John Paul II's compassionate face of an arrogant Catholic Church

The legacy of the John Paul II and his Pedophile Priests Army keep marching on...from the USA to Ireland! The pedophile-Achiles Heel of John Paul II cannot make him a saint no matter how much deception the Opus Dei will play on his title as John Paul II the Great.

Compassionate face of an arrogant Catholic Church

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/compassionate-face-of-an-arrogant-catholic-church-1829694.html

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is out of place in a disgraced and dishonoured Church, writes Emer O'Kelly

Sunday July 19 2009

HIS Grace Diarmuid Martin, DD, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, a 64-year-old scholar now in religious charge of his native city, has been much in the news lately. Not least because his is the name which automatically springs to the minds of non-Catholics who want to find some excuse for his Church. They don't want to believe that the Roman Catholic authorities are vicious, arrogant, uncaring, amoral, power-hungry and often sadistic. And Diarmuid Martin is the one man who seems to offer reassurance.

He offers it consistently and persistently. When the Ryan report into institutional child abuse was published in May, Diarmuid Martin called its contents "stomach-churning". Prior to the publication, he had uttered dire warnings of expectation that the findings would be shaming and shameful for the Church. And even the faithful thought, if they thought at all, that he might be exaggerating; what could be revealed in the report that was not already known? That the Church -- through many of its ordained and consecrated members who chose to desecrate the vows which imposed compassion and decency on them -- had abused their positions and the trust Church and State vested in them?

But more, much more, came out. It was deliberately sadistic, vicious, and institutionalised. It was not the actions of a few disturbed or psychopathic men and women. It was the system. Hundreds of thousands of children were subjected to a regime which, under the United Nations definition, amounted to torture: daily torture of years' duration directed against suffering helpless children who had committed no crime, but were poor or unruly.

Cardinal Sean Brady, Diarmuid Martin's direct superior, said what he had been saying for several years beforehand, and what we expected him to say: that he was "profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed".

Diarmuid Martin, on the other hand, called the contents of the Ryan report "stomach-churning", his usually rubicund, cheery face grey and furrowed, his eyes as haunted as though the children had been his own blood. It was a phrase a father would use.

And what was the response from the men who shared Holy Orders with him? In the words of Redemptorist priest Father Tony Flannery, angered that the cardinal and the archbishop had gone to discuss Ryan with the Pope without consulting the heads of the orders, he had "betrayed the religious orders". They felt "enormous anger at being scapegoated", especially by Diarmuid Martin, who "led the public criticism".

All of which is hardly fair on Diarmuid Martin, a man who speaks four languages, five if you count Latin (which, apparently, he can actually converse in). He was ordained a priest in 1969, and soon rose through the ranks. By 1994, he was at the dizzy height of being Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. In 2001, he left Rome for another placement; with some reluctance, it is said. He was appointed Permanent Observer for the Holy See at the United Nations in Geneva.

A pattern had been established: this was an ambassador who used his considerable abilities and intellectual force in defence of the weak. But, unlike many who see only the big picture of rights violation, he has shown that he sees the million small pictures which form it, and that each picture of human loss and indignity involves a single helpless being denied civil and human rights.

Uniquely -- or so it seems, from what we have experienced in Ireland in recent years as the forces of the right try to make us act against civil liberties -- Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is also prepared to support rights which Canon Law condemns. When Cardinal Brady roundly condemned the government's (then) proposed Civil Partnership Bill, saying it "undermined the will of God", and suggested that those committed to "the word of God" might have to "pursue all avenues of legal and democratic challenge to the published legislation", it was absolutely bang-on for Catholic teaching: you can't have any rights unless they fit under Roman Catholic Canon Law. That's always been the way in Ireland from the days when General Sean McEoin marched into a cabinet meeting and told his colleagues that the Mother and Child Scheme was gone: "He won't wear it" -- he being John Charles McQuaid, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin (ref: the memoir of Dr Noel Browne, Against the Tide).

When Sean Brady let fly from his Canonical tower, Diarmuid Martin held his fire for a couple of weeks, then announced quietly that other bishops "might have put the matter differently". But there was no rush to support him when he added, "I am aware of the need to protect the rights of a variety of people in caring and dependent relationships different to marriage."

On Holy Thursday he told the congregation in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin that the two biggest problems for the young in relation to the Church's credibility were its condemnation of gay couples, and suicide.

"They see through the superficial answers we give," he said devastatingly.

A father of the Church accepting that Catholic answers are superficial? He has even suggested that the Church divest itself of control of many of the schools, and called the current figure of 92 per cent control a "near monopoly" and "untenable", an exact description that would make the blood of most "self-respecting" school patrons boil.

This extraordinary man has even suggested that if parents have the right to avail of schooling alternatives "inspired by other philosophies", Catholic education will actually be strengthened. He actually wants to open children's minds.

It has been cynically suggested that Diarmuid Martin is playing a very careful political game, opposing Sean Brady in order to undermine and succeed him for a cardinal's hat. If that is the case, he's going a very odd way about it, and not one which will endear him to Rome.

For myself, I can't understand why this extraordinary, compassionate, moral, free-thinking man is sticking with his dishonoured, disgraced and morally bankrupt Church. He doesn't belong there.

The morph of Michael Jackson's face and St. Josemaria Escriva de Opus Dei's name

Michael Jackson face morph


The morph of St. Josemaria Escriva's name


The Opus Dei controlled, produced, and run the 26 years papacy of John Paul II and logistically and logically they covered-up his John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army see the JPIIPPA in www.jp2army.blogspot.com


http://www.odan.org/

This was the letter of protest sent to John Paul II which of course he completely ignored http://www.odan.org/tw_letter_to_pope.htm

One of the weirdest thing about the "Holy Father" of the Opus Dei is the many changes of his name. http://www.odan.org/what_is_opus_dei.htm This is Josemaria Escriva's plastic surgery on his image, the Opus Dei Nip Tuck.

Note: The author of this article has asked that his name remain anonymous.

http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-paul-ii-and-saint-josemaria.html


The Many Names of Opus Dei’s Founder

But if they ask me what his name is, how shall I answer?


Exodus 3:13

Honors, distinctions, titles: things of air, puffs of pride, lies, nothingness.



Maxim 677, The Way

To understand Opus Dei, one needs to study the Founder.

Alvaro Del Portillo

Baptismal name

Opus Dei’s founder changed his name many times over the course of his life. He was born on January 2, 1902.[1] Four days later, he was baptized in the Cathedral at Barbastro, Spain with the baptismal name recorded among Church records as José María Julian Mariano.[2] “According to the entry in the baptismal register of the Church where he was christened, his surname was spelled Escribá[.]”[3] He was given the same first name as his father, José Escribá; his mother was named María de los Dolores Albás y Blanc.[4]
-
Adding the aristocratic “y Albás”

Some time after his father’s textile business failed in 1915, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1925.[5] Before the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), he began joining “y Albás” to his surname; it appears in the published memento of his first Mass.[6]

In Castilian Spanish, use of the conjunction “y” (“and”) joining father’s and mother’s surnames is associated with aristocratic families.[7] Use of a modified conjunctive surname would not have been socially acceptable by someone not belonging to the aristocracy; since Escribá did not come from an aristocratic family, he may have been subjected to ridicule: as late as the 1960s, Father Escribá rarely experimented publicly with the use of “y Albás”.[8]

From Escribá to the more distinguished Escrivá

On May 24, 1941, Bishop Leopoldo Eijo Garay of Madrid sent a letter that systematically has been cited in Opus Dei literature as the first document written by a member of Church hierarchy in defense of Opus Dei and its founder. [9] In his letter, Bishop Garay refers to the founder, whom he says he knows very well, as Dr. Escribá—three times.[10]

But as early as his school days, José Escribá had “adopted the rather more distinguished version spelled with a “v” rather than a “b,” which in Spanish sounds exactly the same.”[11] His name is spelled Escrivá in the memento of his first Mass.[12] In 1943, when he was 41, Church records were altered on June 20 to memorialize the change: the registry book of the Barbastro Cathedral and the baptismal certificate of José María were annotated to reflect “that the surname Escribá was changed to Escrivá de Balaguer.”[13] None of the official Opus Dei biographies reference this spelling alteration.[14]

Adding the distinguishing “de Balaguer”

On June 16, 1940 [age 38], the Spanish Boletín Oficial del Estado records that Father Escrivá requested of the government that he be permitted to change his “first surname so it will be written Escrivá de Balaguer.”[15] He justified the petition by claiming that “the name Escrivá is common in the east coast and Catalonia, leading to harmful and annoying confusion.”[16]

One of the earliest members of Opus Dei, architect Miguel Fisac, describes reasons why Father Escrivá may have chosen to modify his name. First, Fisac describes that Escrivá may have suffered a childhood trauma as follows:

When he was still a child, his father and a partner had a cloth business in Barbastro, the founder’s birthplace. The firm went bankrupt and the founder was embarrassingly forced to leave.

His father was reduced to the position of simple shop assistant[.][17]
Fisac describes Escrivá’s embarrassment at his father’s failure, and reflects on the likely motivation for Escrivá’s name changes:

I suppose that his interest in giving importance to his surname was related to his childhood trauma which I have mentioned before. Living in close contact with Monsignor Escrivá, it was easy to appreciate the great affection he felt for the aristocracy: Marquises, Counts[,] etc. As some of these personages were related to some of the nuns in the Royal Foundation of Santa Isabel, and he was its rector, whenever the nuns introduced him to any of these aristocrats and they heard his surname was Escrivá, they would at once ask casually, “Escrivá de Romaní?” (a well known aristocratic family). When he answered that he wasn’t, they made their feeling of rejection obvious and deeply upset him. This is not my imagination; I heard Escrivá himself tell how he decided to add the name of the Catalan town where his family possibly originated from: “Balaguer.” This he did. I was present when the documents were gathered for presentation in the Ministry of Justice for approval. [18]

The leader of an organization known for proclaiming to be composed of common Christians claimed that confusion caused by having a common name is annoying.[19] None of the Opus Dei biographies comment on the official 1940 petition for the name change or its justification.[20] And as to the claim of confusion with the names as alleged in the official petition, it has been pointed out that Escrivá de Romaní is not “exactly ‘common in the east coast and Catalonia.’”[21]

From José María to Josemaría

Monsignor Escrivá also modified his first name. From the common José María, he changed it to the original Josemaría. Biographers state, that around 1935 [age 33], “he joined his first two names because his single love for the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph were equally inseparable.”[22] Though there had been many Saint José’s, there had never been a Saint Josemaría.

Doctor Escrivá

For a while, Escrivá tried on the title of Doctor, but eventually he abandoned this adventure. His doctoral degree from the university appears to be surrounded with mystery.[23] Of the alleged doctorate in theology obtained at age 53, nothing is known, not even the topic of the thesis, which was never published.[24]

According to Antonio Perez, one of Escrivá’s principal collaborators, ordained in 1948 and a former Opus Dei general manager, “Father Escrivá was not a great jurist, as we were later led to believe. I even have serious doubts about whether he studied law at all. I never saw his bachelor’s degree, and the way things were in the Work, if he had it, he would have put it in an impressive gold frame. But he might have lost this document, like so many others during the war.”[25]

Monsignor Escrivá

In 1947, Father Escrivá was nominated to be “Prelato Domestico di Sua Santita.” This title conferred the right to be addressed as Monsignor. Official biographers claim that before accepting Father Escrivá hesitated, “since he wanted nothing for himself. If, in the end, he accepted, it was so as not to anger those who had nominated him.”[26]

However, it turns out that the honor had been proposed by one Alvaro del Portillo, then number two man at Opus Dei, we are asked to believe without the knowledge of Father Escrivá. According to biographers, Monsignor Escrivá “rarely wore the showy prelate’s robes, or wore the buckled shoes. He felt the weight of the purple vestments as a hair shirt; but on notable occasions, knowing how much the color entertained his children, he followed the path of good humor.”[27]

On the other hand, according to many who have left Opus Dei, Escrivá was especially fond of luxury, aristocratic refinements, honors, titles and symbols of prestige.[28] One need only visit Opus Dei properties to observe the conspicuous display of wealth.

The Marquis of Peralta

In January 1968, The Official State Bulletin in Madrid published the following Ministry of Justice announcement:

Don José María Escrivá de Balageur y Albás has requested the rehabilitation of the title of Marquis, granted on 12 February 1718 by the Archduke Charles of Austria to Don Tomas de Peralta, the interested party having chosen in grace the distinction of Marquis of Peralta. The provisions of Article 4 of the Decree 4 June 1948 for granting the request having been satisfied, a delay of three months from the publication of this edict exists for any persons wishing to be made known their opposition. Madrid, 24 January 1968.[29]

The notice was signed by the Ministry’s Under Secretary, Alfredo Lopez, an Opus Dei supernumerary.[30]

Opus Dei supporters have maintained that this was not a “puff of pride,” but rather the just exercise of a fundamental right. Monsignor Escrivá insisted that he had not made the request for his own benefit, but that the title was intended to benefit his nephews. He claimed he merely was compensating his family for the sacrifices they had made to permit him to carry out The Work. Official biographers portray it as “a matter of filial piety and justice.”[31]

According to researchers, the Marquisate of Peralta was bestowed upon one of Escrivá‘s more distant ancestors who had been Minister of Justice in Naples following the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Monsignor Escrivá had in recent years accepted awards of the Spanish Gold Cross of St. Raymond of Penafort, the Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise, the Grand Cross of Isabel the Catholic, and the Cross of Charles III. But to show his modesty, his biographers assure that he never wore them.[32]

[1] http://opusdei.com/.
[2] Hutchison, Robert, Their Kingdom Come: Inside the secret world of Opus Dei, 1999, at p. 20
[3] Walsh, Michael, Opus Dei: An investigation into the secret society struggling for power within the Roman Catholic Church, 1989, at p. 13.
[4] Hutchison, at p. 19.
[5] http://opusdei.com/.
[6] Estruch, Joan, Saints and Schemers: Opus Dei and its paradoxes, 1995, at p. 32.
[7] Id.
[8] [8] Walsh, at p. 14.
[9] Estruch, at p. 32.
[10] Id.
[11] Walsh, at p. 14.
[12] Estruch, at p. 32.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Id. at pp. 32-33.
[16] Id. at p. 33.
[17] Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc., An Interview with Miguel Fisac, 2000, at p. 9.
[18] Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc., An Interview with Miguel Fisac, 2000, at p. 12.
[19] Estruch, at p. 33.
[20] Id.
[21] Id.
[22] Estruch, at p. 34, citing references.
[23] Id. at p. 35.
[24] Id. at p. 36.
[25] Id. at p. 37, citing references.
[26] Id. at p. 38, citing references.
[27] Id.
[28] Id.
[29] Hutchison at p. 150.
[30] Id.
[31] Id. at p. 151, citing references.
[32] Id. The author goes on to state that after the announcement in the state bulletin that Monsignor Escrivá would adopt the title of Marquis of Peralta, the obvious irony was noted by those unwilling to make excuses for the duality of his message and practice. One joke going around Madrid at the time suggested that “The Way” would be republished as “The Super Highway” by the Marquis of Peralta.

posted by Paris | Monday, November 06, 2006

2 Comments:
Anonymous said...
Good on you!!

More and more needs to be learnt about this man, this 'Saint'.
Notice also that the Devils Advocate was not used in his canonization process, as was the case with many of JPII Saints. Over 400 letters of objection were written to the Pontiff about this man, none of them heeded.
Also a good book to read about Josemaria and Opus Dei is called 'Beyond the Threshold'
by Maria del Carmen Tapia. She was Josemaria’s personal secretary and former Numerary.
It is written without malice and sure does answer a few questions.
Keep up the good 'work'.

Louis.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006 4:21:00 PM
Paris said...
Louis,

If you know some links to any of the "400 letters of objection" - I'd like to post them too.

Thanks for saying "Keep up the good 'work'...I've gotten some nasty emails lately.

Paris

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 10:53:00 AM
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