Crapaganda.com

We all know that the  Catholic church has done a miserable job when it comes to policing themselves. Decades of sexual abuse of children by priests attests to that. In the US, children in parish after parish were assaulted by priests and nuns while their superiors covered it up.  We now find out that the orders for the cover-up came from the highest levels of the Vatican.

A secret document has been uncovered. The Crimen Sollicitationis, as it is titled in Latin, lays out church policy that calls for silence on the issue of sexual abuse by priests.

The policy, written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani and stored in the secret Vatican archives, focuses on crimes initiated as part of the confessional relationship and what it calls the “worst crime”: sexual assault committed by a priest” or “attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals.”

Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases

“in the most secretive way…restrained by a perpetual silence…and everyone (including the alleged victim) …is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office…under the penalty of excommunication.”

View an English translation of Crimen Sollicitationis (pdf)

Watch Sex crimes and the Vatican (BBC)

The Ugandan government claimed human sacrifice was on the increase.

According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity – and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.

One man said he had clients who had captured children and taken their blood and body parts to his shrine, while another confessed to killing at least 70 people including his own son.

Human sacrifices ‘on the rise in Uganda’ as witch doctors admit to rituals (Telegraph UK)

In 1610, Galileo Galilei published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing his telescopic observations.  These observations pointed out what would become major differences between the physical world and the understanding of the universe discribed in the Holy Bible.  These statements renewed interest in the radical teachings of  the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.

Scholars of the time reacted by attacking the theory that seemingly contradicted several passages of Scripture.  Galileo’s part in the controversies over theology, astronomy, and philosophy culminated in his trial and sentencing in 1633 on a grave suspicion of heresy.

Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse and detest” those opinions.

His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was later commuted to house arrest.

From 1634 onward he could be found at his country house at outside of Florence.  In 1638, blind and suffering from a painful hernia, he was allowed to travel to Florence for medical attention.  He continued to receive visitors until 1642, when he died.

His body was interred at Santa Croce Church in Florence, Italy.

95 years later, on March 12, 1737, Anton Francesco Gori removed one of the corpse’s bony fingers.  The relic (of science not religion), is on display at the Florence History of Science Museum.

Today it sits in a small glass egg among lodestones and telescopes, the only human fragment in a museum devoted entirely to scientific instruments. It is hard to know how Galileo would have felt about the final resting place of his finger. The long bony finger points towards the sky, as if to let the Catholic Church know that in spite of their tyranny and obfuscation of the truth the laws of nature will always apply on Earth.

Possession is  the term used to describe state when a demon is in control of a human body.  Reported symptoms of demonic possession often include: lost memories, missing personalities, convulsions, fits and fainting.  Other supposed symptoms may include access to hidden knowledge or foreign languages, drastic changes in voice and appearance  and superhuman strength.

The Bible never actually refers to people as being possessed by demons. The main expressions referring to demonic influence are: “to be demonized” (this is the most frequent expression) and “having a demon” (note that it is the person who possesses the demon, not the demon who possesses the person.)

The literal view of demonization is still held by a number of Christian denominations. Official Catholic doctrine affirms that demonic oppression can occur as distinguished from mental illness, but stresses that cases of mental illness should not be misdiagnosed as demonic influence. Catholic exorcisms can occur only under the authority of a bishop and in accordance with strict rules; a simple exorcism also occurs during Baptism.

Read about the exorcism of Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

The Malleus Maleficarum describes specific exorcism techniques. Depending on the severity of the alleged possession, solutions range from prayers of deliverance to the Solemn Rite of Exorcism as practiced by the Catholic Church.

Watch a modern day exorcism.

In 1481 the Catholic Church charged two Dominican monks, James Sprenger and Henry Kramer, with the task of writing a manual for hunting witches. The manual, Malleus Maleficarum, took 5 years to create.

The Malleus Maleficarum is the best known of the witch-hunt manuals. Originally written in Latin, the title is translated as “The Hammer of Witches”. Used for more than three hundred years, it was the justification for the witch trials in Europe and Colonial America.

The document specified rules of evidence and procedures by which suspected witches should be detected, tortured and put to death.

Buy your own copy of the Malleus Maleficarum or Read the Malleus Maleficarum online.

Witch hunts continue today.  In Nigeria, religious leaders in extremist Christian churches are  “identifying” some children as witches.   The children are then subjected to horrible purifying rituals.  Children have been hacked to death, poisoned and buried alive in an attempt to drive out Satan.

‘Child-witches’ of Nigeria Seek Refuge (Telegraph UK)

Guardian UK 11-18-2009

The Australian prime minister has said he would consider an inquiry into allegations of  forced abortions, assault, torture, imprisonment, covering up sexual abuse, embezzlement of church funds and blackmail.

Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has publically accused The Church of Scientology of being “a criminal organization.”

This comes less than a month after a French court convicted the Church of fraud and fined it more $900,000. The religion of John Travolta and Tom Cruise seems to be on the run.

AP 10-27-2009

In 2007, Germany banned the makers of Tom Cruise’s movie Valkyrie from filming at military sites in the country because he was a Scientologist. The German defence ministry said Scientology is a cult that masquerades as a religion to make money.

BBC 2007

After reading My Twisted Life as a Scientologist (New York Post 11/15/2009),  I thought it would be fun to do a little looking into Scientology’s closet.  I gotta tell you, the closet is full.

L. Ron Hubbard, the American science fiction writer, created a self-help system he called Dianetics. First published in 1950, it developed into doctrines and rituals as part of a new religion he dubbed Scientology.

Scientology is legally recognized as a tax-exempt church in the United States. Many countries, however, refuse to grant Scientology the status of a church. Canada, UK, Germany, France Belgium, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg and Mexico do not recognize Scientology as a religion. In Greece, Scientology was banned in 1997, and the Greek government upheld the ban in 2003, rejecting an application for Scientology to be recognized as a religion.

Scientology is often referred to as a cult often accused of financially defrauding members. The teachings of The Church of Scientology are cloaked in secrecy. Most of what is known about the teachings of the church comes to us from ex-members.

An ex-member takes you on a behind the curtain tour

by Donatien Alphonse François

PRIEST – Come to this the fatal hour when at last from the eyes of deluded man the scales must fall away, and be shown the cruel picture of his errors and his vices – say, my son, do you not repent the host of sins unto which you were led by weakness and human frailty?

DYING MAN – Yes, my friend, I do repent.

PRIEST - Rejoice then in these pangs of remorse, during the brief space remaining to you profit therefrom to obtain Heaven’s general absolution for your sins, and be mindful of it, only through the mediation of the Most Holy Sacrament of penance will you be granted it by the Eternal.

DYING MAN – I do not understand you, any more than you have understood me.

PRIEST - Eh?

DYING MAN – I told you that I repented.

PRIEST – I heard you say it.

DYING MAN – Yes, but without understanding it.

PRIEST – My interpretation -

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