Debbie Ford Has Passed

I am very saddened to announce that I just learned from one of my Facebook friends that Debbie Ford has passed. She fought a long battle with a rare form of cancer -- something I only knew through mutual friends and did not share for some time. She went public last year with her struggle and her reasons for keeping that part of her life private in a conversation with Oprah.

Ford was a tremendous gift to the spiritual community. She introduced the concept of shadow work to a large segment of the new age world and made it accessible; even palatable. As Jung said, making the darkness conscious is "disagreeable, and therefore, not popular."  She was an amazing teacher with the rare courage to call bullshit on herself, repeatedly. She will be profoundly missed.

Here is a little more of Ford, in her own words, on what she learned from her long struggle with illness.

A site is being set up for people to share their thoughts and feelings. It's not up yet but it will become available at rememberingdebbieford.com.

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Pigs in Zen

I've been so immersed in events erupting from the the scandal-plagued, power-abusing Vatican all week, I missed the news about scandal-plagued, power-abusing Zen teacher Joshu Sasaki. Funnily enough, the latter story broke wide with an article in the paper of record the same day Pope Benedict's resignation was announced. Of course, rumors had dogged the aging leader since the 1970s, but it was in January of this year that an announcement from senior teachers was posted on the Sasaki community website.

In early January, the senior teachers of Sasaki's community admitted in an on-line statement that the community "has struggled with our teacher Joshu Sasaki Roshi's sexual misconduct for a significant portion of his career in the United States."

In truth, to call them rumors is generous. It seems the living legend's inappropriateness was known about and actively enabled for decades. Then, in November of last year,  Zen priest Eshu Martin, who had studied under Sasaki for over ten years, threw down the gauntlet with a post on the Sweeping Zen website. The title, "Everybody Knows – Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi and Rinzai-ji," is an obvious allusion to one of Sasaki's more famous students, Leonard Cohen. This reference does more than point to the fact that Sasaki's behavior was common knowledge. Cohen's masterpiece speaks to the ubiquity of deceit and injustice in this game of life we are all participating in.

Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the founder and Abbot of Rinzai-ji is now 105 years old, and he has engaged in many forms of inappropriate sexual relationship with those who have come to him as students since his arrival here more than 50 years ago. His career of misconduct has run the gamut from frequent and repeated non-consensual groping of female students during interview, to sexually coercive after hours “tea” meetings, to affairs and sexual interference in the marriages and relationships of his students. Many individuals that have confronted Sasaki and Rinzai-ji about this behaviour have been alienated and eventually excommunicated, or have resigned in frustration when nothing changed; or worst of all, have simply fallen silent and capitulated. For decades, Joshu Roshi’s behaviour has been ignored, hushed up, downplayed, justified, and defended by the monks and students that remain loyal to him.

Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Ah give or take a night or two Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just had to meet Without your clothes And everybody knows ~ Leonard Cohen

As is so painfully typical in these situations, abused women who complained were shamed and shunned, while the abusive leader was venerated. From the New York Times story:

Many women whom Mr. Sasaki touched were resident monks at his centers. One woman who confronted Mr. Sasaki in the 1980s found herself an outcast afterward. The woman, who asked that her name not be used to protect her privacy, said that afterward “hardly anyone in the sangha, whom I had grown up with for 20 years, would have anything to do with us.”

. . .

Several women said that Zen can foster an atmosphere of overt sexism. Jessica Kramer, a doula in Los Angeles, was Mr. Sasaki’s personal attendant in 2002. She said that he would reach into her robe and that she always resisted his advances. Surrounded almost entirely by men, she said she got very little sympathy. “I’d talk about it with people who’d say, ‘Why not just let him touch your breasts if he wants to touch your breasts?’ ”

Almost more appalling is the blatant subversion of Buddhist teachings Sasaki used to manipulate women and justify his sexual acting out.

In the council’s report on Jan. 11, the three members wrote of “Sasaki asking women to show him their breasts, as part of ‘answering’ a koan” — a Zen riddle — “or to demonstrate ‘non-attachment.’ ”

. . .

“He would say something like, ‘True love is giving yourself to everything,’ ” she explained. At Mount Baldy, the isolation could hamper one’s judgment. “It can sound trite, but you’re in this extreme state of consciousness,” she said — living at a monastery in the mountains, sitting in silence for many hours a day — “where boundaries fall away.”

Not the first time I've heard a spiritual leader reinterpret the surrender to spirit as a surrender to himself. If you don't surrender to his ego, you're just too much in your ego. Get it? But most appalling was this gem:

One monk, whom Ms. Stubbs said she told about the touching, was unsympathetic. “He believed in Roshi’s style, that sexualizing was teaching for particular women,” Ms. Stubbs said. The monk’s theory, common in Mr. Sasaki’s circle, was that such physicality could check a woman’s overly strong ego. [all emphases mine]

Uppity bitches. Someone had to knock 'em down a peg or two. The irony here is the implicit admission that sexual abuse is not about sex. It's about power and dominance.

Grace Schireson, who was on the "witnessing council" that issued a report on the problem in January, cites the Westernization of a Japanese practice. Interviewed by the Times, she claimed that the Japanese view their teachers with a healthy dose of skepticism and are less inclined to put them on a pedestal. Personally, I find it hard to believe that the Japanese are less deferential to authority than Westerners. I think that basic problem is more a facet of human nature than culture (See Milgram). I put the question to my husband who has spent years studying martial arts, and is fairly well acquainted with Japanese teachers and customs. Leave say, he did not find that to be so. If anything, he found that Japanese teachers are more expectant of deference and that his own teachers were surprised by the "many questions" American students ask.

I have little knowledge of Japanese culture, but I do know that it is notoriously male dominated and incredibly sexist. Groping women on trains is so common in Japan that women-only cars had to be established. Such violations are fetishized, pornogrophized, and popularized in manga.

That said, the report offers a very insightful take on the dynamics that allowed this problem to go on for decades.

When ongoing questions of misuse of sexuality or power unfold in a spiritual community, it is rarely a matter of one person’s actions. Reading through the painful and heartfelt accounts documenting Joshu Sasaki’s sexual relationships with students at Rinzaiji down through the years, we see how, knowingly and unknowingly, the community was drawn into an open secret, and people’s ability to practice the dharma suffered. Despite individual and collective attempts to address boundaries, repentance, and rectification, these behaviors appear to have continued over more than four decades. We have reports that those who chose to speak out were silenced, exiled, ridiculed, or otherwise punished.

Understanding that our practice is to bear what is unbearable and not to turn away from reality, how could this be so? We suggest it has something to do with a view of spiritual authority and “enlightenment” that we in the West have created in the name of Zen. To be fair, this is not just a problem of Zen. It arises in various Buddhist communities, and more widely in other religious congregations. We are unfortunately susceptible to enthrallment, which is hardly "seeing things as they really are." There are certain problems that may arise when one sees a teacher as comprehensively enlightened and fails to deal with the certainty that he or she, like oneself, has a shadow or deluded aspect. We imagine that “enlightenment” is separate from or outside of ourselves. The community may attempt to protect the teacher, the seeming embodiment of enlightenment. If we hold such a model, it is often impossible to recognize or admit that there has been an abuse of power. We fear the loss of our enlightened teacher and thus the opportunity to become enlightened ourselves.

It is not about a single individual, but about a very toxic synergy of power dynamics that can arise in any hierarchical structure. Even a deeply pathological leader cannot maintain a grip on a community unless he is enabled by followers. And even leaders who start out with the best of intentions can be seduced and subverted by the adulation of their followers. (See Zimbardo.) The search for enlightenment is subject to any number of pitfalls if we aren't keeping track of the shadow. (See Jung.)

This scandal put me in mind of a similar one at the Kripalu Institute many years ago -- not because these things are uncommon. They aren't. But because I was a fly on the wall for some of the aftermath of the Kripalu scandal. I spent a week at the Massuchusetts ashram shortly after the whole thing went down. I was just there for some yoga, rest, and relaxation, but it ended up being quite a lesson in the dynamics of disillusionment.

I did a little googling to refresh my memory on some of the details and I came across some interesting perspectives. But first, for those unfamiliar with the particulars:

In 1994, [Amrit] Desai resigned after admitting to having sex with followers.^[2][5][7][8] Kripalu paid $2.5 million to settle a purported class action lawsuit brought by more than 100 former residents who had served as unpaid staff. Kripalu financed the payment partly by selling its adjacent Foxhollow property, which it had acquired to provide housing for its most senior members.^[5][9]

One New York Times article pointed to yet another, more recent yoga scandal. The author manages to completely miss the point.

But this is hardly the first time that yoga’s enlightened facade has been cracked by sexual scandal. Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught?

One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.

Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe — began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, Tantra devotees sought to fuse the male and female aspects of the cosmos into a blissful state of consciousness.

The characterization of Tantra as a "sex cult" is extremely reductive, but that's not the dumbest part of the article. The author goes on to explain that Hatha increases circulation in the pelvic area and heightens the passions, which is true. Of course the same could be said many forms of physical exercise.

Where the article really enters the realm of the absurd is in the suggestion that sex scandals like the one at Kripalu were simply the result heightened sexual appetites. The idea that this was just a bunch of sexually adventurous people doing what comes naturally is absurd. Heightened and spiritualized sexuality could just as easily enhance committed relationships and increase closeness and intimacy between partners, as is, indeed, often the case.

The problem is one of dynamics and abuse of power, not human sexuality. In the case of Kripalu and similar scandals, many women claim to have been intimidated and coerced. Victims who complain are ostracized. Many lies are told and secrets kept. This is not about consensual sexual activity, openly engaged in by willing participants.

More to the point, as the subject of this post illustrates, these scandals are hardly unique to the world of yoga.

Finally, I read some excerpts from a book that addresses the Kripalu crisis. Steven Cope's Yoga and the Quest for the True Self speaks brilliantly to the group dynamics and larger lessons learned when people are ready to take their power back.

It was not the scandal that forced the death of the old forms of yoga at Kripalu. Quite the opposite. It was the impending death of the old paradigm that required the scandal. It is clear that the fact of Amrit Desai's affairs had been in the unconscious of the community all along. It was not new information. Quite a few individuals held the secret. It was simply information that could not be brought to the light of consciousness until the community was more or less ready for it.

In 1994 when the scandal erupted, Gurudev had not suddenly changed. In fact, the sexual misconduct was by that time many years old. Amirt was who he had always been -- ambitious, brilliant, sometimes a sincere yogi, sometimes just a smooth performer, too often a teacher who was too charming for his own good. It was the community's own capacity to see and bear the truth that had changed.

The bonfire was just as much a sign of success as of failure.

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Breaking: Vatican Has Leaks and Fractures

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The most compelling thing about the Washington Post's big, multi-page feature on the Vatileaked revelations of a "fractured Vatican" is that they waited until the pope announced his resignation to publish it. The book has long been out and its secrets revealed, at least to the Italian speaking world. The primary leaker has already been convicted and pardoned. And yet, the Post writes:

Much of the media — and the Vatican — focused on the source of the shocking security breach. Largely lost were the revelations contained in the letters themselves — tales of rivalry and betrayal, and allegations of corruption and systemic dysfunction that infused the inner workings of the Holy See and the eight-year papacy of Benedict XVI.

From there the article goes on to focus almost entirely on the scandal around Vatileaks and very little on the "tales of rivalry and betrayal." Most of this has already been covered elsewhere and the juicy bits are front-loaded. The upshot according to the Post? Pope Benedict XVI was a well-intended but weak leader who was outmaneuvered by his second, Tarcisio Bertone. Got it? The failure of Pope Benedict to accomplish much of anything was not his fault. He was just too "shy and cerebral" to fight the power.

The butler read letters fleshing out how Viganò, an ambitious enforcer of Benedict’s good government reforms, had earned powerful enemies. In early 2011, a series of hostile anonymous articles attacking Viganò began appearing in the Italian media. Under duress, Viganò appealed to the pope’s powerful second in command, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone. Bertone was not sympathetic and instead echoed the articles’ complaints about his rough management style and removed Viganò from his post.

This set in motion a blizzard of letters that passed through the office Gabriele shared with the pope’s personal secretary. In one missive, Viganò wrote to Bertone accusing him of getting in the way of the pope’s reform mission; he also charged Bertone with breaking his promise to elevate him to cardinal. Viganò sent a copy of this letter to the pope. In a separate letter to the pontiff, Viganò dropped the Vatican’s “C word”: corruption.

. . .

Viganò’s efforts failed, and he was soon dispatched to Washington. Bertone and Viganò declined to comment.

Prognosis for future transformation? Not good, according to the Post.

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Legion Documents Released in Rhode Island

   

"My name is Legion, for we are many." ~ Mark 5:9

"It's done. They're public. This ends the debate," said a spokesman for the Legionaries of Christ, as "yards of documents" were ordered released by Judge Michael Silverstein. But, in fact, the debate may be just beginning.

As discussed a lawsuit against the Legionaries in Rhode Island triggered interest in documents purported to show a pattern of fraud. A petition by the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Providence Journal, and the National Catholic Reporter brought a ruling in favor transparency last month, but granted Legion lawyers time to pursue an appeal.

There's little doubt that there's something very embarrassing to the Legionaries of Christ in those documents or they would not have tried so hard to block their release. As stated, they were concerned about prejudicing a future jury, so it can't be good. But the larger question is whether it could be embarrassing to the Vatican -- even to the retiring Pope Benedict XVI.

The Legionaries have been a political hot potato for the Vatican for decades but officials, including Pope Benedict, chose repeatedly to protect Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado from consequences for a lifetime of abuse and criminality. In return, Maciel poured money into Vatican coffers. How did he get that money? Largely by charming wealthy, older women -- a pattern that clearly proliferated through the global organization. In Rhode Island, they took Gabrielle Mee for tens of millions, even going so far as to sue Fleet National Bank when they balked at the pillaging of her late husband's trust. (Timothy Mee had worked for Fleet as a director.) She left them everything upon her death. Her niece sued. The suit was dismissed but Judge Silverstein's ruling contained statements that got the attention of the press.

“The transfer of millions of dollars worth of assets — through will, trust and gifts — from a steadfastly spiritual, elderly woman to her trusted by clandestinely dubious spiritual leaders raises a red flag to this court,” the ruling read.

Time will tell what those publications are able to find in those papers and whether or not they flesh out any of the backstory on the Vatican's relationship with Maciel and his organization. The known facts are damning and I've already posted a good many of them on this blog.

Jason Berry has been covering the Maciel story for the National Catholic Reporter for some years and will have access to these documents. He posted a couple of articles on the Global Post today on the release of the documents and an overview of Maciel's relationship with the Vatican and the past two popes. I will be looking forward to his analysis on this, the latest chapter in the Maciel saga.

In reading this newest wave of coverage, I chased down some of the links and learned of a few details I'd missed. In addition to more stomach-turning descriptions of the abuses themselves, comes this gem on one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The accusers say Vatican-based Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican office to safeguard the faith and the morals of the church, quietly made the lawsuit go away and shelved it. There was no investigation and the accusers weren't asked a single question or asked for a statement.

He was appointed by the pope to investigate the entire sex abuse scandal in the church in recent days. But when approached by ABCNEWS in Rome last week with questions of allegations against Maciel, Ratzinger became visibly upset and actually slapped this reporter's hand.

"Come to me when the moment is given," Ratzinger told ABCNEWS, "not yet."

"Cardinal Ratzinger is sheltering Maciel, protecting him," said Berry, who expressed concerns that no response was being given to the allegations against the man charged with sex abuse. "These men knelt and kissed the ring of Cardinal Ratzinger when they filed the case in Rome. And a year-and-a-half later, he takes those accusations and aborts them, just stuffs them."

As discussed, then Cardinal Ratzinger had decided it wasn't "prudent" to pursue the matter at that time. He was and is a master of courtly politics. He may have even bent canon law to accommodate the Vatican's fondness for this rapist. What is outrageous is that he thinks the whole world should be beholden to the intricacies of Vatican maneuvering and endure its glacial pace -- so much so that he felt entitled to SLAP a reporter seeking details on one of the most disturbing cases to come out of this whole, hideous Catholic Church abuse scandal.

It's this kind of thing that gives the lie to assessments, like this one, of Pope Benedict as hugely successful on the issue priestly abuse. I think one has to be deep in the bubble of Vatican culture to think this cautious, incremental approach to dealing with the rape of children amounts to "great reform."

In the coming weeks, Cardinal Mahony will be in the Conclave helping to select the next pope. This is after it was revealed that he oversaw a massive cover-up, actively protecting serial abusers from prosecution. It was only revealed after he'd cost the Los Angeles Diocese millions in court costs to keep those facts from coming out. He was censured by the current archbishop of Los Angeles, and had the nerve to be petulant about it. But he will be one of eleven US cardinals going to Rome to choose the new pope. This is what accounts for "reform" in Pope Benedict's world.

As the Washington Post astutely observed in a recent editorial:

His continued prominence reflects the culture of impunity in the Catholic Church a decade after its tolerance and complicity in the abuse of children was exposed. The church has adopted policies intended to avoid fresh outrages, but it also has fought to protect supervisors who shielded criminal molesters.

Such is the "great reform" legacy of Pope Benedict XVI.

Lest we forget, this is the same Pope Benedict who, when he finally got around to addressing the catastrophic mess that was the Legionaries of Christ, sent the serially abusing Marcial Maciel off to pray. That was his punishment. He spent his remaining few years in "prayer and penitence." Again, for a shark in human skin like Maciel such boredom must have been a living torment, but it was not a fitting punishment for a priest who spent his life sexually abusing children, using false identities to take mistresses and have more children to molest, abusing drugs, and bilking kindly, old women out of their fortunes. He was a criminal. He needed to go where criminals go: prison.

Maybe these papers from Rhode Island will give some tiny insight into how it was that the "great reformer" spent his Vatican career providing cover for serial abusers like Maciel and the many bishops who protected them. Maybe not. But I welcome whatever details on the shadowy Legionaries of Christ they may provide.

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The Dubious Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI

One of the more interesting aspects of Pope Benedict's resignation announcement is that assessments of his leadership haven't been afforded the deference generally paid to the recently deceased. It's not all hagiography and roses. Over the past couple of days, I've read numerous rundowns of some of the more controversial aspects of both his papal reign and earlier years.

This pope has been a divisive figure from the outset. A hardline conservative with a Nazi background seemed an odd choice. Some very questionable choices regarding priestly abuse at various points in his career have not helped, so his appointment just as the sex abuse scandal was hitting critical mass made him something of a lightning rod. (See above. Weird.)

As he prepares to surrender the reins of the Vatican, he leaves the Catholic Church far weaker than he found it. That's not entirely his fault. The Church's hidden history would have erupted in its face no matter who was pope. And the attrition of Catholics, even from strongholds like Ireland, was probably inevitable. But years of provocative policy decisions and outrageous statements haven't helped soothe an increasingly angry and disillusioned Church body... or world.

The leadership of Pope Benedict XVI has disappointed on a number of major issues, including: the sex abuse crisis, gay rights, women's rights, and respect for other religions -- particularly Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Paganism.

That he would choose the most regressive path should have been apparent from the very beginnings of his ascent up the rungs of power.

Alone among his theological collaborators, unlike his friends Rahner, Schillebeeckx and Kung, the mature Ratzinger moved into the hierarchy. He became a bishop, a shepherd of souls in the strict canonical sense of that expression. In 1977, Paul VI made him Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and almost immediately elevated him to the rank of Cardinal. In 1981, shortly after John Paul II's election to the papacy, Ratzinger moved to Rome as the newly appointed Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It was in that role that he made his reputation as God's rottweiler, a zealous defender of orthodox belief. Accusations of heresy, or of deviations from true doctrine -- a quaint concept, something associated with Joan of Arc, perhaps, or some medieval schism -- made a comeback. [emphasis mine]

Personally, I think he can be forgiven for his time in the Hitler Youth and the German military. It's not like he had much choice. But one would think that such a background might have caused him to be  more careful to avoid gaffes regarding Jews once he became pope, lest one think the former Nazi an anti-Semite. Instead, his reign has been marked by some very unfortunate decisions followed by rapprochement with Jewish leaders. That they were teachable moments is nice. That they were necessary in this day and age is alarming.

Particularly jarring, given his CV, Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of four bishops including a Holocaust denier.

Lifting the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops in 2009, including one who denied that the Nazis ever used gas chambers and claimed the historical evidence is "hugely against" Adolf Hitler being responsible for the death of 6 million Jews. The affair brought an anguished personal letter from Benedict to the bishops of the world apologizing for the way it was handled.

One could argue, and people have, that his restoration of such radical players was part of his broader attempt to reunify the Church. But the fact that he and his henchmen have moved so quickly and harshly against progressive priests, bishops, and nuns, gives the lie. I'm not saying that his Nazi background made him sweet on a Holocaust denier, but his affections definitely run to the incredibly backwards.

He also fanned the flames of anti-Semitism when he reinstated the old Latin Mass that included a very controversial prayer for the conversion of Jews. To quell the resulting controversy, he graciously removed language about Jews and their "blindness." The prayer still calls for their conversion, along with that of all non-Catholic Christians, and Pagans. Yes. We must all become Catholic. That's really the only hope for mankind.

Joseph Ratzinger distinguished himself early on as a doctrinaire Catholic with little patience for other religious influences. A slightly more youthful openness evaporated as soon as he began to acquire power. He targeted liberation theologians and even turned on previous colleagues for any possible contamination of Catholic ideas with hints of Buddhism or Christian Protestantism. He wasn't called God's rottweiler for nothing.

The Wild Hunt has a good round-up of its past coverage of Pope Benedict's condemnations of Pagans and other world religions. Jason Pitzi-Waters makes a strong case that throughout his career he has been outright hostile to Paganism and other non-Christian faiths. He has even singled out Buddhism as "narcissistic" and the biggest threat to the Church since Marxism. Buddhism. (?!!) It's quite a laundry list exposing him as one of the most non-ecumenical religious leaders in recent times. This is from the summary:

This is a pope that claimed indigenous populations in South America were“silently longing” for the Christian faith of the colonizers, who said at the recent Assisi gathering that four token agnostics were invited “so that God, the true God, becomes accessible” to them. He has mocked and criticized “paganism” in any form one could imagine, describing pre-Christian gods as “questionable” and unable to provide hope, and engaged in a kind of Holocaust revisionism by saying that Nazi-ism was born of “neo-paganism.” During his Papacy the practice of exorcism has boomed once more, a practice that explicitly lists adherence to other faiths as a sign of demon possession. This was the Papacy of a man afraid of a post-Christian future, one “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith,” as he put it. His stepping down can only be met with something akin to relief, albeit one tempered by the knowledge that his sucessor will no doubt follow in his footsteps.

It makes for good, if chilling, reading and reminds us that Pope Benedict is more of a throw-back to the Joan of Arc persecuting, Inquisition leading, route out the heretics Roman Church of old, than we might want to admit.

He also dug deep into the Church's dark history to attack Islam.

The pope used a rather nasty historical citation about the Prophet Mohammed and provocatively asked if Islam was inherently prone to violence in a lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Quoting from the 7th of the 26 “Dialogues Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia,” he asked:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Not helpful.

Also medieval are Pope Benedict's attitudes towards women. As stated, he equated the "grave crime" of ordaining women with sexual abuse of children. Worse, he's been far more proactive in dealing with the threat of female ordination than he has with the ongoing problem of priestly abuse. Where the defrocking of pedophile priests has typically dragged on for years or been derailed completely, a decree in May of 2008 made excommunication automatic for any attempt to ordain a woman.  Former priest Roy Bourgeois learned that the hard way, when he went afoul of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- although he has yet to receive any explanation of the reason for his excommunication. 

The congregation's letter does not make reference to specific charges against Bourgeois or mention his support for women's ordination, saying, "for the good of the Church, the dismissal from the said Society must be confirmed, and moreover, also the dismissal from the clerical state must be inflicted."

"There's no mention of what I did," Bourgeois said. "There's no mention ... of women's ordination. What crime did I commit that brought about this serious sentence? There's no mention of that. What did I do? What am I being charged with?"

I don't know. Maybe they thought it was self-evident, what with any support for the ordination of women being such an obvious evil.

The Vatican under Pope Benedict has also been very forward leaning on the problem of uppity nuns. He famously cracked down on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and denounced respected theologian Sister Margaret Farley for the high crime of having grown-up ideas about sex.

The sisters, it seems, are promoting "radical feminism." I'm not completely clear on the dividing line between feminism and radical feminism, as he defines it, but his commentary on the subject is positively Pat Robertsonesque.

I am, in fact, convinced that what feminism promotes in its radical form is no longer the Christianity that we know; it is another religion.

It almost goes without saying that Pope Benedict has been resolute on the issue of gay marriage, saying as recently as this past December:

"People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being," he said. "They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves."

"The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's fundamental choice where he himself is concerned," he said.

. . .

Now, though, "Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his own nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will."

. . .

"When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God," Benedict said.

Which is really just a fancy-pants way of saying, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. It's also a decidedly non-mystical view, so it troubles me for whole other reasons.

If anyone was going to challenge the Catholic party line on gay people being "objectively disordered" it was not going to be this pope. In fact, he seems quite fond of the term, citing it, for instance, in his decision not to ordain men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies."

If his views on homosexuality have matured at all over decades, it's only in the use of slightly more qualified language and intellectual obscurantism. He was quite forthright in his earlier condemnations.

In his Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), Ratzinger acknowledged the importance of science in understanding sexual orientation and warned that questions of "culpability" needed to be approached with "prudence." But the same letter also denounced "benign" understandings of sexual orientation with a fire-and-brimstone reading of the story of Sodom as God's "moral judgment ... against homosexual relations." 

It would have been vain to hope that anyone so ideologically backwards was ever going to break new ground on tolerance.

The one area where Pope Benedict has gotten credit for updating Vatican attitudes has been on sexual abuse. He's been far more proactive on the issue than anyone ever had been within those halls of power. But, as stated, in an environment where standing still is forward motion, that's not saying much.

On the one hand, he seems to grasp the horrors of abuse and its effect on the psyches of survivors -- an awareness that was sorely lacking among Vatican officials. On the other, he has been totally unwilling to rock the boat by actually doing anything about it. The fire-breathing disciplinarian who made his bones routing out doctrinal infractions and who rapidly snuffed out any whiff of womanly insurrection, turned cautious, circumspect, and politic, when faced with the institutional corruption that is destroying the Church. And he just doesn't seem to get that it's not the crime. It's the cover-up.

As cases of sexual abuse continued to make headlines, the man who became Pope Benedict XVI has at times publicly addressed the issue and even met with victims, beginning with five victims from the Boston archdiocese, where the abuse scandal first made global headlines.

But victims' advocates remain skeptical and critical over his handling of the matter, particularly the failure to punish bishops who protected abusers rather than children and teens.

"When forced to, he talks about the crimes but ignores the cover-ups, uses the past tense as if to suggest it's not still happening," said David Clohessy, the executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "He has vast powers and he's done very little to make a difference."

Not only was the sex abuse issue the one area where Pope Benedict stood a chance of moving the Church forward instead of backward, it was probably the single most critical issue before him. Yet, he will probably be remembered most for the spectacular failure of the Church to properly address the crisis. Indeed, his resignation was greeted with cheers by victims' advocates. His leadership was emblematic of the platitudinous, tone-deaf, ineffectual response, and the toothless reform that failed utterly to heal the Church from its self-inflicted wounds. Worse, he's failed the survivors of that abuse past, present, and future.

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Graham Hancock on Mother Ayahuasca

Hot off the press, Graham Hancock has done a TED lecture on the power of ayahuasca and his personal path of transformation. For followers of Hancock's work, it is mostly review -- a kind of rapid-fire rundown of his embrace of shamanic tools for personal and global recovery.

A personal note on his discussion of the "green bitch" and the end of his years long relationship with cannabis: I agree. I say that because I learned something very similar a long time ago. I was also dissuaded by spirit -- if far less dramatically than Hancock was -- from its use. I found that it robbed me of creativity under the guise making me feel more creative, as well. The "green bitch" is very seductive. Again, not a commentary on anyone else's choices, but anyone who knows me well knows that I'm teetotaler from way back, and that this radical sobriety has been a primary driver of my spiritual journey. It is also worth noting that the use of plant teachers like ayahuasca and iboga have proved to be incredible tools in drug and alcohol recovery. It seems counter-intuitive until you understand how different is the use of "hallucinogens" in a shamanic context from recreational use.

Also up from Hancock, he posted this incredible narrative on a series of recent ayahuasca journeys. After encountering some attacking entity in a journey, Hancock became aware that a lot of the participants were encountering dark, abusive, and frightening entities in both the spirit and the material world. He had a very telling exchange with a narcissistic, self-styled shaman, who had violated the boundaries of a female participant. She handled it well. But it seems clear that a number of them were there to have a very particular lesson on the abuse of power.

Two days later, mercifully, the man left. Indeed most of the group have now gone. Just seven of us remain for the final two sessions, the first of which took place on the night of 10 February into the small hours of 11 February. It was a blissful, open-hearted night with a great feeling of love, security, solidarity and trust. I am not going to describe it further here except to say that the same member of our group who had asked “What the hell was THAT?” after the fifth session had a new insight during the night. He experienced a direct, personal encounter with the loving entity whom we call Mother Ayahuasca (who is perhaps a goddess, though she does not wish to be worshipped) and he asked her the same question: “What the hell was THAT thing that attacked us during the fifth ceremony? Why did we have to go through that?”

“You needed to see it,” she replied. “Now you know what I have to deal with all the time. It’s the evil that is loose in the world, twisting and destroying the human spirit and I need your help to fight it, the help of good people everywhere, the help of the power of love.”

Perhaps it's because I've been rewatching The Matrix movies for the gazillionth time, but what that put me in mind of was the Oracle and her battle with the Smiths, aka., archontic consciousness.

Hancock has a number of posts on his recent ayahuasca journeys on his Facebook page and they all appear to be open to the public. He is, as ever, incredibly generous with his words and experience.

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Could This Be Why Pope Benedict Resigned?

Marcial Maciel with Pope John Paul II

My husband and I were speculating the other night that perhaps Pope Benedict resigned because there are major scandals coming down the pike and he wants to get out of the line of fire -- not necessarily because he's directly culpable. He may just want to protect himself and his legacy from becoming collateral damage. It's a tantalizing possibility and would fit neatly into the previously discussed St. Malachy prophesy timelime.

The good folks at AmericaBlog have advanced one possible candidate for a potential scandal about to break. It involves the Legionaries of Christ and the late Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. A rundown of Maciel's already known crimes can be found here and the details on allegations of sexual abuse by one of his illegitimate children can be found here.

Much like the recent eruption in Los Angeles, the pending issue is some documents that may be unsealed as early as this Friday. But where the abuse files that recently caused Cardinal Mahony to be barred from public ministry were embarrassing to major players in that diocese, anything to do with the Legionaries could implicate the Vatican. As discussed, Maciel was extremely close to highly-placed officials up to and including Pope John Paul II.

These documents are evidence in ongoing litigation in Rhode Island. The original case was brought by the niece of a wealthy widow who had willed her $60 million fortune to the Legionaries. Mary Lou Dauray sued, contending that the late Gabrielle Mee had been defrauded by the organization. Her case was dismissed in September of last year, due to her lack of standing, but there appear to be appeals and ongoing litigation in the works.

The judge in the case has already ruled that the documents are to be unsealed but stayed his decision pending appeal.

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein gave the Legion until Feb. 15 to ask the state Supreme Court to intervene in the tug-of-war over the records, which are from a lawsuit filed by a woman contesting the will of a wealthy aunt who left the Legion $60 million.

The judge had ruled on Wednesday that the public had a right to access the documents despite concerns from the Legion's attorney, Joseph Avanzato, that they could taint a future jury. Avanzato, in asking the judge to stay his ruling, said Friday that it would be wrong to release the documents before the Legion had an opportunity to appeal the decision that unsealed them.

In other words, whatever is in those documents makes the Legionaries of Christ look bad. The bigger question, though, is does it make the Vatican look bad? And could it further tarnish the retiring Pope Benedict XVI? His hands are already dirty where Maciel and his Legions are concerned. As cardinal he halted his own investigation into some of the abuse allegations because it wasn't "prudent" to proceed.

As pope he did take action against Maciel but he did not have him defrocked which would have seemed like a no-brainer given the man's litany of crimes. Instead, he put him into retirement, consigning him for the last few years of his life to contemplation and prayer. I've noted before that while that would hardly be punishment for the average priest, for an adrenaline junky and probable psychopath like Maciel, it would have been a living hell. Psychopaths suffer mostly from boredom and need constant stimulation -- stimulation that usually costs other people greatly and on many levels.

In 2010 Pope Benedict put the Legionaries of Christ directly under Vatican control, in an attempt to salvage a deeply corrupt institution. Just how corrupt? We may only now be learning how deep the rabbit hole goes and the litigation in Rhode Island may be an important piece.

Read the coverage on AmericaBlog and listen to the embedded broadcast by WNHN's Arnie Arnesen. It's really juicy. Arnesen knows the plaintiff in the case so she has a good bit of the backstory. She provides some details on the Legionaries that I was previously unfamiliar with. For instance, Maciel groomed his legion of priests to be like cell-scrapings of himself -- a little cultish army with their dark-hair all parted to the left and sporting smart, double-breasted suits. Think Heaven's Gate but with fashion sense.

As previously discussed, one of his replicants, Father Thomas Williams, also followed in his footsteps by leading a double-life and keeping a secret wife and child. On the scale of high crimes and misdemeanors, he was no Marcial Maciel Degollado, but, ironically, his offense -- fathering a child -- seemed to be far more disturbing to the Vatican than raping children. They really do have a strange set of priorities.

So, perhaps, come Friday we'll have some insight into the pontiff's abrupt departure from the world stage. Either way, I just hope the documents come out. Sunlight is still the best disinfectant.

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Unprecedented

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We've been using that word to describe the goings on in the Catholic Church a lot lately. First a Los Angeles archbishop publicly rebuked his predecessor for a history of protecting pedophile priests. And now the pope has abdicated. These are seismic changes in one of the most hidebound institutions in the world.

While much has been written about the fact that this is the first papal resignation in 600 years, that ignores how truly revolutionary this decision is. The handful of resignations in the ancient history of the Church have been due to extraordinary circumstances -- not the common-place occurrence of growing old. While nearly every account I've read has been treating this as a surprising but wise decision, what few having been willing to address is that it stands Catholic belief and tradition on its head.

In a single moment, the pope has removed some of the aura of the papacy, the idea that it was a vocation rather than a ministry, something that cannot be abandoned without somehow affronting the Holy Spirit. Today, the pope indicated that the Petrine ministry is a ministry, a very specific ministry to be sure, but more of a job than a vow.

Maybe that's how the papacy should be viewed, but throughout history it hasn't been. This decision marks the very conservative Pope Benedict XVI, as one of the Church's greatest potential reformers.

Benedict’s “grand refusal,” unlike that of Celestine, modifies customs rather than solidifying them. It is not an unrepeatable exception, or an accident to avoid, but could become an example to follow. It essentially changes the material constitution of the Church and introduces a precedent that any successor from now on will have to face, without the shelter of tradition.

After Monday, it will be difficult for any “old” pope to avoid scrutiny of his age in this era of global leadership and exercise of 24-hour global responsibility, which increases with each passing year. Benedict's choice offers a broad-reaching reform and reveals, ultimately, a conservative mind.

Now, I have referred to Pope Benedict as a reformer before, but I was being somewhat ironic. In an environment where taking any action at all on the sex abuse crisis is radical, his glacial movements stand in sharp relief. One doesn't get to be pope without knowing when to be cautious and politic, but somehow such careful calculus seems out of place in a spiritual leader facing an epidemic of child rape.

Outside of the sex abuse issue he's proved conservative to the point of being regressive.

Pope Benedict is regarded as a conservative theologian who has asserted that Catholicism is the “true” religion that is in competition with Islam, has repeatedly spoken out against same-sex relationships, and “restated the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women priests.” During his annual Christmas speech to the Vatican, the pontiff called same-sex marriage a “manipulation of nature” to be deplored and an attack on the “essence of the human creature.” He claimed that attempts to pass marriage equality “harm and help to destabilize marriage” and present “serious harm to justice and peace.”

Who could forget his remarkable pronouncement equating the sexual abuse of children with the ordination of women?

No. Until yesterday, no one could have accused this pope of making progressive change in the Church. He was however, very proactive in his conservatism. His ideological influence should be felt for some time to come, because in that regard as well, his political calculus has come to the fore. He has, throughout his reign, quietly laid the architecture to protect his legacy and conservative agenda and will be taking his leave while that groundwork remains intact.

While Benedict won't be directly involved in his successor's selection, his influence will undoubtedly be felt. He appointed 67 of the 117 cardinals that -- as of Monday -- are set to make the decision.

. . .

CNN Senior Vatican Analyst John Allen said that means the next pope, no matter where he is from, will probably continue in Benedict's conservative tradition, which has seen the church take a firm line on issues such as abortion, birth control and divorce.

Some of the names are disturbingly familiar because they've appeared on this blog before. We have Timothy Dolan whose battle with President Obama's birth control mandate resulted in brain pretzeling rhetoric about religious freedom as the right to stuff his beliefs down everybody's throat. The fact that he paid off pedophile priests is also fairly sickening. There's William Levada whose weak-kneed apologia for abusive priests -- he blames society -- and for the toothless, incremental policies of the Vatican, has long kept us amused. And, of course, there's Roger Mahony who spent years deliberately shuffling abusive priests out of state to protect them from prosecution and then spent more years and millions of dollars to try to hide that fact. Mahony's relief from all regional responsibilities and very public spat with his successor Archbishop Jose Gomez was also unprecedented.

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FLDS Crushing Cars in Texas

First it was the giant watchtower. Now it's their cars. FLDS members at the Yearning For Zion Ranch have been observed crushing their cars... and lawnmowers. It's further evidence that they are dismantling that particular stronghold in the wake of a probable Texas takeover. Here are the strange details.

In a Jan. 31 report by Monique Ching in the San Angelo Standard-Times, James Doyle says that "around 50 nice cars" including Cadillac Escalades have been destroyed by the FLDS in Texas. Doyle offers a possible explanation: There are liens on the cars.

Kathy Mankin, of the Eldorado Success, photographed some of the activity at an FLDS property last month.

With the State of Texas closing in on taking away the YFZ Ranch and no reported response from the FLDS to fight this action, you can only wonder what is going on with the car crushing. Are they packing up and moving out? And why lawn mowers? [All emphases mine]

So, once again, the response from Warren Jeffs and his remaining followers is one of less engagement with the outside world. They're not fighting back. They're closing ranks, reducing their footprint, and possibly moving to more hidden locations. On the one hand, I'm glad to see the cult breaking down and attriting its membership. On the other, I fear all the more for those who are left. Jeffs is only increasing his vice-like grip. He's micromanaging the most intimate details of their lives and forcing them to share in his suffering with a beans and water diet. And it's only going to get worse.

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William Henry on the Judgement Day Device

I noticed this article about the Muslim view of the apocalypse The Huffington Post and it reminded me that I've been meaning to listen to two recent interviews with William Henry. From the article:

Muslim and Christian views of the Apocalypse are remarkably similar, albeit with a different ending.

. . .

Contemporary Muslim apocalyptists have even borrowed from their Christian counterparts, such as Hal Lindsay, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, to discern the dates of the Antichrist's arrival, said David Cook, an expert on Islamic eschatology and associate professor at Rice University.

. . .

Some Muslims don't like the idea of Jesus playing the messianic hero, and have thus assigned a larger role to the Mahdi, said Cook. That belief is strong among Shiites, particularly the "Twelvers" in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often spoke of the Mahdi's return.

William Henry's research adds an important piece to the puzzle of apocalyptic prophecies: the Ark of the Covenant. Henry believes that all the players are seeking the ark, in hopes of harnessing its mythical power. Above is posted his recent interview on Red Ice Radio and his interview on Awake in the Dream can found here.

The whole thing is a study in the dangers of literalism. Supplemental reading and listening can be found here and here.

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." ~ Luke 17:20-21

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Pope Benedict XVI Resigns

Wrote His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI:

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Well. I'm stunned.

I think it goes without saying that it is highly unusual for a pope to resign due to health concerns. It's  especially baffling after having witnessed the final years of Pope John Paul II. Popes resign for political reasons. The last such resignation took place just shy of 600 years ago. And that was to reunify a divided Church.

The last pope to resign was Gregory XII in 1415. He did so to end a civil war within the church in which more than one man claimed to be pope.

There's only been a handful of resignations and most are shrouded in the mystery of time. Here's a rundown. I can't help noticing that one of them was Pope Benedict IX who was paid to resign in the wake of an outrageously scandalous reign.

So, is anybody buying this? Call me cynical, but I'm just not. In fairness, he did apparently foreshadow the possibility in 2010. He seems relatively spry to me, and appears to still have all his buttons, but who knows. Could be things we just don't know, as yet. Obviously the other stock excuse for political resignation -- wanting to spend more time with the family -- wasn't gonna fly.

While I eagerly await more details to dribble out of the increasingly porous Vatican, I can't help thinking about where this puts us in terms of prophecies that have already demonstrated themselves to be tantalizingly accurate. Pope Benedict, himself, ominously alluded to the Fatima prophecy, when he linked the suffering of the Church with its own self-inflicted wounds -- the mishandling of the sex abuse crisis -- and called for penitence.

According to the prevailing interpretation of St. Malachy's Prophecy, this is the second to last pope, so his premature departure is even more shocking. What strikes me this morning, looking at the timeline, is the freestanding line between the second to the last and the last pope.

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit.

That's a little on the nose.

And then, under Peter the Roman, who will be the next pope under this interpretation, Rome, the city of seven hills, is destroyed in the final judgment -- some say of the Church, some say of the world.

Just a reminder, the word apocalypse means, revealing what is hidden.

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