ZEITGEIST

This is one of the most powerful films I've ever seen. It is up on Google video, but a mass global showing is intended for March 15th 2008. Further info is available here (and from where it can be downloaded).

Zeitgeist (Ihr 57 mins) brilliantly trashes Christianity as an "astrotheological mythical hybrid". It trashes the official versions of 9/11 and 7/7. It reveals the reason behind the US entry into 2 world wars and Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. It exposes the charade that is the US Federal Reserve System. It exposes the power of the media in mind control. And it shows how all the aforementioned are linked and that the real war going on is one that is being waged every day, against all of us.

If this does not shock you, scare you, anger you rouse you to activity, then settle down and watch this one by Michael Ruppert.

HSTORICAL SPREAD OF RELIGION

Five thousand years of religion in 90 seconds? Now there's a thing. If only the history of religion on the planet had have lasted 90 seconds!

Let the BNP have their communion

Today’s Guardian reports on a speech made to church leaders by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, in which he states that BNP policies demand a forceful response from established churches and that BNP supporters be excluded from holy communion.

The Methodist Chuch has joined the fray, creating a website called Countering Political Extremism, seemingly a response to the BNP front organization Christian Council of Britain .
Said Mr Phillips: “I feel rage that my church might expect me to be in communion with such as Nick Griffin. This is where Christ puts us to the test.”

Revolutionary Act, ever striving to tell it like it is, ever ready to challenge the god myth promoters, wonders why Mr Phillips singles out those with racist policies. Surely any ‘true’ Christian – are there any? I’ve personally only ever met one – would be prepared to forgive the bone-headed transgressors of the BNP. The more fundamentalist god-botherers would take a stern biblical line and refuse communion to anyone who cocked a snook at the teachings of the “good book”.

Every religion has its doctrinal code of right and wrong. In Christianity this manifests as the Ten Commandments. If adherence to these Christian imperatives was the benchmark by which believers received or were refused communion then not only would churches be abiotic places but the entire capitalist class and their executive in government would be forbidden forever from partaking of the host.

Politicians are fond of starting wars on behalf of their capitalist cronies, either over trade routes, foreign markets, areas of influence etc. Bang goes the 6th Commandment: Thou shall not kill.
Politicians, as the tabloids are so wont to report, are the most polygamous bunch of reprobates in existence. Bang goes the 7th Commandment: Though shall not commit adultery.

Assisting with the robbery of the working class aside, on behalf of their capitalist cronies, politicians also commence wars with a view to securing the interests of their respective capitalist class – i.e. stealing Middle Eastern oil, not to mention small countries and islands ( Diego Garcia springs instantly to mind). In other words they are complicit in thievery. Bang goes the 8th Commandment: Thou shall not steal.Politicians are notoriously unforthcoming with the truth.

They lie and utter distortions at every opportunity for political gain. Bang goes the 9th Commandment - the one about telling porkies.

And breaching the 8th, above, goes hand-in-glove with the 10th Commandment - the one about coveting your neighbour’s goods.

So, straight off the cuff, there are five major biblical Commandments transgressed by politicians and sticky-fingered capitalists every day of the week. Indeed their entire raison d’etre lies in breaching the same at every opportunity. The crimes they enact each day could fill many volumes, yet Mr Phillips sees no wrong in their ways. They are welcome to share the body and blood of Christ.

It is instructive that Mr Phillips does not cite any objection to sharing communion with the likes of Blair and Bush and every other blood-drenched reprobate currently strutting their arrogance across the world stage, leaving in their wake mayhem, misery and disaster. His venom is reserved for a handful of degenerate pitiables in the BNP, who openly promote the politics of race. Since when has the Labour or Conservative parties or, in the US the Democrats and Repukes, been whistle-clean of the charge of racism?

Considering religion has been used as a tool for hoodwinking the masses for millennia, to mask the worst exigencies of the reign of the powerful for hundreds of years, to lend them a veil of respectability to help conceal the filth of corruption that oozes from each of their collective pores, I can think of no better place for a rotten politician than in a church munching on the host.Let the BNP share the mystery of transubstantiation!

Jesus in the Dock (4)

One of the many email lists I am signed up for is the Luigi Casciloli list - this being the Italian atheist and ex-priest, who began legal proceedings in the Italian courts to get another priest to prove that Jesus existed and that he was the son of God. Anyway, the following was in my email box this morning:

Luigi Cascioli has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights

Italy (Viterbo) - Following the January 27th. 2006 hearing, which resulted in the filing of the denounce against the Catholic Church, in the person of don Enrico Righi, priest of Bagnoregio, with which ends the legal procedure of the Italian Law, Luigi Cascioli has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg). Considering it is the Court to which any person may appeal when a "cause is not publicly judged or it is by a judge who has dimostrated not being independent and impartial", in his own country (Art. II -107 European Convention). We will soon publish a review of the filing of the cause spoken about. http://www.luigicascioli.it/home_eng.php

Exposing The Jesus Myth

I transcribe the following from an old anarcho-punk newspaper, named Profane Existence, that I was given at a demo about 4 years ago. I’ve looked for the piece on the www but without success. This following article was on the back page and certainly needs a wider audience. Please redistribute – especially to priests, bishops and secondary school religious teachers.

In order to prove that Jesus Christ existed, one must have basic historical facts that can be agreed upon in official records. Though it doesn't necessarily make Jesus a historic figure to assign him a birthplace or a birthday, it's a good start. Unfortunately, neither the bible nor church documents can sustain the claim that Jesus was born on the twenty-fifth of December (a date assigned to most of the saviours of the ancient world, including: Adonis, Attis, Pan, Bacchus, Osiris and Dionysus among countless others). Even the Bible cannot agree with itself, in Luke (1.199), Jesus is said to have been born during the time of Quirinus, making his birth a fourteen-year difference from the time of Matthew (1.199).

So the day and year aren't known exactly; so what! That doesn't mean anything. Unless one realises that his most intimate friends supposedly wrote the gospels during the lifetimes of his mother and siblings Understanding that Jesus' birth is not verifiable through any written document is essential to knowing that he wasn't a real person and only a Universal sun myth (consider this: Jesus' death was accompanied by the darkening of the sun, his resurrection happens to be the date of the vernal equinox, and that this date has progressively shifted from the 25th December to the 6th January). (3.272).

What about the events surrounding his birth? Are they real? No, and they can easily be refuted with a little knowledge of world mysticism and language. In the Gospels, the word for stable is Katalemna, but this word’s actual meaning is a temporary shelter or cave (1.32). Among the babies born in a cave is Pan, Mithras, and Zeus (again...there are many more). The birth of Mithras was said to have been witnessed by three shepherds, equivalent to Jesus’ three wise men (1.33). Even the presents offered unto Jesus were those offered to Adonis, whose sacred incense was myrrh.

The town of Bethlehem was the supposed birthplace of this supposed saviour. The name Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’. Adonis was the god of corn and the god of bread. The star that the three wise men had followed to the birth of Jesus was, in Egypt, a yearly omen of the flooding of the Nile. The flooding of the Nile is associated with the ‘world renewing power of Osiris,’ so it is obvious that this star symbolised in the ancient world the ‘coming of the lord’ (1.33).

What of the miraculous virgin birth? It seems that this too is simply an appropriation of mythology. Throughout most of the ancient religions it is extremely common to have a god impregnate a virgin woman (3.275). From China to Siam and even Mexico to Palestine, all gods chose the method of impregnating virgin women to come into this world. Jesus was born to Mary, Buddha to Maia (as well as Hermes), Agni to Maya, Adonis to Myrrha, Bacchus to Myrrha, and so on (2.301). Most, if not all of these women, ascended to heaven and each were known as ‘Queen of Heaven’.

What about the surrounding situation of this god-man’s death? Well, ‘Good Friday falls not before the spring equinox, but as soon after the spring equinox as the full moon allows, thus making the calculation depend upon the position of the sun in the zodiac and the phases of the moon.’ (3.273). What did that mean? It meant that the festival originally designed to celebrate the Pagan goddess of fertility, Oestera, has become what the Christians now call Easter.

Needless to say, the eggs and rabbits are symbols of fertility and NOT Jesus’ crucifixion.
This calls into question whether or not Jesus was in fact crucified. Cross has a general meaning of stake in the New Testament. Jews used to display the bodies of those they had stoned to death on stakes. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says that Jesus was “hung on a tree”, and so does St Paul in his letter to the Galatians. Attis and Adonis were both hung on a tree as well, the latter being known as “He on the tree.”

Before the crucifixion, both Jesus and Dionysus wore purple robes, crowns - the former of thorns, the latter of ivy – and both were given wine to drink. Jesus dies next to two thieves. One goes up to heaven with him and the other goes to hell. Eleusis, as well as Dionysus and Mithras, have on their side two torch-bearers, one pointing the torch upwards and the other pointing the torch downwards (symbolising the ascent to heaven and the descent to hell) (1.51). The story originates with the Greek brothers Castor and Pollux, which on alternate days are given the name “The Sons of Thunder,” which in the gospel of Mark are what Jesus calls James and John.

Aside from this immense amount of evidence showing that Christians merely thieved the ideas from their predecessors, there is much more found in other religions. In fact there are fifteen crucified saviours, inclusive of Krishna, Odin, Hesus (not Jesus), Quetzalcoatl, Criti, Baili, and Indra (2.352). Therefore, the crucifixion is an appropriation of Pagan symbolism (the cross originally symbolising spirit in the centre of the four elements). Early Christians and Buddhists wore the swastika because it was a good luck sign meaning “it is well” in Sanskrit. As the Church grew in power they wanted to instil a sense of guilt and therefore changed their symbol into a slaughtered lamb, and then a crucified saviour paying for the sins of the world.

The Jesus story can not even stand up to the criticism of a rational and fairly knowledgeable person, so how can the rest of the beliefs contained within the bible be true? Well, even though the literary works written down during the time of Jesus’ supposed birth to a century after can fill libraries, its interesting to know that neither Jesus nor the twelve disciples are mentioned - and Christianity only get a few paragraphs at the most (1.133). So how is it that Christians can ascertain that there were twelve disciples? Because there have been few god-saviours who did not have twelve apostles or messengers.

Numbers were very important to ancient mythological stories, especially the numbers 12, 7, 3 and 40. For instance, Jacob had twelve sons, there were 12 tribes of Israel, twelve months in the year, 12 gates or pillars of heaven and the Jews were in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus fasted for 40 days; from the resurrection to the ascension were forty days. Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days. Noah and Hercules were swallowed by a whale, at exactly the same place – Jappo – and were inside the whale for 3 days, the same number of days between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. The feeding of the five thousand – a miracle interestingly also performed by Elisha in 2 Kings 43-44 – happened with 2 fish and five loaves of bread, equalling seven. In Mark 18:17-21 Jesus is trying to make his disciples understand that his stories are meant to be taken as complex allegories involving numbers. Jesus says: ”To you it is given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God. But to the rest of them it is only given in allegories.” In Luke 8:1, Jesus admits to speaking in riddles and parables yet only the literal world has been spoken for centuries. Perhaps the message has been “misrepresented” by religious authorities on purpose.

Early Church fathers Origen and Clement tried to establish Christianity amongst Pagans by using the argument that it would be absurd to believe in Paganism and not Christianity. Why would it be absurd? Because of the extreme similarities that they themselves acknowledged (3.273). As a result of the likeness between Pagan religions and Christianity, the latter continued to grow. Alterations of biblical documents, addition of forgeries, and addition of previously held heretical books and the omission of parts of the Bible became a norm in the Church.

Eventually fanatics came up with the idea known as Diabolical Mimicry to refute the Pagan claim that they were using their ideas to gain power (1.26). Diabolic Mimicry holds that the devil knew the Jesus story thousands of years before and so had created religions similar to Christianity in order to keep people astray from the one true saviour. Unfortunately, for the masses, Christian dogma had won favour with the Roman politicians and this idea was forced onto the people through heresy hunting (the killing of anyone who held different ideas to the Church) mass slaughters (of Pagan followers, “witches”, and other freethinkers), war and repression (1.244-6). All Pagan books were ordered to be burned. Pope Gregory VII burned the Apollo Library. Emperor Theodosius burned 27,000 ancient scrolls. Ptolemy Philadelphius burned 270,000 ancient documents and after 1233 more than 25,000 were burned (even some in the new world). The tragedy is that most of the works burned had nothing to do with Paganism – they were scientific documents seized by illiterate peasants.

So what is the true legacy of the Church after two thousand years? A Church built upon the ruins of an old Pagan temple that symbolises racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual repression guilt, organised crime and HATE!

Sources:

1. The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Ghandi.

2. Deceptions and Myths of the Bible by Loyd M Graham.

3. The Truth About Jesus by M.M Mangasarian, found in You Are being Lied To,

edited by Russ Kick

The Jesus jokes are safe

Tony Blair was somewhat shamed in the House of Commons last night when he failed to cast the single vote needed to save the Government from defeat over its plans to introduce a new offence of incitement to religious hatred, and in so doing unwittingly allowed blogs like this the freedom to continue putting the much-needed and proverbaial boot into religion.

Blair, for some reason, neglected to vote in a second division when MPs voted by 283 votes to 282, majority one, to back safeguards inserted by the Lords. Had Blair voted, then the division would have been tied, leaving the deciding vote the Speaker, who more than likely would have voted with the pro-Blair faction.

Acknowledging that the Bill, as amended, would still go on the statute book, Home Sec Charles Clarke said: “The Government accepts the decision of the House this evening. We are delighted the Bill is going to its Royal Assent and delighted we have a Bill which deals with incitement against religious hatred."

Because of the Lords amendments, only "threatening" behaviour will be unlawful - the government efforts to prohibit "abusive or insulting" actions having been drop-kicked into the history books. People cannot be now prosecuted for recklessly inciting religious hatred. Instead, prosecutors will have to prove they intended to do so.

So, the Commons has voted to accept amendments designed to ensure only the most menacing statements would be caught by the law. Under the amended Bill statements would only be illegal if they were "threatening", removing an attempt to ban "abusive or insulting" statements and behaviour, all of which I guess makes sense. I'm not into into urging people to harm the religious, but I'm all for hitting out at organised religion's bloody absurdity when the opportunity arises, and if this upsets people, then tough! And no doubt the police in Glasgow will be delighted - the Bill, as it stands, saves them having to cart 50,000 gers and boyz fans down to the nick after a local derby.

From what I can make out the Bill is still ambiguous as to what exactly qualifies as a religion – the capitalistic worship of the god mammon? - and whether it counts if the religious incite hatred towards those who are ant-religious (like me), which is still a religious stance and, indeed, just what qualifies as “hatred” and “incite”. I mean I hate organised religion and wish to help nurture in people a revolutionary class consciousness which would consequently mean they would imbibe a hatred for religion too, but is this “inciting hatred”? Hmmmmm.

Update:

Blair, by all acounts, missed the aforementioned vote because he was wathching a football game. When it comes to issues of national importance, Fulham FC will come first every time.

Jesus Christ Again

I copy the following from the Anarchist Federation’s * December-January newsletter Resistance, which I picked up at a meeting in London yesterday and which should be read in conjunction with the earlier posting (Jesus in the dock).

THE CHRISTIAN CHARITY Breakfast Trust are upset because some switched-on, street-wise kid asked why Mary and Joseph named their baby after a swear word (Jesus Christ)! So they have spent. £200,000 making a 30-minute animated film called “It’s A Boy!”, featuring the voices, of among others, Cannon and Ball (nauseating British comedy duo), with music by the celestial Wanker Virgin Sir Cliff Richard! A copy is being sent to every primary school in Wales. Geraint Davies, secretary of the teachers’ union NASUWT thinks it’s a good resource and should be widely used in the run up to Christmas.

The indoctrination of children with a fictitious story about the birth of Jesus (the Xmas story) is rather perverted and sick considering Jesus never actually existed as a person. Yes, that’s right, he’s a construct. A myth! If you want proof check out Brian Flemming’s revealing film “The God Who wasn’t There” at www.thegodmovie.com. You will discover that the early founders of Christianity seem wholly unaware of the idea of a human Jesus. The Jesus of the Gospels bears a striking resemblance to other ancient heroes and figureheads of pagan saviour cults.

Christianity borrowed its central myths and ceremonies from ancient religions. The ancient world was rife with tales of virgin births, miracle-working saviours, tripartite gods, gods taking human form, gods arising from the dead, heaven and hells, and days of judgement.

Many of the ceremonies of ancient religions match those of Christianity, e.g. consider Mithraism. Mithra, the saviour of the Mithraic religion and a god who took human form, was born of a virgin. He belonged to a holy trinity and was a link between heaven and earth. And he ascended into heaven after his death. His followers believed in heaven and hell, looked forward to a day of judgement and referred to Mithra as “the light of the world”. They also practiced baptism (for purification purposes) and ritual cannibalism – the eating of bread and the drinking of wine to symbolize the eating and drinking of he god’s body and blood. Given all this Mithra’s birthday should come as no surprise: December 25th. This event was celebrated by Mithra’s followers at midnight. But Christians today aren’t obsessed with blood and violence, are they?

Bush: “God Told Me to Invade Iraq”. Now this cruel and bloodthirsty religion is to be used to corrupt our children. Jesus Christ indeed!

* A few decent downloads can be had from the AF site, including Resistance.

Father Dear Father

A comrade in Northern Ireland has alerted me to a story in his local paper . One Father Dillane - who was regarded in his parish as a 'good sport' and a popular priest - has fathered a child. Nothing unusual in that, you may say; the point is FATHER Dunane is 73 and the mother of the child is 31 and their relationship has been ongoing for 9 years.

Way to go, pops!!! Celebrate, not celebate! Father Jack Hackett (pictured) , eat your heart out.

The God Who Wasn't There

What an interesting year this looks to be for religious nutters. Not only will Revelations fanatics be focusing on the 6th June, for obvious reasons, a date that will also to see the release of the film The Beast, but at the end of January one Father Enrico Righi will appear in an Italian court in an attempt to prove that Jesus actually existed.

Luigi Cascioli, ex-priest, atheist and author of The Fable of Christ, has brought a case against Don Enrico Righi after the latter ridiculed Cascioli for querying whether Christ actually existed. Cascioli’s case is that there is no dependable or contemporary proof that Christ ever really lived, which makes Father Righi guilty of "an abuse of popular credulity" and the Roman Catholic hierarchy guilty of "substitution of persons" which, in Italy, are crimes.

On his website, and it’s well worth checking out, Luigi says: “ It is the first time in the history of mankind that a religion is prosecuted directly in a law case that will end with a verdict regarding specific and defined crimes, which is the abuse of popular credulity and belief (article 661, Italian criminal code) and the substitution of person (494, Italian criminal code). “

Judge Gaetano Mautone initially declined to hear the case until the court of appeal found that he was obligated to take up the case and that Father Righi had a case to answer. Consequently, the judge will ask Father Righi to provide proof that not only did the biblical Jesus live in the area we know as Palestine, but that he was also the son of God.

I’m not counting on this case going Cascioli’s way – just too much is at stake; the capitalist class risk losing too much of a weapon of subversion from their arsenal, but this case is going to be riveting for lapsed-catholics/atheists like myself to see the Jesus myth exposed to so much scrutiny, and in this respect it can’t do the case for Socialism any harm at all. When common sense takes a step forward, religion takes a step back

Also getting a lot of publicity at the moment is the film The God Who Wasn’t There. Check this site out - I'm sure Cascioli would approve! The film can actually be downloaded at http://www.newnova.org/ and at www.thepiratebay.org . This film, by Brian Flemming, who is also behind The Beast (above) claims to do for the Jesus myth what Bowling for Columbine did for the gun culture and Supersize Me did for the Big Mac.

Mark the 6th June in your diaries – looks to be an interesting day.

Death of a Pope

Being brought into a discussion on the death of Karol Wojtyla, alias Pope John Paul II, with a few elderly ladies while waiting for a bus, I commented that they would be wiser contemplating the hundreds of thousands he had sent to their deaths than mourning the passing of this enemy of their class. The ladies were visibly shocked, said I was out of order and that I shouldn’t speak so irreverently of someone so holy. I tried to explain my remark, but they were having none of it.

Like countless millions around the world, they had undoubtedly been caught up in that media-generated tsunami of sentiment that swept around the world when news of the Pope’s death was broadcast; ready to defend the claims made by announcers on the TV news and in the 20-page papal death exclusives the press was churning out, that a living saint had died. One hundred and fifty world leaders were going to Rome to pay their respects to one of the “greatest men” who had lived, so I was in no position to pass sacrilegious judgement.

Days later the Pope’s funeral was reported as the biggest in history. It had attracted 70 presidents, dozens of prime ministers, the leaders of 14 religions, nine kings and queens and countless other dignitaries. Joining this farcical parade of the infamous were 4 million devout followers of the Catholic Church who had descended on Rome from all over the world.

The very fact that 150 world leaders, the heads of the executive body of world capitalism, were keen to attend this funeral must have suggested something. Karol Wojtyla was on their side and was clearly perceived as being a man who promoted their case. Had he been a critic of the profit system, had he publicly criticised the world’s corporate elite and the governments who defend their interests by any means, they’d have spat on his grave. As it turned out, this was like a big mafia don’s funeral at which the gangster fraternity had turned out to pay their last respects to a fellow enemy of law and order.

John Paul’s 28 years in the Vatican were certainly controversial. He lived through interesting times, as the saying goes, and like any Pope worth his salt involved himself in world political affairs when it was convenient to do so and made acquaintances with many world leaders, yet rebuked none of them.

He, for instance, referred to Chilean dictator, Pinochet, and his wife as “an exemplary Christian couple”. When this enemy of Chilean democracy, who had killed tens of thousands of his opponents, was arrested and charged with crimes against humanity, the Pope waded in on his defence demanding his release, stating that as a Chilean leader at the time of his crimes he was entitled to immunity – a kind of papal infallibility for fascists.

Throughout South America, John Paul sided with the forces of reaction, supporting right wing elites and restraining the ‘liberation theologians’ of the Church who had made common cause with the impoverished masses. The papal nuncios to the Chilean and Argentinean military dictatorships he promoted to cardinals. In Central America, he reproached members of the clergy who had sided with the Sandinistas and promoted to the status of cardinal one arch-bishop who had opposed the Sandinistas and their attempts to improve the lives of the poor.

Few news reports on the Pope’s death did not refer to his time in the Vatican during the dying days of the Kremlin’s empire. Some reporters were even bold enough to claim that it was his intervention in the Polish political scene in the 1980’s that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The rise of Solidarity and working class militancy in Poland at the beginning of the 1980s panicked governments around the world. The ‘communists’ of eastern Europe feared a growing threat to their rule, while the governments of the west saw the mobilisation of an angry section of society that could only inspire militancy in their own countries.

While John Paul wished to see the end of Stalinist rule, he was keen this should not be via violent revolution and, moreover, at the hands of left wing sections of Polish society, but by the right. Here he had the backing of the USA. In 1980 John Paul granted an audience to a group headed by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and in the coming years the Vatican would find $tens of millions to finance Solidarity’s struggle.

Make no mistake; the Vatican was not openly supporting the demands of the workers in their struggle against an undemocratic, unaccountable Stalinist bureaucracy—what was the Vatican if not undemocratic, unaccountable and bureaucratic?—but to contain the movement, to see it had the guidance of nationalistic and right-leaning Catholic ideologues and to ensure it’s confrontation with the Polish leadership did not get out of hand and win larger international support from workers.

Many news commentators referred to the 473 beatifications under the JP papacy, a figure that is twice the number of saints made in the previous 400 years. One can only assume that with more social problems facing humanity than at any time in its history the Pope thought we needed an increase in the number of saints to pray to for help in solving them.

However, among those beatified and elevated to the ranks of the saints by John Paul II was the anti-Semite Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius XII, the latter being the same Pius who collaborated with the fascist regimes in Spain, Italy and Germany. Pius XII ordered the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany to steer clear of political activity, to close its political parties and to stifle its newspapers. Hitler would refer to this Papal move as "a great achievement" and of enormous advantage in the "fight against international Jewry". Under Pius’ watchful eye, the Catholic Church went on to collaborate in the "racial certification" of all Germans and refused to openly condemn Hitler when it was know that millions were being sent to the extermination camps.

Also elevated to sainthood was Josemaria Escrivá, the founder of the hierarchical and clandestine Opus Die in Madrid in 1928, and described by Hitler as “the saviour of the Spanish church”, along with Mother Theresa who, when questioned on how her opposition to contraception in Calcutta was leading to unnecessary infantile deaths, countered that even a child who breathed only a few hours meant another soul for heaven. For Mother Theresa, suffering was a blessing from the almighty, for it enabled carers to reveal their love for the afflicted.

One scandal the press tended to steer clear of—and one humiliation John Paul was keen to ride out on behalf of Catholicism—was the sexual abuse scandals concerning priests and Church officials. Since the 1950s, 4,450 catholic clergy in the US alone have been accused of molesting children. The allegations have persisted down the years and in spite of a Vatican decree in the 1960s which threatened anyone exposing child sex abuse within the Church with excommunication. John Paul continued the cover-up, issuing an edict demanding Church secrecy in child abuse allegations. The Pope’s ruling on the matter was felt to be so conclusive that one leader of a Spanish seminary persuaded his scholars that he had the Pope's blessing to masturbate them.

John Paul’s complicity in attempting to conceal sexual exploitation in the American, Irish, Austrian and other Churches, and his undermining of the importance of the allegations once they had come to world attention, merely emphasized the Vatican’s double standards on issues of sexual morality.While covering up the excesses of a sexually frustrated clergy who found it impossible to adhere to the vow of chastity, John Paul was ever ready to pronounce papal verdict on homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, divorce, abortion and the use of birth control.

In recent years, in spite of a growing Aids epidemic which now infects tens of millions in impoverished countries, the Vatican withdrew its support from those organisations that distributed free condoms. The head of the Vatican's office on the family, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, propagated the lie that the Aids Virus can pass through microscopic holes in condoms, and John Paul referred to the use of condoms as a ‘culture of death’. In El Salvador, after a long struggle by the Church, packets of condoms were printed with the warning that they did not protect users from the spread if HIV and, in Nigeria, the arch-bishop of Nairobi proclaimed that condoms actually caused Aids.

Undoubtedly, millions who looked to the Catholic Church for guidance, who declined the use of protection during sex, were handed a death sentence. Perhaps millions of women were forced, by fear of the flames of hell, to bring young families into a world of abject poverty and early death through disease and hunger.

Whilst many saw JP as a champion of democracy and human rights, a one man Amnesty International as one commentator suggested in the press, the truth is he was a conscientious defender of the established order of western-style class privilege, even if he did once refer to elected governments as the spreaders of “nihilism” He might have lambasted as an atheistic dogma what many refer to as “socialism” (state capitalism) in Encyclical Centesimus Annus, whether it existed in Eastern Europe or Central America, but this seems to be his only reason – ”socialism” was associated with atheism and therefore was a serious challenge to rule from Rome

More importantly, the Pope headed an organisation with 1.3 billion followers who were encouraged to put their trust in a god and to pray to this god to solve the major problems of the day, thus diminishing people’s faith in their own ability to sort out their own problems and undermining the likelihood of workers uniting and organising with a common objective. Accordingly, the Pope became just another reactionary agent of oppression, like all of his predecessors. And the Vatican’s reactionary credentials are nothing recent. Indeed, it has been part of the foundation of reaction since the start, whether it was urging the masses to obey the Caesars, supporting the feudal hierarchical order, opposing the Protestant reformation or siding with the capitalist class against the workers, determined always to stifle the anger of the oppressed with promises of reward in heaven for their sufferings if they struggle on uncomplainingly, and an eternity in the sulphurous pits of hell if they organised to better their lot.