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The Pope and "Dictatorship of
Relativism"
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
I spent quality time in the morning of
Tuesday, April 19, 2004, reading up any thing I could find on
the internet about Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, and by noon that
day, I was almost certain, and had even begun to say it to those
around me, that Ratzinger would most likely replace late John
Paul II as pope of the Roman Catholics. Perhaps, I was not just
guessing, but merely expressing some latent wish, tucked away
somewhere in the inner recesses of my mind.
Indeed, after examining some portions of
Cardinal Ratzinger's pre-conclave homily delivered at St.
Peter's Square the previous day, I became convinced, for some
reasons that may not appeal to too many people, including even
Ratzinger himself, that this is the man needed for this eleventh
hour, to set the tone for an urgent revival of vigorous
evangelization which an ill-digested and grossly misapplied
notion of ecumenism and inter-religious cooperation have since
murdered and buried in a shallow grave.
Said the 78 year old Cardinal from Germany who became Pope
Benedict XVI later on Tuesday, April 19: "A dictatorship of
relativism is being built that recognizes nothing as definite,
and which leaves as the ultimate measure only one's ego and
desires .Having a clear faith, according to the credo of the
church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Yet, relativism,
that is, letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every
wind of teaching', appears the sole attitude acceptable to
today's standards."
Since this statement reverberated around the world, and the man
who made it was later named the next pope, the press,
especially, in Europe and the United States, have been awash
with commentaries conveying the unsparing disapproval and
disappointment of majority of Westerners. They had expected,
they said, that the new pope would lower the ropes to
accommodate their boundless hedonism and sickening
licentiousness, which now constitute another form of religion in
those parts.
The Western world, proud heir to a most
decadent culture, has been totally overrun by several degenerate
"liberals" whose sole aim is to collapse the thin wall
between the body of Christ and extreme and insidious secularism.
I have no problems with the new pope's stance, and have in fact,
been a bit worried by statements that have lately emanated from
the Vatican appearing to hint at a likelihood of slight shifting
from that "hardline" position.
It is quite clear to me that the pope was
merely echoing a very simple, but eternally rock-solid fact,
namely, that the opposite of truth can only be a lie, not
another kind of truth. Truth is immutable. Everything around
truth can change and be corrupted, but truth retains the
unfailing capacity to survive the storms of innovations,
revisions, and modernism.
Perhaps, people may claim to have revised the
truth, but they have only deceived themselves, because what they
have actually done was to devise a caricature, a parody of the
truth. The original truth remains, untampered with, and only
discovered and cherished by sincere seekers of it.
These days, we hear people, even those who purport to be
Christian religious leaders, say: if a traditionalist endeavours
to remain faithful to the tenets of his religion, and equally
keeps his hands straight (whatever that means), he will surely
make heaven.
In the late 1980s, I used to listen to one
Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Raymond Arazu, a very intelligent man, on the
Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS), Enugu, and was always
shocked hearing him defending such things as heathen
incantations, sacrifices, and lots of pagan practices and
beliefs. There are many others like him, who have written
extensively with deep conviction and fervour in that vein.
Now, this is the kind of confusion that
waters the ground for what Ratzinger had called,
"dictatorship of relativism." Nothing is definite any
more. Nothing is totally true or totally false. These are
purporting to propagate a Christ they have never met, and preach
a gospel they have never believed. They are "tossed and
'swept along by every wind of teaching.'" For them,
"seven is good, eight is also good," like one village
drunk used to say.
Indeed, because what is involved here is the very important
issue of one's eternal abode, I am not ready to get caught up in
any maze of confusion, and get my soul damned. Now we hold it to
be true that NOT every religion or even group within Christendom
has the truth of God. There is no denying the fact that a lot of
them were unambiguously inspired by the devil himself, to
mislead men and women and lure them away from the truth that
saves.
And because, I know precisely what I am
saying, I think it would amount to asking too much to expect me
to go out of my way to endorse any other religion or even group
within Christendom whose teachings and practices clearly
contradict God's revealed Word, the Bible. The same way, I do
not expect any of them to readily endorse mine, without first of
all being unreservedly convinced about the genuineness of what I
am propagating. If they truly believe that they have found the
way of salvation, they should try to persuade me (not force me)
to follow them.
So long as violence is eschewed, and the
right of the other party to either accept or reject our message
is recognized and respected, every attempt to win others over to
our faiths is healthy.
Now, let me give one personal example to buttress the point I am
making. I used to be an ardent Roman Catholic. I began serving
at Mass at the tender age of nine. By 1978 when Karol Josef
Wojtyla emerged victorious in the papal election and became Pope
John Paul II, I was in the Seminary training to be a priest. But
right now, I am no more a Roman Catholic.
My decision to discontinue my priestly
training was a costly one, because, years were really wasted.
But I had to stand by my decision, preferring Bible-backed
teachings over and above any other doctrine, no matter how
beautifully crafted. Now, I do not expect my Roman Catholic
friends to just look at me and say: it is okay, stay where you
are; so long as you remain faithful to the truth you have
discovered, then you will go to heaven from there; and don't
also try to win us over; we will equally go to heaven, by
remaining with the teachings you no longer believe in!
I think there is a problem here. Between the two of us, one
party must be right, and we do not need to pass on to the great
beyond, when every opportunity to make amends has been lost, to
know who is right. We need to, in an atmosphere, devoid of
rancour, try to help each other, and decide what is the truth,
in the light of the Scriptures, and then follow it.
Or is there any other thing at stake here
beyond getting our souls saved? Indeed, there must be a
definite, unambiguous truth about salvation, not a multiplicity
of ways. That's the point, I think, Ratzinger was making, and if
ecumenism or inter-religious harmony is meant to smother this
fact, then the devil has played a fast one on us, to kill and
bury evangelization as the Apostles practiced it, keep
multitudes in perpetual darkness and damn their souls
eventually.
Indeed, if all faiths are genuine Jesus would not have given us
the Great Commission, to go and win the souls of men and women
held captive by diverse sins and erroneous religious beliefs.
When Paul arrived in Athens and saw that the town was wholly
given to idolatry, he didn't encourage them to remain steadfast
to their various faiths. He instead, preached to them the God
they did not know. And many of them were won over.
Take also the case of Cornelius and the
Ethiopian Eunuch. Peter and Philip were sent to them
respectively, to show them the Way. So there is a Way, one Way,
to salvation. And any arrangement that discourages its
propagation, is totally anti-Christ and un-Christian. So, I want
to have "a clear faith", but not "according to
the credo of the (Roman) Church", as Ratzinger declared in
his homily, but according to the Scriptures of truth, where God
revealed His mind to mankind.
Finally, men and women should stop deceiving themselves.
Homosexuals and Sodomists are also wanting the Church to grant
them license to go on with their abominable acts. Now, assuming
the Church endorses their action today, does that then make it
right before God? How can a stamp of approval from Rome make
abortion to be anything less than undisguised, cruel murder? Why
are people bent on deceiving themselves?
My take is that these people might as well stay put at their
dark corners, wallowing in their cherished abominations until
they are prepared to be Christians. After all, the whole thing
about going to Church is to hear the truth that will help one
get one's soul saved. The decision to spend eternity in hell, no
doubt, is the right of everyone to make.
Scruples2006@yahoo.com* * *
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 15 July 2008
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