Among
the long list of things the gods have totally screwed up are climate
change and the march towards a final war. These two issues are unique because, if
unattended to, humans will disappear. That Pope Francis is swanning around the
USA at the moment talking about them makes me feel good. I hope his words are
picked-up and acted on. But I wonder.
‘Being
at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to
minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our
world,’ said he to Congress recently.[i]
He was speaking to the right people.
In
the main it’s hundreds of American companies that are manufacturing millions of
deadly weapons. Thousands more are supporting them by providing everything from
coffee on the battlefield to golfing equipment at base headquarters. Any other weapons
makers are most likely selling to the American Armed Forces (a body financed by
the world’s tax-payers[ii])
because they are the ones either using or making sure those weapons are used throughout
the world.
Dozens, maybe hundreds of American universities are doing major, medium and small sized studies from ballistics to robotics, recruitment video games to battlefield surgery-from-a-distance for the Department of Defence. Their work often goes across borders too. Israel, Saudi Arabia, ISIS … the list continues.
Dozens, maybe hundreds of American universities are doing major, medium and small sized studies from ballistics to robotics, recruitment video games to battlefield surgery-from-a-distance for the Department of Defence. Their work often goes across borders too. Israel, Saudi Arabia, ISIS … the list continues.
With
all this in mind does Francis appreciate that when the whole picture is slapped
into one frame the American economy (outside of the banks churning valueless
paper, digital money and placing market bets), is pretty much dependent
on the conflicts he talks of?[iii]
Is he going to order the Catholic Church to divest from all the companies
involved in the blood-based food chain, to instruct the 30% or so USA Catholics
to leave their jobs?
‘Unless
Francis calls on members of the Senate and House to begin defunding the
billions of dollars authorized for newer nuclear weapons, and speaks with the
fire of Micah who said, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more”’ says Colman McCarthy of the Center for Teaching
Peace, his words are just that - words in the wind.
Kathy
Boylan wrote ‘you have condemned ISIS for genocide against Christians, but
given the fact that the U.S. military is for the most part Christian with
one-third of the force Catholic, it is Christians who have participated in the
genocidal killing in predominantly Muslim countries during the last 24 years.’ [iv]
And
it’s much more than that. Every member of the Joint Chiefs (except for Marine
Corps Commandant Gen. John Amos) is a practicing Catholic, according to the Archdiocese for Military Services.[v]
Yes,
the Catholics have a ministry in the
army. Is Francis prepared to call on Americans to leave the armed services and stop
joining up? I doubt it because there have been calls to up the percentage of
Catholic clergy in the army.
‘As
the military transitions home from more than a decade of bloody, brutal
warfare, attention now turns increasingly to those who would offer both
religious and social compassion’.[vi]
In this vein more Catholic padres are required to attend to the traumatised returning
soldiers, but no mention is made of sending relief missions to the nations they
have ‘transitioned home from’, and left totally destroyed.
Many
of those countries are not Christian but why should it make a difference? Few
people in this horribly manipulative religious world get to choose their god.
You’re born, you grow up to find, OMG, I’m a ‘whatyoumacallit’ and I had no say
in the process whatsoever.
Michael
Parenti, Chalmers Johnson, Noam Chomsky, all have been warning us that given
the idiots we have seen in bomb-button pushing positions in the West, nuclear
disaster is a real threat to human existence. It’s nice to see Pope Francis as
a member of that warning team.
But
is he?
Georgetown
University and other Catholic schools host ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training
Corps) programs,[vii]
courses that prepare young adults for a career as an officer in the greatest
terrorising machine the world has known, the American Armed Forces. I don’t
think he’s shouted ‘stop’?
‘Climate
change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation,’ said Pope Francis recently in a speech given at the White House. ‘I would like all men and women
of goodwill in this great nation to support the efforts of the international
community to protect the vulnerable in our world …’[viii]
Noble
words, but what if instead he’d said ‘we men of the Church are going to bully
you, see that you stop using oil to burn. We’ll disinvest from every company
that in any way is involved in the proliferation of greenhouse gasses’? Instead
his words sound like something copied from a BP annual report or a JP Morgan
bonus awards ceremony, not those of a potential superhero calling for real
change.
And
despite his call in front of all of those people on the White House lawn, Papal
adviser Cardinal Peter Turkson says ‘personal issues of life and death still
come first despite the Pope’s call for climate action …’ He added, ‘the Vatican
had no plans to rid itself of holdings in fossil fuels, and that the encyclical
should by no means be seen as a call by the Pope to divest from coal, oil or
gas’.[ix]
This
is the pettiness of the arcade monstrosity that I, from the way Francis has
been talking, hoped would burst out from its 1000 year cocoon, grasp the live
grenade that is corporate sponsored war and climate change, and swallow it.
Equally
substance lacking was the Pope’s earlier trip to South America. There he denounced
the excesses of capitalism, calling it the ‘dung of the devil’, and he
apologized for the past actions of the Catholic Church.[x]
It was time, he insinuated, for the poor to see some light of day on this earth.
‘It's
time that the church began to divest of its vast property holdings, embraced
poverty, and use the money to feed the hungry and homeless,’ responded Colman
McCarthy.
Of
all the world’s entities the Catholic Church is the biggest financial power on
Earth. Its billions, built up over 1000s of years’ worth of insider trading,
are invested with connections in the Rothschilds worldwide, Hambros Bank,
Credit Suisse, Morgan Bank and more. It holds billions of shares in the world’s
most powerful (and destructive) international corporations such as Gulf Oil,
Shell, General Motors (the list goes on), and its assets and real estate
holdings are said to exceed Standard Oil, A.T.&T., and U.S. Steel combined.
Probably most tellingly (from a revenue point of view), the number of its
dues-paying members must be second only to the tax roll of the United States
Government.[xi]
It’s
the only organisation that has a branch office in nearly every corner block in
the world. All is planned, organised, led and controlled from its fortress, the
Vatican, a place in which only the Pope can ignore dogma, ceremony or ritual
and say something mod like ‘hi dude’.
Its
history is disgustingly brutal,[xii]
far worse than the other breakaway Christian orders. 1600 years on, even as he
recognises that with an apology or two, it hasn’t really changed. The Church is
still way off acceptable behaviour and yet the media is full of Francis. They're full of him because he is saying the ‘we should’ things.
Pope
Francis is arguably the most powerful man in the world but he’s acting like a
long haired, poor as a mouse hippy casually debating change on the street
corner. We need him to be the most powerful man on earth and do as he is
saying.
Will
the real Pope Francis please stand up!
[ii] Currently the US $ has
no tangible worth. In real terms it is in fact an IOU that needs to be passed
on as fast as possible. Every time it moves a royalty accrues in the US,
meaning all of the world is paying for the US’ death machines.
[iii] ‘The Complex’ by Nick Turse
[iv] "An Open Letter to Pope Francis: Condemn the United States for
Genocidal Warmaking," quoted by Institute for Public Accuracy
[v] www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/30/the-catholic-crunch-inside-the-shortage-of-catholic-military-priests
[vi] ibid
[vii] Colman McCarthy, cmccarthy@starpower.net
as quoted by Institute for Public Accuracy
[viii] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/23/pope-francis-climate-change-white-house-speech
[ix] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/25/abortion-and-death-penalty-come-before-climate-change-for-church-vatican-official-says
[x] news.nationalpost.com
[xi] http://humansarefree.com/2012/03/christian-church-is-biggest-financial.html
[xii] ‘The end of Faith’ by Sam Harris is a starting point.
