Facelifting 'royalties'

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/2/2011



Today there are two royalties in desperate straits because of declining popularity and credibility, with each undergoing one monumental facelift after another.

One royalty touting itself as heavenly and the other as an earthly power have both seen their material and political fortunes decline over the last generation. After being rocked by family and/or sexual scandals, each one has now had to resort to—as they’ve previously done for their survival—the technique originated by Edward Bernays (pioneer of modern public relations and nephew of Sigmund Freud) of using great galas with pomp and pageantry, mixing royalty with celebrity — like “Bread and Circus” but in a much grander scale — to mesmerize the throng into accepting their “superiority” and their “right” to demand absolute loyalty from their subjects.

The Vatican has seen its global flock decline rapidly over the last decade while the House of Windsor is still in shock over the attack on Prince Charles’ limo by London’s tuition fee protesters.

The failing faith of Catholics is reflected in the Roman Catholic Church’s dire situation in Latin America, once considered the “continent of faith,” now the “continent of concern” for the Vatican.

In Brazil, where there are more Catholics than in any other country in the world, up to half a million followers are leaving the Church every year. Mexico, with the second largest number of Catholics, has seen a decline of almost 10 percent from the last century. In Colombia, only two out of every three are now Catholic when almost the entire population was such in the 1950s. In Guatemala, one third of the country’s 12 million inhabitants have left the Catholic Church this decade, mostly converting to evangelical Protestantism.

A poll carried out by Unimer Research International revealed that 52 percent of Costa Ricans “no longer believe” in the Catholic Church. We know, of course, that this is happening in the Philippines , too, especially in light of the Church’s unpopular opposition to the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, among other things.

Thus, the Vatican’s fast-track beatification of the late Pope John Paul II (PJPII), which opens the door to his early sainthood, is obviously in response to the crisis of popularity and credibility of the Catholic empire. The belief in the righteousness of this effort, however, even among Catholic luminaries, is by no means universal.

The current pope, Benedict XVI, waived the five-year waiting period for PJPII’s canonization allegedly for “responding to the will of the people.” But it was also most likely to preempt disturbing questions, such as that of Fr. Richard Vega, president of the US National Federation of Priests’ councils, who said that “…the normal five-year wait would have allowed more time to examine John Paul’s relationship with Maciel” (Mexican-born Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, disgraced founder of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement, found guilty of raping underaged males and also fathering at least one child). Others are even more pointed.

Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister criticized PJPII’s “attitude toward clerical sex abuse of children,” saying it “embodied the worst kind of clericalism,” adding that, “The least the church could do in respect for those who have already suffered insult at the hands of the church is to let the perspective of time decide whether or not canonization is in order.”

Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane said other causes for canonization should have had more priority — particularly assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero’s, calling yesterday’s beatification of the late pontiff “somewhat premature.”

Outside Catholicism, Rev. Charles Curran, professor of theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas , who claims not to have any objection to PJPII’s beatification, said the church “would be a lot better off if we stopped canonizing popes, bishops, clergy and religious.”

I obtained these from an article by Joshua McElwee in the National Catholic Reporter, where there are more criticisms of the rushed beatification.

On the much darker side of PJPII are the published stories, not incontrovertible but certainly with much basis to consider, of suppression of dissent within the Catholic Church especially in regard to liberation theology and its socialist underpinnings — arguments that some see as justification for the rightwing pogroms in Latin America against progressive priests and activists.

There is the established fact that PJPII operated with the CIA in mobilizing the Polish Solidarity movement, triggering insurrection and establishing the pattern for failed “revolutions” in East Europe. As a 2009 survey of Polish sentiment after two decades of the Solidarity government reported, “…when asked what in the country has changed for the worse in comparison with the communist era, Poles most often mention high unemployment, poor health care, the higher cost of living, low wages, widespread poverty, corruption, and social and economic inequality.” It is the same pattern in almost all of former Soviet Eastern Europe.

A new book, co-authored by Marco Ansaldo, a journalist with the Italian paper La Repubblica, and Turkish journalist Yasemin Taskin, raises evidence that this was US State Secretary Gen. Alexander Haig’s order to blame communists for what was actually an independent act of an outlawed ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist Islamic group (“Grey Wolves”) that papal assassin Mehmet Agca was part of. Agca was later forced by Italian secret service and the CIA to implicate Bulgaria.

Over and above all these, however, is the question of PJPII’s financial dealings. It must be remembered that he took over from the “Smiling Pope” John Paul I, Albino Luciani, who served only 33 days and was poisoned (as documented in “In God’s Name” by David Yallop) because of the reforms he initiated, especially financial reforms.

When PJPII took over, none of these reforms were pursued. Instead, he set a record of profligacy in his travels that he appointed Jaime Cardinal Sin to the Special Commission on Finance to raise funds — even from the Philippines. The worst, however, is still his whitewash of John Paul I’s murder.

As for British Royalty’s crooked-teethed lords and knock-kneed ladies, we’ll wait for the next royal’s murder to say more.

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