More Benedictine rantage

I’ve been reading up more about the new Pope Benedict XVI. Not sure why this is so interesting to me, apart from being an ex-Catholic who is very interested in the pope selection as a nice barometer of the spiritual reality of billions of people in the world.

Here’s what I’ve been able to gather about this man (nearly all of it paraphrased from the Wikipedia page linked above):

  • He joined the Hitler Youth at the age of 14, in 1941.
  • He was drafted into the Nazi army at age 16, and served in the Flak (anti-aircraft corps), shooting at Allied planes in Ludwigsfeld, Unterfohring, Innsbruck, and Gilching. To his credit, he did eventually desert the army, but did so only as the Reich was crumbling into chaos, along with thousands of other German boys.
  • He later became a priest, and a professor. He occupied the chair of dogmatic theology at the University of Tubingen, where his thinking took a decidedly conservative stance after the student movements of 1968.
  • In 1981, Ratzinger became prefect of “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” which had its name changed from its former tarnished and politically-inconvenient name: the Holy Office of the Inquisition.
  • He has argued that homosexuality is a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” He has — on the record — reprimanded compassionate priests who “do not unequivocally accept … the intrinsic evil of homosexual activity.”
  • Philosophically, Benedict is opposed to birth control, abortion, same-sex marriage, and moral relativism.
  • He has minimized the child abuse crisis rampant in the Catholic Church, dismissing it by saying “less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type.” (well, perhaps… but how many thousands of priests are there? And how does this percentage differ from the percentage of pedophiles in the rest of the population?)
  • He has argued that “only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation.”
  • Argued in the US, before the 2004 election, that voters would be “cooperating in evil” if they voted for a candidate supporting legalized abortion or euthanasia, thus contributing to the Christian Right’s manipulation of the 2004 election by smokescreen issues.

So yeah. This guy is hardly consistent with my idea of the Spiritual Leader for 1.2 billion Catholics. This is also why — at least in the US and in Europe — Catholicism is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The fact that an old white man will preside over further migrations away from Catholicism, while millions more people are becoming Catholics in South America, Africa, and Asia, only reinforces the racism inherent in the church.

To all the Catholics out there: you get what you deserve. It is my prayer that this election will cause you to think, meditate, and pray about why you are still a Catholic. The Catholic Church (as my father would say, the “big C church”) is a formalized, institutionalized bastion of racism, sexism, oppression, intolerance, bigotry, pedophilia, social control, and persecution. It always has been, and it is not likely to be otherwise anytime soon. Any good that has come about from the church is, from where I’m standing, in spite of the political structures of the church. I’m certain that there are good priests, and good congregations, in the Catholic world. But rigid structures presided over by intolerant racists can only get in the way.

repopification

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”
Joe Ratzinger, aka Benedict XVI – Apr 19, 2005

This is one reason I am no longer Catholic. Of course, these days I have very fundamental metaphysical differences with organized religion in general. But to elect a 78-year-old, ultra-conservative guy is going to push more people away from the church.

I want to write more, but it’s quite late and I’m fairly incoherent. Or at least, very sleepy.

Sea Water

For the first time all season, I stuck my feet into the sea today. Yup. Still cold. But in a good way today. Today was fantastic. It’s been gorgeous out, as I lamented in the audio post below. Today was even better; it was in the 70s.

I woke up to discover my beautiful wife making one of her fantastic quiches. Some friends came over, and I gave a Reiki session, which was quite nice. After that we went to the beach for a while, which was when I dunked my feet.

I was hoping to get a bike ride in today. My bike needs some maintenance; I got a set of allen wrenches the other day hoping that it would be enough to get me back on the road. So when I went to fix it today, I discovered that I have a broken spoke on the rear wheel. So I need to take the wheel in for repair.

Since a bike ride was out of the question, I decided to go to the gym for a workout. It was a quick one, strenuous but good. I tried a new strategy on the elliptical machine; I used less resistance and moved at a higher speed. It felt good.

I also did another shovelglove routine when I got home. My shoulder seems pretty much back to normal. I got one twinge in the gym, but it feels much, much better today.

I made a great dinner for my family, and we spent some good time together today. Had a nice evening with my wife, and then a fantastic phone conversation to end my day.

Tomorrow will be another shovelglove routine (I’m going to try to do the daily M-F routine this week), and then I’ll be in the studio all day, reinstalling sonar and resuming work on the Freakwitch project while our kids play outside in the beautiful day.

Life is good.

Physicality redux

My arms and shoulders are feeling strong on one hand, and a bit disconcertingly sore on the other. I’ve been working my upper body more with both the shovelglove and in the gym. Though I’ve had to be a bit gentle with the shovelglove; the site says:

Swinging a sledgehammer around like a spastic maniac is dangerous. But I haven’t found anything to suggest that these movements, when properly performed by sane, healthy people, are especially risky.

So I’m sad to say, the first day on the beach (see below) I may have been a bit too close to “spastic maniac.” My shoulders are a bit sore, not in a worked-and-pleasantly-aching-muscles kind of way, but in a wow-I-must-have-stretched-some-connective-tissue kind of way. The pain isn’t bad by any stretch, but it is a bit worrisome. I don’t want to hurt myself.

I did a full shovelglove routine a few days ago, restricting myself to the “official” shovelglove movements, and it was quite a nice workout. I’ve laid off since then, to give my shoulders a chance to rebound.

I’ll give the shovelglove routine another go on Monday, to see what happens with that. I want to get to the normal routine (14 minutes/day, M-F) as soon as possible, but the shovelglove routine works my arms in a way that I’m not used to so I will need to build up to that intellgiently.

But, so far so good. Apart from the mild concern over my shoulders, I feel great!

I’m also reassessing my approach to cardio workouts. I’ve been using the elliptical machine in the gym, but I’ve noticed that my legs seem to be getting weaker or more fragile. So I want to try something different for a while. The shovelglove workout it largely cardio, esp. once my muscles get used to it, so I think that will substitute. Also, it’s warmer out; walking and biking are in the works. I need to pick up some allen wrenches to get my bike back on the road, though.

production

Been trying to keep up with work lately. Not much to report, except that typesetting is moving forward again, and Freakwitch data management is kicking some butt.

I did something stupid with Knoppix tonight; ran it on the studio box to repartition the hard drive and ended up hosing the entire drive. Not a big problem as all the data was backed up, so I just made new partitions, started from scratch, reinstalled windows, and I’m good to go. I do need to reinstall Sonar; I didn’t have the discs with me as I didn’t know I’d need them.

But, as of tonight, we have achieved data redundancy, which is of course essential. Forward momentum.

And I’m really looking forward to Beltane this year, did I mention that?