:

Paul describes the body of this time as an “earthly tent”, which will be taken down, and looks ahead to the house not made with human hands, ‘eternal in the heavens’. He is anxious about the taking down of the tent, anxious about the ‘nakedness’ in which he will then find himself. His hope is to be not “unclothed”, but “further clothed”, to receive the “heavenly house” — the definitive body — as a new garment.

. . . Thus the theology of clothing becomes a theology of the body. . . . The liturgical vestment carries this message in itself.  It is a “further clothing”, not an “unclothing”, and the liturgy guides us on the way to this “further clothing”, on the way to the body’s salvation in the risen body of Jesus Christ, which is the new “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1).  The Body of Christ, which we receive in the Eucharist, to which we are united in the Eucharist (“one Body with him”, cf. 1 Cor. 6:12-20), saves us from “nakedness”, from the bareness in which we cannot stand before him (218).

Perhaps, the reason why John Paul II never went as far as to say that “sex is liturgical,” not even with qualifying words “in a sense,” (a phrase he often uses in TOB, as Steve Kellmeyer has pointed out) is because of the extremes to which men are inclined to go.  Perhaps it had nothing to do with scandalizing the prudish, but with not encouraging those who are inclined to strip everything down to genitalia and sex acts.

The Reform of the Reform

Is not what the pope has called the “reform of the reform” a measured reaction against the vulgarity by which every boundary and veil has been penetrated and every sanctuary violated.  We no longer even have sanctuaries, we have unveiled, boundariless “worship spaces.”  Even Catholic liturgical orthodoxy is presented to us in such a way that we are forced to watch the Easter Candle copulate with the Baptismal font.  I am not going to mince words here.  I have been criticized for not using “nuptial’ language in reference to this groundless assertion.  When is it ever appropriate or even moral to simulate a sex act in public (or even in private for that matter), let alone during the sacred liturgy?  Never.  We fittingly modify the description of such acts with the word “pornographic.”  It is only the skills of the rhetorician that has allowed this travesty to pass for liturgical interpretation.

Or we are told that the Baldichin covering the altar of sacrifice is a bed canopy, because, by all means we need to think about a man and woman having sex on the altar when the Sacrifice of Christ is being offered during the Holy Mass.  But, in fact, isn’t a bed canopy a kind of veil, a boundary that creates a sacred space in which “liturgy” of marriage takes place and in which the revelation and communion is experienced by the two spouses alone? In fact as we learn from the New Liturgical Movement blog, the Baldichin is traced back to the ancient ciborium mangum, the veils of which were actually drawn closed during parts of the sacred liturgy.  There is no question that the liturgy is replete with “spousal” and “nuptial” imagery, as are the scriptures and the writings of the saints, but I take exception to Father Loya’s hijacking of these terms, by suggesting that healthy Catholics ought to see the erotic everywhere.

In fact, the language of the liturgy envelopes the mysteries we celebrate in a sacred clothing. “Holy” means “other,” and times, places and activities are sacralized (made holy) by setting them apart, not by stripping them naked.   Husbands and wives should absolutely rejoice in each others’ bodies and in their embrace which is blessed and hallowed by the Church.  This is not even an issue.  Furthermore, an exalted view of sexuality should be a means of healing us of the wounds of our disordered sexual lives, but this voyeuristic enthusiasm for nakedness is not the proclamation of the holy, on the contrary is the vulgarization of the holy.

The liturgical boundary most often violated in this age of the sexual revolution and crusade against prudery has been the line that delineates the nave of the Church from the sanctuary, or the congregation from the place of sacrifice.  There used to be an altar rail marking that separation, where the rule was reverence and awe of mystery.  In even earlier times, there was the chancel screen or rood screen which obscured the altar of sacrifice and shrouded it in mystery.  Eamon Duffy, in his monumental The Stripping of the Altars, writes that rood screen in medieval England and the veil which was added to it on the weekdays of Lent, did not, contrary most common assumptions, prevent the faithful from fully participating in the liturgy.  The screen was not a wall, but a window that framed the “liturgical drama.”  In this way, the people where able to penetrate the mystery, and at times the mystery would come to them when the ministers would come out carrying sacred objects, especially, at Easter time, when the priest would carry the Sacred Host itself before the screen (111-112).

The purpose of the veil, Duffy says,

“was to function as a temporary ritual deprivation of the sight of the sacring.  Its symbolic effectiveness derived from the fact that it obscured for a time something which was normally accessible; in the process it heightened the value of the spectacle it temporarily concealed (111).

No one is saying that clothes should not come off at times.  But those who reveal themselves, those to whom they reveal themselves, and the time, place and manner of the revelation need to be sacralized, not vulgarized.  It is interesting to note also that in the tradition of the Roman Rite the tabernacle veil is ordinarily the first sign that the Eucharist is present in the tabernacle.  Our Lord is reposed behind the veil and at the sacred hour and within the sacrificial space He comes to His people.

In the East, this custom of veiling the sanctuary is retained in a fuller form by means of the iconostasis.  In the Syriac Church the sanctuary is still completely veiled.

My point is not to argue for a return to the screen, though I believe the elimination of the altar rail has at the very least sent the wrong signal; my point is merely to say that if marriage and sexuality have, “in a sense,” a liturgical dimension, and if the language of the liturgy is nuptial, then it is simply a non sequitur to claim that unveiling every liturgical and nuptial reality is a virtue.  More to the point perhaps is the suggestion of Cardinal Ratzinger that the Eucharistic Canon ought to return to a more silent form.  Silence is a form of veiling.  It is certainly appropriate  to be silent when to say something would only vulgarize a mystery.  Much can be learned from St. John Chrysostom of this silence, which, as I know all too well, has been ignored in the most sterilely clinical and irreverent ways:

Since this heavenly birth cannot be described, neither does His coming amongst us in these days permit of too curious scrutiny.  Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.  For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works.

In any case the greater availability of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass might contribute something positive to this needed dialogue of silence and sacrality.

Don’t You Dare Touch that Loincloth

West and company want a clear view of everything and they want to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it.  Even the loincloth on Our Lord, they have said, is a necessary evil.  We just can’t handle looking at Our Lord’s nakedness, but that is the real shame, they say.  We are told that His nakedness on the Cross is a revelation.

Actually, it is a shameful thing.  When our Lord revealed himself in glory on Mount Tabor, he was not stripped.  It was his face that did shine as the sun, and his garment that became white as snow (Mt 17:2).  He did not reveal his nakedness; He revealed the light emanating from the veil of His clothing.  No, we were the ones who exposed His nakedness.  We, the blasphemers and ingrates, stripped him naked, raised him on a gibbet and mocked him.

There is no question that in this Jesus fulfills the Old Testament typology as the New Adam, who recreates us in the nakedness of the Cross.  But was it without shame?  To recreate us Our Blessed Lord was made a curse for us.  It is a shameful thing to be stripped and crucified before a jeering mob, and a curse to be hung on a tree (Heb 12:2; Gal 3:13).  The typological correspondence doesn’t mean that we should dare to be so bold as to stare at Our Lord’s nakedness.  It means that the nakedness imposed on Him shamefully is the sign of our restoration to grace, and the hope of the redemption of our bodies.  Where does John Paul II tell us that the Theology of the Body means we should be focused on the erotic, even to the point of wishing to strip Our Blessed Savior naked?  This is truly shameful.

Peril and Martyrdom

In 1927 G. K. Chesterton delivered lucid address entitled Culture and the Coming Peril.  “Vulgarity” was the term he used to describe the peril into which culture was falling.  He defined vulgarity in relation to culture as “standardization at a lower standard.”  He said:

The kind of thing that I mean is a certain large and gross familiarity, not always with bad but often with very good things, a familiarity that indicates insensibility to the thing that the man is handling.

It is certainly not to be suggested that Christopher West and company are insensible to the beauty of human sexuality, nor, in many respects, are the points they make to wounded souls without real merit; however, sexuality is of such a nature, like the liturgy, that constant analysis and drummed-up enthusiasm only vacates the mystery and the sacrality, no matter how exalted and good the object of our gaze is proclaimed to be.

I find it more and more difficult to take seriously the proposal that our real problem is Manichaeism.  Not in this age where states are now finding it necessary to institute laws against the sexting of minor children; not in this age of the sterile voyeurism of the Facebook and Twitter culture, in which we have cultivated and refined the art of exhibitionism.  I cannot tell you of all the instances in which I encounter tremendous heartache, useless drama, unproductive preoccupation and morbid self-loathing as a result of “too much information.”

No, the good news about human sexuality does not have to be expressed in more and more sex talk.  The truth is that are not we really afraid of eros.  We are afraid of agape.

Too many men, even Catholic men, define their masculinity in terms of libido, and too many women have either chosen to use their sexuality as a form of manipulation, or have otherwise consented to have foisted upon them a bill of goods that turns sexuality into spirituality.  Yes, the cross and the liturgy are the places where the nuptial realities are consummated, and eros is the gift of that consummation, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we are going to ride our way to holiness on a bed of pleasure.

Fragment książki dr Wandy Półtawskiej “Samo życie” udostępniony dzięki uprzejmości wydawnictwa Edycja Świętego Pawła.

Matka, elegancko ubrana starsza pani, wyglądająca młodo jak na swój wiek, przyprowadziła dorosłego syna i powiedziała na wstępie z westchnieniem:

- Niestety, mój syn musi się ożenić!

- Dlaczego niestety? – spytałam.

- No, bo on taki młody i biedak musi się żenić.

“Biedak” był wysokim, świetnie zbudowanym, opalonym chłopakiem, z nieco za długimi, opadającymi na kark ciemnymi włosami, w dżinsowych spodniach i w dżinsowym wdzianku, w jasnoróżowej koszuli. Nic nie mówił. Zapytałam, ile ma lat.

- Skończyłem dziewiętnaście.

Matka zaczyna znowu:

- Taki młody i musi się żenić…

Przerywam jej:

- Nikt nie musi się żenić…

- Tak, ale on biedak musi, bo ta dziewczyna tak się uparła i jej

matka, tak go obie przymuszają!

Zwracam się do chłopca, nie patrzy na mnie, ale w okno z trochę cynicznym uśmieszkiem:

- Jak panu na imię?

Jacek.

- Panie Jacku, czy pan też tak uważa, że pan musi się żenić?

Wzrusza ramionami i milczy. Niecierpliwi mnie to, bo matka znowu zabiera za niego głos:

- Co on biedaczek może, jak te dwie kobiety napadają na niego!

To mnie złości i pytam złośliwie:

- A gdzie te dwie panie na pana napadły i dlaczego?

Znów matka:

- Bo dziewczyna jest w ciąży i one go zmuszają!

- Do czego zmusiły? Do współżycia z dziewczyną? Obie?

Chłopak na to parsknął śmiechem i mówi:

- Nie, nie byłem zgwałcony.

- Więc może pan nie musi się żenić…

Zawieszam głos i gdy nie odpowiada, pytam dalej:

 - Może pan chce się żenić, skoro jest pan ojcem dziecka?

Znowu matka:

- Gdzieżby tam chciał, taki młody…

Mam dość matki i mówię spokojnie:

 - Może pani mi tego biedaka na chwilę zostawi samego, to jednak jego sprawa, bardziej niż pani.

- Nie tylko jego, bo on jest na naszym utrzymaniu!…

- Wiem, wiem, ale proszę chwilę zaczekać.

Otwieram przed matką drzwi i jednoznacznym gestem pokazuję jej, że ma wyjść. Wychodzi z ociąganiem. Patrzę na chłopaka – pod tym moim spojrzeniem miesza się i spuszcza oczy. Mówię:

- Człowieku, jesteś wystarczająco dorosły, żeby rozumieć sytuację. Nikt cię nie może zmusić do ślubu, ale też nikt nie może zmienić faktu, że jesteś ojcem dziecka. Chcesz się żenić czy nie?

- No, nie wiem, moi rodzice nie chcą, a jej rodzice namawiają.

- Nie pytam o zdanie rodziców, z nimi sama porozmawiam, pytam, co ty chcesz?

Po dłuższej chwili mówi:

- Ja naprawdę nie wiem, co chcę.

- No, ale może wiedziałeś, co chcesz, jak stałeś się ojcem dziecka? Czy może też nie wiedziałeś?

- No, tak jakoś wyszło!

- Co, tak jakoś – niecierpliwię się. – Dziecko nie powstaje tak ja

koś, ale całkiem konkretnie i robiąc to, wiedziałeś, co czynisz!

- No, ale nie wiedziałem, że będzie zaraz dziecko!

Rozmawiałam potem z wszystkimi po kolei. Dziewczyna, płacząc, powiedziała:

- Ja go nie będę prosić!

Matka dziewczyny zdenerwowana, przejęta mówi: -Jak to, skrzywdził moje dziecko i teraz ją drań zostawia, musi się ożenić! Ojciec dziewczyny mówi stanowczo:

- Nie obchodzi mnie, czy chce się żenić, czy nie, ale musi dać

dziecku nazwisko i alimenty, dziecko musi z czegoś żyć i ja dziecka nie pozwolę skrzywdzić!

Ojciec chłopaka mówi spokojnie:

- Sam sobie nawarzył piwa, niech wypije. Dyskusja przeniesiona na forum zewnętrzne, już wszyscy wiedzą, że dziewczyna spodziewa się dziecka, dyskutują krewni, koledzy. Zmusić go do ślubu, bo jest ojcem? Nikt nie ma prawa go zmuszać.

Kiedyś podobna dyskusja miała miejsce także wśród słuchaczy Studium Teologii Rodziny. Obecny wtedy kardynał Karol Wojtyła, zajęty jakimś podpisywaniem, podniósł nagle głowę znad papierów:

- Kto go zmusił, żeby był ojcem? To nie jest przymus, ale podjęcie odpowiedzialności za swoje czyny!

Ileż razy się słyszy: “Musi się żenić”, a przecież tak naprawdę nikt nikogo nie zmusza do działania seksualnego (pomijam tu sprawę gwałtu). Ci młodzi sami się do siebie zbliżają pchani siłą, nad którą nie panują, bo nikt im nie powiedział, nie nauczył, że trzeba nad tą siłą w człowieku zapanować, po to, żeby nigdy nie było przymusu. Papież Paweł VI tak właśnie mówi o potrzebie szerzenia klimatu czystości po to, żeby “prawdziwa wolność zapanowała” (Humanae vitae, 22). Wolny jest prawdziwie w swoim działaniu tylko ten człowiek, który nie czuje i nie prowokuje przymusowej sytuacji, który swoje działanie seksualne planuje świadomie, podejmując skutki swego działania.

No ale ci już to uczynili, teraz nie da się tego cofnąć. Patrzę na tę rodzinę i mówię:

- Więc może wy wszyscy spróbujecie im pomóc. Pomóżcie tej młodej miłości wzrosnąć, rozwinąć się prawidłowo – zboczyli z drogi, ale przecież nie są sami, podobno wy wszyscy chcecie im pomóc?

Milczą – cały areopag rodzinny. Zwracam się do młodocianej pary:

- Macie jedno do zrobienia. – Patrzą na mnie wyczekująco.

- Idźcie razem do spowiedzi, a potem zdecydujecie, przecież nie chcieliście sobie robić krzywdy, przecież chcieliście sobie coś dać.

Spróbujcie ocalić to dobro, które w was przecież jest.

Pobrali się!

Ale to nie jest prawidłowy start do wspólnego życia.

Cudzołóstwo przedmałżeńskie nie pomaga w rozwoju prawdziwej miłości i trzeba młodych uczyć po prostu panowania nad sobą. Dziecko – jeśli już jest – ma prawo do rodziców i posiadania domu.

http://www.codalej.pl

Oczywiście w nawiązaniu do książki “Beskidzkie rekolekcje”.

Viele ihrer Gedichte hat die bekennende orthodoxe Christin Olga Sedakova in einem Holzhaus in Azarowka, zwei Stunden südlich von Moskau, geschrieben, in das sie sich zum Arbeiten gern zurückzieht. Seit dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion ist sie lesend, vortragend und unterrichtend aber auch viel auf Reisen, ein gern gesehener Gast an Universitäten und bei westeuropäischen Festivals. Ihren prominentesten Bewunderer fand sie allerdings in dem selbst Gedichte schreibenden Papst Johannes Paul II., der sie ingesamt vier Mal empfing und ihre Gedichte im russischen Original las. Nichts anderes als die Form führt für Sedakova ins „Zentrum der Welt“, denn um „Einverleibung“, um Zugehörigkeit geht es ihr. Ein kathartisches Moment durchzieht die meisten ihrer Gedichte, aber nicht im Sinne von Handlungsanweisungen, die Dichtung ohnehin nicht geben kann, sondern von der Sprache selbst ausgehend. Was Olga Sedakova anstrebt, ist eine „intime Verbindung mit der Form“: ihr Wirken, das im besten Falle auch den Leser ihrer Gedichte verwandelt zurücklässt. „Ein Dichter will, was jeder wollen will“, beginnt eines ihrer Gedichte, das am Ende vom „Nichts“ zum „Laut“ hinführt. Das Nichts ist hier nicht still und leer, sondern eines, auf dessen „Speeresspitze alles zirpt. // Und wenn mit flüchtigem Blick dorthin man schaut, / ist, wie die Träne, Zufall selbst der Laut.“ Am Sonnabend, 27. Juni, liest Olga Sedakova zusammen mit Rita Dove (USA), Julián Herbert (Mexiko), Kgafela oa Magogodi (Südafrika), Bernard Noel (Frankreich), Maja Ratkje (Norwegen), Adam Wiedemann (Polen), Barbara Köhler und Adolf Endler um 20 Uhr bei „Weltklang – Nacht der Poesie“ in der Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg. Im Eintrittspreis von 8/5 € ist eine Anthologie mit allen Texten enthalten. Am 29. Juni, 18.30 Uhr führt Sedakova mit Anja Utler in der Akademie ein „Poesiegespräch“. / Tagesspiegel 26.6.