Pope Slams Modern Societies For Godlessness

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI warned Sunday that modern culture is pushing God out of people's lives, causing nations once rich in religious faith to lose their identities.

Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.

"Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture," said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.

The meeting of 253 bishops, known as a synod of bishops, will run from Monday through Oct. 26. The Vatican said that despite Benedict's efforts to improve relations with Communist China, no bishops have come from the mainland, although there are prelates from Macau and Hong Kong.

"Surely they tried, I mean the Holy See tried but obviously they could not make agreement," Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen told AP Television News as he entered the basilica.

"Maybe the Holy See welcomes someone that they (the Chinese) would not allow," he said, adding that China might try to send a bishop who is not acceptable to the Holy See.

Chinese bishops have not been allowed to travel to similar meetings in the past.

Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government have long been strained. Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.

China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. In recent years, some of those bishops have received the Vatican's tacit approval.

Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church with bishops loyal to the pope.

A document prepared for the meeting rejects a fundamentalist approach to the Bible and said a key challenge was to clarify for the faithful the relationship of scripture to science. A rabbi will address the conference on Monday in what is believed to be the first time a Jew has participated in such a meeting.

Comments

[charon]

When he awoke, he was alone in a one bedroom apartment, lying on a bed. He got up and stared into the mirror, barely recognizing the ancient visage that looked back at him.

[charon]

A lunatic was spotted riding around town with his head sticking out of the sunroof of his car while a friend drove. He waved to his followers walking down the streets and they waved back. He began to rant to his followers about how they were losing their identities, how a certain society (he refused to name which one) was destroying their identities. He shouted that he didn't like them changing their identities without permission from him. His followers stood and listened solemnly. Some cried, some begged forgiveness on their knees. But most just stood there and listened.

Then he began in about it wasn't just individuals losing their identity, but whole nations. He didn't recognize them anymore, they looked "different." Change was evidently not any friendlier to him than the years had been to his tired face. Suddenly, he began to rant in earnest, "but, it is not you who have lost your identity, it is I!" He stared with angry eyes, and went on: "I don't know who I am anymore. I don't want to change, but everything is changing. My body," he said, pulling back the red bathrobe he was wearing and exposing his blanched flesh, "is changing. I can't seem to stop it. I don't know who I am anymore." With this, he lowered his head and started to cry, and everyone watching cried with him. Then he fell asleep.

[Valveeta]

I am by no means blind to the troubles and scandals in the Catholic church, but as a practicing Catholic (who supports Obama BTW), I offer a nugget of thought in response to these often hateful knee-jerk anti-Catholic rantings. Here's a reminder of some recent stances by the Catholic church:

ANTI Iraq war
ANTI torture
ANTI death penalty
PRO enviornmentalism
PRO evolution

These are areas where the Vatican and the Democratic Party are seemingly in complete agreement. Of course, there are also many areas of disagreement (abortion, gay rights, etc.).

The crisis in the Church is even more troubling when you stop to think that soon the Muslim religion will be dominant in Europe.

By the way, our next Vice President is a Catholic! Unless you would prefer the alternative, which speaks in tongues and believes in witchcraft.

[MorpheusXNYC]

Someday, in the far future, superstition, religion and anti-intel­lectualism will be a thing of the past and intelligence, loving spirituality and cultural open mindedness will be the order of the day, but until then, we have to put up with racism, homophobia, anti-intel­lectualism­, irrationalism and genocide because old books and people in funny hats are able to convince enough of the world to put aside their reason and wits and believe in their insane doctrine.

[Pacific231]

** "Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture," said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society. **

Ironically, it is Christianity itself that has lost its identity (caring for "the least of these") under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture...namely the culture of jingoism, war, hatred and intolerance, all of which scores of christians have eagerly embraced.

As a recent HuffPo blogger recently noted so well, if Jesus were to appear today, he would say, "I am not a Christian."

A wise man once said, "The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." The christians are certainly in America's vast majority...and they are failing this test miserably, much to America's ruin.

[jood42]

Cry me a river, Pope Joe. Humanity is evolving past the blind, obedient zeal that continues to fuel horrible, evil deeds in the name of religion.

You're a relic of a less sophisticated, less educated, less tolerant age. It's long past time for your influence and dogma to fade into the obscurity of history.

[SkyPilot126]

I have left the catholic church for a few reasons:
1) After my wifes Mothers Funeral, when we asked a priest to read her letter and he agreed, and then he didn't on the advice of a brother, without consulting nor ever talking to my wife. When I complained, I rec'd a profane laced phone call from her brother, - he was prompted to call by a call from the priest. He threathen my life. That was the last straw, we left and joina UCC, a real church who welcomes all.
I may be wrong, but this is where the chruch, the chruch of my youth and schooling has led me!

2) Ben himself.

3) I' sorry BUT you can not endorse conseravatives and call yourself a Christian Church. My feelings, but hey they are true!

[barbarianatthegate]

The day that the Catholic Church gets its own house in order is the day that the Pope can lecture me on how to live my life.

[INTUITE]

Mankind existed for tens of thousands of years before Judaism or Christianity. Myths developed from the Nordic countries to Greece. The more current and familiar myths are going through the same fade out caused by knowledge and reason.

The one concern that all mankind shares is mortality. Some have sought to calm that burden with eternal life or reincarnation. Neither of which are necessary for moral behavior.

Thomas Jefferson took the virgin birth, miracles and resurrection out of the New Testament and left all that he thought was important, moral teachings. Buddha and Lao-tzu also taught the need and how to of proper behavior. Today we have secular humanists, with a variety of approaches and definitions that certainly seek truth and justice without myth.

If the only way we can insure moral behavior is with the threat of damnation and hell, shame on us.

The old testament has many lessons and words of Wisdom.

The Church that the Pope and other fundamentalists are attempting to defend and spread are all based on vested interest that is far beyond truth and justice.

Respect one another and the planet upon which we seek so live.

[odyssey58]

Some of the most moral people I know are atheist or agnostic. We don't need retribution or reward from a god in order to do the right thing. We do it because we know it's right.
Atheists and agnostics don't gun people down because god told them to. They don't kill people who don't share their beliefs.

[uc1000]

Didn't the people who believe in God have the largest history of child sex crimes(the Catholic Church) and start a war of convenience (Bush). God is in peoples' imaginations that why I fear him.

[Dystopic]

yeah, during mass we have a running of the naked, greased altar boys.

God has killed more people than any other reason, not bad for an imaginary friend

Listen to Carlin's "My God's Dick is Huge"

-BTW - 100% American Born Atheist

[newworldman777]

Is the Pope advocating that modern societies should adopt the "God" of the Judeo-Christian faith? As a Native American who has adopted the Pagan religion (the first religion of this land), why am I supposed to be concerned that those societies are not adopting the Judeo-Christian God? To be honest, I am quite thankful that they are not. If that is what he is advocating, then how utterly arrogant of the man. His "holier-than-thou" attitude (literally as well as figuratively) is rather disconcerting, to say the least, and isn't going to further his cause one iota in this ever-increasing sophisticated world. We can all witness the wars and conflicts, the spilling of blood and the expending of treasure that result from religious differences between peoples going haywire, with the Middle East serving as the epitome of what is wrong with allowing religion (Judeo-Christianity and Islam) to dominate cultures. This notion of "my God is better than yours" is patently infantile -- and extremely dangerous.

[alsm9]

^Well said.

[arvay]

The Chinese government treats Catholic clerics as our government should -- representatives of a foreign state -- the Vatican.

The Pope's remarks are remarkably out of touch with history. Europeans abandoned much of their Christian convictions after centuries of religious wars, the nutty Crusades, and he fact that the Church has resisted practically every advance in human understanding or social improvement.

When did Europe start to emerge from the Church's dark ages? During the Renaissance, when Europeans began to re-discover their true culture. Then came the Enlightenment, when Europe rediscovered science and started throwing off the Church's superstition, fear-mongering and corpulent, dissolute "leaders."

Today, the Catholic church has hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of deaths to its "credit" because of its absurd anti-contraception doctrine that it presents in the age of AIDS.

No one should listen to anything from this corrupt and intellectually bankrupt institution.

[Donns]

I am constantly amazed that the human race has survived in spite of Religion, not because of it

[Jocko44]

stupid pope.

[5150]

McCain loves the TV show Dexter, it's only right. Cheney does not purport to be right more than 1% in terms of identifying the bad guy and reckoning with him. Fake *ss Hollywood makes Dexter 100% true.