NEWS: The Buddha made a Christian Saint!

Wisdom Quarterly
The Bodhisat (Josaphat) is a saint in both the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church.

The Buddha is a saint in the Catholic as well as Orthodox Church. This may sound like a joke or sacrilege, but such is the tendency of particularly Catholicism. It aggregates to itself adherents and greater legitimacy by canonizing popular figures.

For example, when the pope wishes to visit a country to proselytize, he usually announces a round of local canonizations. This gives people in that area Church figures to identify with. It is no wonder it long ago pulled in the world-famous spiritual teacher, the Bodhisat (the Pali word for Bodhisattva).

It does this more than ever now after disabling the Office of the Devil's Advocate, a real office in the Vatican which used to vigorously investigate claims of sainthood and make it difficult to beatify someone who was not thoroughly vetted.

The Buddha refers to himself in previous lives -- particularly, as pointed out by Rhys Davids, in the Jataka Tales or Buddhist Rebirth Stories -- as the "Bodhisat." These precursors to Aesops Fables spread far and wide and became much beloved legends in many countries and languages. They were so popular that their source was not kept track of as happens with, for example, limericks.

Another famous bodhisattva is the future buddha, Maitreya (whose name comes from the Sanskrit mitra, "friend"), which it seems might have given rise to Mithraism, as suggested in the groundbreaking work of Dr. Ranajit Pal. Wisdom Quarterly research concluded that "Maitreya" (the-liberator-to-come) was the origin of the dispossessed Bedouin "Hebrew/Jewish" people's idea and word "Messiah."

This idea is not so far fetched when we understand that Hebrews/Jews were Bedouin-style travelers living in India and elsewhere. They were engaged in trade all the way to the original "promised land," which was the Israelites' Kashmir, according to Holger Kersten in Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion (Penguin Books, 2001, pp. 57-59) and Basem L. Ra'ad's Hidden Histories (Pluto Press, 2010).

It is no wonder Jews (like Jesus), then as now, are fascinated with Buddhism, Ladakh, Tibet, and Old Testament history, which saturates this land and is kept in the news nearly as much as the modern "Israel," whose original location is well explained by Ra'ad.

• St. Buddha of India
  On the subject of Christians masquerading as Buddhists, I thought I should mention that Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE), the founder of Buddhism, is also a canonized saint of the Catholic church!
• Quora: Why Jews convert to Buddhism
• Baarlam and Josaphat (Buddhism: An Illustrated Guide)

The other Bodhisat is the future Buddha Maitreya, the "Messiah" (Wisdom Quarterly).

Saint Josaphat
January 15, 2011 (economicexpert.com)

Saint Josaphat is said to have lived and died in the 3rd century or 4th century in India. His story appears to be in many respects a Christianized version of [the Buddha] Siddhartha Gautama's story.

According to legend, a King Abenner or Avenier in India persecuted the Christian church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas. When astrologers predicted that his own son would someday become a Christian, Abenner had the young Prince Josaphat isolated from external contact.

Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Baarlam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father's anger and persuasion. Eventually, Abenner himself converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit.

Josaphat himself later abdicated [the throne] and went into [s]eclusion with his old teacher Baarlam.
The story of Josaphat and Baarlam was popular in the Middle Ages, appearing in such works as the Golden Legend.

Although Josaphat and Baarlam were canonized in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, there is no evidence that either ever existed.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith traced the story from a second to fourth-century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, to a Manichee version, to an Arabic Muslim version, to an eleventh century Christian Georgian version, to a Christian Greek version, and from there into Western European languages.

He traced Josaphat's name from the Sanskrit term Bodhisattva Maitreya, 2nd century, Gandhara. In Buddhist thought, a bodhisattva is a being that, while not yet fully enlightened, is actively striving toward that goal.

Conventionally, the term is applied to hypothetical beings with a high degree of enlightenment and via the Middle Persian bodasif.

Author Holger Kersten proposes an alternate explanation: "Josaphat" is derived from the Arabic "Judasaf" or "Budasaf," as written in an Urdu version of the tale. He ties this name to Yuz Asaf, a Muslim holy figure identified with Jesus Christ. This idea, which proposes Jesus escaped crucifixion and died in [Kashmir] India, was first introduced to the west by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. [Some might say Nicolas Notovitch actually introduced it to the West.]

• Saint Buddha of India (laputanlogic.com)
• Nicolas Notovitch discovers the lost years of Jesus
• Holger Kersten on Jesus' travels to India and Tibet
• "Israel"? Excavating Palestine's Hidden Histories
• Catholic Saint Josaphat Kuncevyc
• Pope John Paul II to be made a saint
  Archbishop Timothy Dolan lauded Pope Benedict's decision Friday [Jan. 14, 2011] to beatify his popular predecessor -- a move that pushes the Polish pontiff a step closer to [Catholic] sainthood. "Pope John Paul visited New York three times -- twice as Pope, and once when he was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Krakow," Dolan wrote. "In many ways we consider him to have been an honorary citizen of what he famously referred to as 'The Capital of the World.'" Beatification is the Catholic church's acknowledgment that a dead person has gone to heaven. John Paul will now receive the title "blessed."

Catholic Sakka and Saint Buddha (video)

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Saint Michael's Warrior blog; Catholic Encyclopedia

Sakka is an iteration St. Michael the Archangel, whose name means "Who is like God," is one of the principal messengers of Maha Brahma. In Catholicism he is the patron saint of paratroopers, police, and mariners (artclon.com).

Sakka, "chief of the angels" (Devanam Indo), lord of lords, king of kings, an "angel" who tossed the "demons" out of heaven, is one of the most prominent supernatural figures in Buddhism. (He has an entire subdivision of sutras related to him known as the Sakka Samyutta).

The Buddha explained that he rose to this station as the overseer of two space worlds or "heavens" (the Realm of the Four Great Sky Kings and the Realm of the Thirty-Three). The karma that led to that result was keeping seven meritorious vows when he was Magha of Macala, which seems to explain how the West came to call him "Michael." He existed in other iterations in ancient India, Greece, Scandinavia, Sumeria, Egypt, and Palestine/Israel.

• VIDEO: Sakka, "Saint Michael," Lord of the 33
• Sakka's ancient space flight (Jataka)
  
• Xmas: What Happened to Catholic Church?
  

In Catholicism he is known as Saint Michael the Archangel. This entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia comes to us via the devoted blog Saint Michael's Warrior. Our purpose in presenting this connection is to show that world religions have far more in common and are easily used to unwholesome ends than the elements that differentiate them.

Catholicism, in particular, as the largest religion in the world, has something in common with all traditions. It is "universal" precisely because it misappropriated so much from other traditions. Its symbols, stories, and characters -- which include the Buddha himself who was declared a saint (Saint Josaphat) from tales of his good works in the Birth Stories (Jatakas) where he is called the Bodhisat.

• The Buddha in Medieval Europe
  
• How the Buddha became a Catholic saint
• Catholic.org/Saints/FAQ: the Buddha, too
• Sakra Explained: pre- and post-Buddhist
  

Buddha the Catholic Saint
The traditional calendar of saints includes Saint "Josaphat" or "Iodasaph," son of a fourth-century king of India. A convert to Christianity, Iodasaph abdicated the throne to embrace a life of ascetic piety. As scholars now widely acknowledge, what was once taken to be the biography of a Christian saint is instead the accidental Christianization of a story of Prince Siddhartha from the Jataka Tales. The legend of "Iodasaph," a garbled form of "Bodhisattva," meandered over various Buddhist, Manichean, and Arabic paths on its way to being baptized as a piece of medieval Christian hagiography. In various texts, the name appears as "Budhasaf," "Bodisav," and "Bwdysdf" -- all even closer to the original. So there you have it: Gautama Buddha, a Catholic saint! More

• Josaphat Meeting a Blind Man and a Beggar in Barlaam and Josaphat (The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XV 9, fol. 31)

Sakka in Asia defeating a devilish dragon or naga

Tales of Sakka in Catholic teachings
St. Michael is one of the principal angels; his name was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the enemy and his followers. Four times his name is recorded in Scripture:

(1) Daniel 10:13 sqq., Gabriel says to Daniel, when he asks God to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem: "The Angel [D.V. prince] of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me . . . and, behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me . . . and none is my helper in all these things, but Michael your prince."

(2) Daniel 12, the Angel speaking of the end of the world and the Antichrist says: "At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people."

(3) In the Catholic Epistle of St. Jude: "When Michael the Archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses", etc.St. Jude alludes to an ancient Jewish tradition of a dispute between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses, an account of which is also found in the apocryphal book on the assumption of Moses (Origen, De Principiis III.2.2). St. Michael concealed the tomb of Moses;Satan, however, by disclosing it, tried to seduce the Jewish people to the sin of hero-worship. St. Michael also guards the body of Eve, according to the "Revelation of Moses" ("Apocryphal Gospels", etc., ed. A. Walker, Edinburgh, p. 647).

(4) Apocalypse 12:7, "And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon." St. John speaks of the great conflict at the end of time, which reflects also the battle in heaven at the beginning of time. According to the Fathers there is often question of St. Michael in Scripture where his name is not mentioned.

They say he was the cherub who stood at the gate of paradise, "to keep the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24), the angel through whom God published the Decalogue to his chosen people, the angelwho stood in the way against Balaam (Numbers 22:22 sqq.), the angel who routed the army of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:35).

Following these Scriptural passages, Christian tradition gives to St. Michael four offices:

1. To fight against Satan.
2. To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.
3. To be the champion of God's people, the Jews in the Old Law, the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the orders of knights during the Middle Ages.
4. To call away from earth and bring men's souls to judgment ("signifer S. Michael repraesentet eas in lucam sanctam," Offert. Miss Defunct. "Constituit eum principem super animas suscipiendas," Antiph. off. Cf. The Shepherd of Hermas, Book III, Similitude 8, Chapter 3).

Regarding his rank in the celestial hierarchy opinions vary; St. Basil (Hom. de angelis) and other Greek Fathers, also Salmeron, Bellarmine, etc., place St. Michael over all the angels; they say he is called "archangel" because he is the prince of the other angels; others (cf. P. Bonaventura, op. cit.) believe that he is the prince of the seraphim, the first of the nine angelic orders.

But, according to St. Thomas (Summa Ia.113.3) he is the prince of the last and lowest choir, the angels. The Roman Liturgy seems to follow the Greek Fathers; it calls him "Princeps militiae coelestis quem honorificant angelorum cives." The hymn of the Mozarabic Breviary places St. Michael even above the Twenty-four Elders. The Greek Liturgy styles him Archistrategos, "highest general" (cf. Menaea, 8 Nov. and 6 Sept.). Source

Nagas (reptilians, dragons) and Asuras (titans, giants) are Bible's Nephilim


"Lost Book of Enoch: 'Watchers' and Giants" (Part 1/3)

Black Catholic nun in Missouri is saint (video)

The body of an incorrupt Catholic nun has been found in Missouri after being deceased for four years

(Dr. Taylor Marshall) [She's Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster. She's Black, a Catholic, foundress of a Benedictine order in Missouri and, now, on her way to being canonized by the Church for being a saint with one miracle under her belt.]

Whoopi, be better! Be like Sister Wilhelmina!

[It's not too difficult to become a "saint" in the Catholic religion. The Buddha is a Catholic saint because once voted in and canonized -- particularly with no more Office of the Devil's Advocate at the Vatican -- one cannot be voted out. The Buddha was brought in by accident because in the Jataka Tales or Rebirth Stories, he was a particularly popular figure. So the Bodhisat (Bodhisatta or Bodhisattva, as the Buddha referred to himself prior to Buddhahood), was remembered as "Saint Josaphat."]

[And the Catholic Church came in to conquer an area, as they are wont to do even today, which they do with swords and flowers, often pick a popular figure to say, "Look, he was saintly." They thus accrue for themselves all popular figures to build their image as the great institution that will convert or kill you, unless you come willingly because, look, this person is actually a Catholic saint.]

[Pope John Paul II didn't like to go to a new country unless he was canonizing a local figure because the local population loves that. Everyone's in need of a patron saint, and no is better than a local.]

• How can Buddhists explain this? The same way Jains, Hindus, and yogis would: samadhi (stillness, coherence, concentration) that leads to temporary moral purification. Alone it is not enough for salvation, liberation, enlightenment. Systematic practice for insight-wisdom is needed for that. But samadhi alone is enough to make one a "saint" in other religions.

Goldberg is Jewish? Well, no, but she says she is

COMMENTS

(@WQ-001) Is it wrong to be reminded of the Black Jewish actress Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act? Of course, Sister Wilhelmina is the opposite of her, but as one wise person once said, "All saints have a past, and all sinners have a future." So Whoopi could learn something from Saint Lancaster's example.

(@Liam-ix8pv) I saw her myself! It’s really amazing how well she looks! The best part is that she started that super traditional order there! It’s the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles. They are probably some of the most traditional nuns in the world in my opinion.

(@monicaradey815) Rest in Holy Peace 🙏🏻 Sister Wilhelmina🙏🏻

(@JackieArmB) Thanks for reporting this, Dr. Marshall. I knew if I shared it with you, you would look into it. Fr. Pillari saw her. The fabric and coffin walls were disintegrated [corrupted], but her habit [nun's garb] was like new. He said you could feel the body intact (muscle or skin; bit binges) through her sleeve. Thank God for signs like this in these dark days.

• Discovery: Man unearths ancient underground city during basement
• Scientists reveal real face of a 35,000-year-old Black Egyptian man
• Altadena, LA Library Events (trumba.com)
• VIDEO: Man dresses as old lady to prank people going on sidewalk
• Buddhist paths to liberation

The Christian Pope dies!

BBC; Wisdom Quarterly, St. Paddy's Day Surprise (REPORTING)

Non-Chalcedonian churches like the Coptic, have their own celebrations and their religious heads. Copts or Egyptian Orthodox Christians (not to be confused with Coptic Catholics) follow the Julian rather than the common Gregorian calendar (communio.stblogs.org).

In a divine St. Paddy's Day surprise, the Christian pope has died, it has been announced and confirmed by the BBC. (The Christian pope should not be confused with the more famous Catholic pope). Egypt's Coptic Christian Pope Shenouda III passed away at the age of 88, state television announced.

• Obituary: Pope Shenouda III
• The Buddha is a Catholic Saint
• Catholic Sakka and St. Buddha
  

The cause of his death was not reported, but the leader of the largest Christian minority community in the Middle East had suffered from health problems for years. Source

His Holiness

Father Mikhail E.Mikhail (Saint-Mary.net)

From the land of the great ancient Egyptian civilization, the land visited by [Jesus/St. Issa] and the Holy Family, and from the line of renowned predecessors such as St. Mark the Apostle, St. Athanasius the Apostolic, and St. Cyril the Great, comes the author of the renaissance of the Coptic Orthodox Church: H.H. Pope Shenouda III.

A distinguished and prominent religious leader, a profound theologian, a gifted preacher, a talented author, a spiritual father, [the Coptic Pope was] a man of God his entire life.

His Holiness was born Nazeer Gayed on August 3, 1923, to a pious Christian family in Egypt. By the age of 16, H.H. was active in the Sunday School movement, which wrought to enrich Christian Education in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

When H.H. graduated from Cairo University, he joined the Coptic Orthodox Seminary, and upon graduation, joined the faculty of the seminary.

On July 18, 1954, H.H. chose the solitude of the Egyptian desert and the angelic life of [Buddhist-inspired Christian] monasticism over everything else, taking the example of St. Anthony the Great.

As a monk, and later a monk priest, H.H. carried the name of the Christian monk and was known as... More

Why do we have popes?
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)
Who knew Christians had a pope, a titular chief of their church? After the Protestant reformation led by Martin Luther, not to be confused with American hero Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (who changed his name to be MLK), one would have thought the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church with the head of its holy empire stationed in Rome (in the Holy See to be exact, a separate country in the middle of Rome, Italy) would have all been abolished. But no one told the older Eastern Orthodox pre-schism Christian church.

The Copts of Egypt, like non-Roman Catholic Christians in Armenia, Syria, Israel, and elsewhere in the Middle East, are part of a very ancient Christian tradition. And a corporation, like the Vatican, needs a CEO. That station is filled by the Catholic pope, who we are told is in direct contact with Jesus/Sakka/St. Michael/Indra, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings in Second Heaven. That overseer devaputra ("son of god"), an archangel deity, apparently needs a human liaison.

Tibet was once a kind of empire -- whose hegemony spread throughout the Himalayas through Bhutan, Nepal, and northern India all the way down to modern Bangladesh (formerly east India). It drew Nazi attention and admiration.

As such it apparently felt a need to organize itself in a sexist, patriarchal hierarchy known as Lamaism. This unique Himalayan form of Buddhism is called Vajrayana, a blend of pre-Buddhist Bon shamanism and latter-day messianic Mahayana Buddhism.

It focuses not on the historical Buddha but on Maitreya the Buddha-to-come, Kwan the Bodhisattva/Goddess of Compassion, the Taras (deified former queens in wating), crazy-wisdom "saint" Milarepa, lamas and rinpoches (bishops that formed a new professional Tibetan priestly caste like the brahmins of ancient Indian Vedic Civilization Brahmanism, which take their cue from the sky gods enshrined in the ancient Knowledge Books, the Vedas).

Does Islam, which expresses a great deal of respect for women in writing while often treating them atrociously in practice, have a "pope," a universal ayatollah or imam? There is one God, one prophet who supersedes all previous prophets, one book, and yet many schools (Shi'a, Sunni, Sufi...).

Establishment temple Brahmanism and the Catholic Church organize themselves in an apparently heaven (akasha deva loka)-approved hierarchy. This seems to necessitate, as the male members of monastic traditions have interpreted it, a single male member of a special priest or monastic society as its head. And this is why we have popes. Interestingly, however, while Chinese Mahayana Buddhism may select a Panchen or Dalai Lama, and Siberian Buddhism in the former USSR may select/elect a head, but the more patriarchal Theravada Buddhist school never went outside the historical Buddha's teachings to push for a pope or head of the tradition. It certainly had "founding church fathers" (the Theras, "elders"). It certainly systematically discounted its "founding church mothers" (the Theris, senior nuns).

• THERIVADA: Maybe a new school should be originated, not as a schism, but just as an inclusive group of something that should never have been separated on the basis of sexist institutionalization called Therivada, the "The Teaching of the Elders," the elders re-including the elder nuns, senior members of a Sangha, Monastic Order, that was always meant to include them. It is a sexist misrepresentation to say that nuns were subordinated by order of the Buddha as a prerequisite to the ordination of females, as Ayya Tathaaloka's scholarship (regarding the origin story of the Eight Additional Nuns' Rules from the Bhikkhuni Vinaya, the nuns' monastic disciplinary guidelines) shows.

It certainly would have had a reason to. The earliest Buddhist schools or sects -- assuming there was informally more than one while the Buddha still lived after Devadatta's failed formal effort -- could have united around a St. Peter figure like Maha Kassapa Thera, one of the great disciples who is credited with the idea of holding the First Buddhist Council to organize the Dharma and formalize the discourses (sutras) and monastic disciplinary rules (vinaya) and the circumstances under which they came to be laid down by the Buddha.

Theravada Buddhist nuns and Ten Precept Novices in Mandalay, Burma (Sylvain Brajeul/Flickr.com)

• The Non-historicity of the eight extra Buddhist nuns' rules (garudhammas)
  

Pope and Buddhist "fundamentalists" (audio)

Bhante, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich (KPFA FM, Berkeley); BBC.com; The World (pri.org); NPR (npr.org)

Theravada monks with Pope Francis as he visits Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka (jcourt.net).

Pope on sticks and stones: What did you call my mother? Bam! (Steviet7867.deviantart.com)

 

Pope Francis shows [his violent] side:
You'd better not insult my mother [or I will punch your face]

Matthew Bell (PRI's The World, Jan. 14-15, 2015)

Pope Francis sits next to Hindu leader Ndu-Kurukkal Siva Sri T. Mahadeva during the Interreligious Encounter in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Jan. 13, 2015 (Stefano Rellandini/Reuters).

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Pope Francis made an adept, subtle move to win over a nation alienated by a legendary predecessor -- and then showed off his straight-talking side Thursday, telling reporters on a plane he would punch out someone who insulted his mother.

He said "Yo mama," and I punched him.

The issue came up in a talk from the pope to reporters en route from Sri Lanka to the Philippines. "No one,'' the pope said, referring to last week's assault on the satiric [French] magazine Charlie Weekly, ''can kill in the name of God. This is an aberration [unless it’s one of our Crusades then it’s just business as usual over at the Vatican where we kill and torture in the name of our God and have for 1,000 years].”

 

The pontiff added there were limits to freedom of expression, however. “One cannot react violently, but if (someone) says something bad about my mother, he can expect [me to react violently with] a punch. It’s to be expected,” Francis said.

Not a "good" Catholic but Catholic: Hitler

[So let's see if we have this straight. This Catholic pope, there being non-Catholic popes believe it or not, will violently slam you in the face for calling his mother "fat"? How about calling his God something? How about satire, how does he feel about that? Catholicism and Catholic Church leaders have always had an affinity for censorship and fascism, as when the Vatican befriended and encouraged Nazi Adolf Hitler and dictator Benito Mussolini, both themselves nominal Catholics.]

Buddhist monks welcome Pope Francis (JC)

“There are a lot of people who speak badly about other religions. They make fun of them. What happens is what happens with my friend (who insults my mother). There is a limit.”

 

The long exchange followed a successful trip to Sri Lanka, in which he made a key symbolic addition on Wednesday: a quick visit to a Buddhist temple in the capital, Colombo. The pontiff removed his shoes and listened respectfully while monks chanted and prayed, and his hosts treated him to a rare view of some relics of descendants of the Buddha.

 

The brief temple stopover speaks to the success of Francis' two-day trip to Sri Lanka. The last papal visit to the South Asian island nation was 20 years ago, and Pope John Paul II was boycotted by Buddhist leaders on that occasion. More
 

Pope Francis releases dove while he visited a shrine in Madhu. He said there must be "reparation" for the "evil" Sri Lanka has suffered during its 26-year-long civil war (AFP/BBC).

Buddhist "elder" (thera), Pope Francis (center), Hindu swami bow heads as the Argentinian pontiff met leaders from many religious groups on Tuesday in Sri Lanka (Reuters/BBC).

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Soft dictator "King" Rajapaksa's coup failed.

Pope Francis I is in Buddhist Sri Lanka, an island off the southern tip of India that is 70% Theravada Buddhist and a stronghold of early Indian Buddhist tradition.

He is there to rally 7% of the population, which is Christian, and to promote or at least give lip service to "reconciliation" among the formerly warring Buddhist Sinhalese (70%) and Hindu Tamils formerly struggling to split the island in two to have their own homeland (Tamil Eelam) in the north, just across the strait from the state of Tamil Nadu, India.

But a larger issue has arisen on the island during what was once Asia's longest running civil war: the ridiculous rise of "fundamentalist" Buddhist monastics and their lay supporters who resent the island long established Muslim minority.

The nearby Maldives were once Buddhist strongholds but were converted, it is said, when a Muslim merchant boat with Muslim saints was shipwrecked there. Muslims have long lived alongside Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Catholics, secularists, tourists, and the tiny and diminishing indigenous population of original aboriginal animists.
 

Are popes idiotic, hypocritical, or what?

Bravo, bravo to some acts of violence. And let's make the ETs Catholic! (thewire.com)

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Catholic view: St. Michael (freerepublic.com)

Isn't it amazing how many times the great pontiffs put their foot in their mouths?
 
The Nazi Pope, the traitorous and hated retired Pope Benedict, was bad enough writing in his memoirs how he and his brother were members of the Hitler Youth, which much embarrassed the corporation's officials within the Vatican who then went on to lie in trying to deny it. But there it is in writing and widely published.

Now we get this great pope, but he goes around fondling and washing young boys' feet and calling it an act of "humility," holds and kisses baby boys in creepy ways, says "Who am I to judge?" when it comes to his fellow gay bishops and child molesting priests in the Catholic Church, denies nuns advancement and females a better place in the church, then says he wants to baptize space aliens when they arrive.

(He did not say if they arrive because he surely knows they are already here and have been for a long time, and the Church will eventually make the announcement because no one believes governments -- like England and Canada -- that disclose their official secret UFO files).

Pope in Asia: This is how I'd punch him if he called my mother a name (BBC video).

If this pope is not an idiot, which he probably is NOT, is he a hypocrite? Case in point: He goes to Buddhist Sri Lanka, with its own Buddhist "fundamentalist" hypocrites, to preach "truth and reconciliation" to the Buddhists and Hindus after a long civil war and to canonize the island's first "saint" -- then he ends up criticizing the Charlie Hebdo attackers AND in the same breath stating he would punch someone in the face for calling his mother a name.

On other occasions he, or his PR firm, say he has been misquoted or his words mistranslated. What will they say for him this time? [Today on The BBC Newshour (Jan. 15, 2015 podcast) and The World the rationalizing/PR damage control began by saying something to the effect of those Latins, unlike we Anglo-Saxons, have a frisky way of speaking, not literal like us.]

Filipino Catholics welcome Pope Francis with fervency, hope, and souvenir T-shirts

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Q: Patty, Sandy, is this pope an example of how Catholics really are (like that Catholic website that quotes Jesus as saying he didn't come to Earth to do anything but wage war, allegedly a biblical passage), or is he an idiot, or a hypocrite? A: That's hard to say. He's much better than the previous pope, but he's no John Paul II, who almost singlehandedly dismantled the Church and its central tenets while being beloved by the whole world like the 14th Dalai Lama.  

Q: So not an idiot and not a great Catholic...a hypocrite then? A: Possibly. But a goodhearted one! Q: And why are so many of the right wing maniacs at FOX News Roman Catholic? A: Maybe they're trying to prove their mettle to FOX's largely white Evangelical Christian fundamentalist-leaning viewers. Q: Yeah, then, why not be fundamentalists?

A: That's hard to say for sure, but even if Puritans burned witches in Salem, they still didn't do half of what Catholics have done and still do in the name of religion -- wars, misogyny, torture, Crusades, Inquisitions, helping Hitler, anti-Semitism, fascism, corporate theocracy, hypocrisy, continuing the countless crimes of the "Holy" Roman Empire. Joining FOX News just seems like a nature offshoot of that behavior. Ask Garrison Keillor (see below). Sure there's angry Bill O'Reilly to be embarrassed about, but what about FOX's rabid Roman Catholic Judge Jeanine Pirro? All those Sunday masses and all that plastic surgery just to spew such venom? Fear mongering about a "reverse-Crusade" coming back to bite us:

FOX News' Roman Catholic Pirro: "We need to kill them. We need to KILL them...You're in danger, I'm in danger. We're at war...Our job is to arm those Muslims to the teeth" (FOX).

  

Entrance to Buddha Dambulla Cave, Sri Lanka (Richard Silver/rjsnyc/flickr.com)

Sri Lanka was once an idyllic place, enchanted and full of serendipity, but was ruined by war.

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The disastrous "Buddha Power Army"

Sri Lankan novelist Nayomi Munaweera helps expose fundamentalists (nytimes.com).

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Stupa decorating (sundaytimes.lk)

AUDIO: Nayomi Munaweera, author of Island of a Thousand Mirrors, on the embarrassing "Buddhist fundamentalists," war crimes of the ousted political family, and strange recent Sri Lankan elections, where the winner seems to have come out of nowhere. The new leader was inserted into the process in November and is now in office with a mandate, after an alleged 80% of the island's electorate turned out to vote -- the typical pattern of a selection rather than election.

Who meddled in Sri Lanka's democracy? The usual suspects used to be India and the UK but now it looks like it may have been the USA. Letters and Politics (Jan. 13, 2015, 10:00 am download this clip (MP3, 10.27 MB) or PLAY clip on computer's media player. Also on this episode, "The Battle for Radio" with Victor Prickard, author of America’s Battle for Media Democracy. 

• Pope in Sri Lanka: Huge crowds for Colombo, Sri Lanka mass (BBC News) Huge crowds have watched Pope Francis celebrate Mass in Sri Lanka, at which he canonized the nation's first Catholic "saint." The pontiff urged people [some having from neighboring India to see him]...
• Pope Francis urges the "pursuit of truth" in Sri Lanka (BBC.com) Pope Francis has called for the "pursuit of truth" in Sri Lanka as he visits a country still grappling with the legacy of a long civil war. Crowds and...
• Pope Francis cancels meeting with bishops in Sri Lanka due to... (DailyMail.co.uk) Pope Francis was forced to cancel a planned meeting with [Catholic] Sri Lankan bishops -- because he was "exhausted" [or more likely had traveler's stomach] after a long journey exposed to... 
• Pope Francis seeks "reconciliation" in Sri Lanka (Time.com) Pope Francis holds his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 15, 2014 in Vatican City... 
• POPE WATCH: Sri Lanka's first [Catholic] saint has an Indian connection... (ABCnews.go.com) ...Muslim party welcomes Pope's Sri Lanka visit. ...[He] is on the second day of a weeklong visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. 
• In Sri Lanka, hoping for a touch from Pope Francis (ABC News) ...They came to hear him, to see him. They came from mansions in [the wealthier capital of] Colombo, from concrete apartment buildings in Kandy [where the Buddha's sacred tooth used to be kept], from little villages in... 
• Pope heading to Philippines, where adoring crowds await (ABC News) ...Pope Francis departed Sri Lanka [today] Thursday for the Philippines, Asia's most populous Catholic nation, where ecstatic crowds await the first papal... 
• Anti-Pope Francis EXPOSED (mostholyfamilymonastery.com) The truth about what really happened to the Catholic Church

Why does Sri Lanka have Catholics?

Newly minted "St. Vaz" of Sri Lanka holds disfigured crucifix of Catholic God (AP).

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Get me Vaz, I need Vaz before I visit.

(WQ) The Island of Lanka (Ceylon, Serendib) has long been attractive to merchants and European imperialists such as the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, who set up a fort at Galle and a large stronghold in Goa, India. Joseph Vaz was born in Goa and came to Sri Lanka to spread Catholicism.

• Born in Portuguese colony of Goa in 1651, arrived in Sri Lanka in 1687
• Jailed multiple times by Dutch authorities for helping Catholics, dressed as a beggar to hide himself
• Produced prayer books in Sinhalese and Tamil
• By his death in 1711 he had earned himself the title Apostle of Sri Lanka

Pagan glory in Catholic hands.

Who was Sri Lanka's first canonized Catholic saint? One is voted into sainthood in Catholicism, which is not nearly as difficult as it used to be when the Vatican had the Office of the Devil's Advocate, its actual name, to test, verify, and debunk claims of sainthood from proposed candidates. Without anyone formally adopting the contrary position in an adversarial legal system, it is only a matter of popularity, money, and expediency to get canonized. For example, just about anything will count for a "miracle." Vaz died centuries ago, I get told by my doctor that I have diabetes, I pray to Vaz, "OH, cure my diabetes!" On my next check up I'm fine. Miracle! MIRACLE!

We rule Europe and the world like royalty!

He's a saint, a saint, canonize him quick! This testimony by me will be put in Vaz's file as proof of sainthood, no Devil's Advocate will come and question me or possibly even verify my claim at all. But Vaz would not be canonized for that. No, he would be canonized for political reasons when a pope visits a land the Church wishes to advance Catholicism. That's why he gets rushed to the front of the canonization line. And what does Catholicism even think a "saint" is? From what we have been able to gather, if one is in heaven then one is a saint. That's it. That's all. Surely the connotation is wider than that, but the denotation does not seem to amount to any more than that.

• Sri Lanka statistics: +70% Buddhist, 12% Hindu, 9% Muslim, 7% Christian/Roman Catholic, less than 1% aboriginal.

Say You’re One of Them, Nayomi

Nadifa Mohamed (New York Times, 9-26-14)

In one of the many startling scenes in Island of a Thousand Mirrors, Nayomi Munaweera’s first [fictionalized] novel [based on real life events], a Sri Lankan girl riding the train to school is suddenly surrounded by a machete-wielding [Buddhist] mob, who demand proof she isn’t [a minority Hindu] Tamil.

In her panic, she recites the Buddhist sutras “preaching unattachment, impermanence, the [impersonal nature of life and] death,” an unholy trinity that could apply to all civil wars.

This chilling exchange reminded me of a conversation I once had on a London bus with a Somali refugee, who swerved from banal chitchat into dark reminiscence. He recalled a moment in Mogadishu when he was forced to recite his genealogy, the string of grandfathers’ names that place all Somalis within their clans, and he borrowed a school friend’s lineage, as his own would have marked him for death.

Rajapaksa: I kept the civil war going, like past leaders, to consolidate my powers. Then I ended it decisively with war crimes. Then when you wouldn't vote me into a third term, I planned a coup de tat, which failed because the military wouldn't back my plan.

 

The weight of these humiliations, momentary yet everlasting, is the ballast of a narrative that ebbs and flows in time and space.

From the maternal expanse of the Indian Ocean to the sterile swimming pools of Los Angeles [with its large Sri Lankan Sinhalese Buddhist population], the lives of Munaweera’s characters are defined by bodies of water that reflect the state of their [minds], including the corpse-clogged wells and lagoons of the Tamil north and the playful shores of the Sinhal[ese] south, alive with flying fish and ancient turtles. More

Jet set pope does Asia hop from Buddhist to Catholic lands. Seen here arriving in Philippines, the most Catholic place in Asia (Ettore Ferrari/EPA/LANDOV).

Pope Francis backs freedom of speech -- but "within limits"

Krishnadev Calamur (NPR, Jan. 15, 2015)

The pontiff said there are limits to freedom of speech, especially when it concerns religion. He was answering a question about the deadly attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Weekly.

Pope Francis says there are limits to freedom of speech, especially when it comes to someone's religion, in comments aboard the Papal Plane that made reference to the deadly attack last week on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

 

Francis defended freedom of speech, calling it a fundamental human right, but said it must not cause offense.

 

"It is true we cannot react violently," he told reporters today en route to the Philippines. "But if Dr. [Alberto] Gasbarri here, a great friend, were to say something insulting against my mother, a punch awaits him."

 

Gasbarri, the official who organizes papal trips, was standing next to the pope at the time of the comments.

 

"You cannot make provocations," Francis added. "You cannot insult people's faith." More

• VIDEO: Police say woman admitted to vandalizing Buddha statue at Santa Ana temple (right wing OC Register)

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  (prairiehome.org)

  Garrison Keillor's shocking apology to Republicans (ALF): Radio man Garrison Keillor (NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion") wants to apologize to Republicans. Here's what he wrote on Salon.com:
   
  "Having been called names, one looks back at one's own angry outbursts over the years, and I recall having once referred to Republicans as 'hairy-backed swamp developers, fundamentalist bullies, freelance racists, hobby cops, sweatshop tycoons, line jumpers, marsupial moms and aluminum-siding salesmen, misanthropic frat boys, ninja dittoheads, shrieking midgets, tax cheats, cheese merchants, cat stranglers, pill pushers, nihilists in golf pants, backed-up Baptists, the grand pooh-bahs of Percodan, mouth breathers, testosterone junkies, and [Nazi] brownshirts in pinstripes.'
   
  "I look at those words now, and 'cat stranglers' seems excessive to me. The number of cat stranglers in the ranks of the Republican Party is surely low, and that reference was hurtful to Republicans and to cat owners. I feel sheepish about it."
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