By SJ Otto
It as almost 30 years ago that I officially dropped out of
the Catholic Church. I had been a member of that religion since my child hood.
At times I considered myself an agnostic and still, I remained in that church.
I attended mid-night mass many Christmases with my mother, in my younger day.
I’ve been a socialist almost my entire adult life. That
started with Salvador Allende, in Chile
I was able to follow liberation theology after high school.
In that way I could remain in the religion and stay a Catholic. There were
liberation theology movements in both the New People’s Army of the Philippines
I really enjoyed mid-night mass with my mother in my earlierdays. I liked my mother. She and I had a very close relationship. Catholicism was
a major part of her life. When I finally dumped Catholicism, the worst part of
that was disappointing my mother.
During the reign of Pope John Paul II, he worked really hard
to destroy liberation theology. He was a very conservative pope.
There were many reasons I left the church. Most of those
reasons were political. As a Catholic I as not suppose to have sex before marriage.
Sex for Catholics is quite restrictive. Then there was the ban on birth control. My mother ignored
that for medical reasons and her priest agreed with her decision. Those were little things compared to
the politics. The church is against abortion. For a while I could live with
that. But the church treated that position as if it were more important than any other. They wanted people to vote against
any politician who was for abortion, even if
there were other more
important issues we
needed to vote for.
Even though this position happened just recently, after I
dropped out, this is an example of putting the lives of fetuses above the lives
and needs
of every day human beings:
“The four Catholic dioceses in Kansas
This is outrageous. They are putting out an opinion that
poor and working poor people’s lives have no value. This is a real good reason
to drop from the church, although I dropped out years ago. And when I did drop
from the church, there were similar reasons as this one.
It seams as if I was constantly finding reasons not to be a Catholic.
The church kept supporting right-wing causes. During world war II
the Pope
supported Nazis from Germany.[1]
It was Pope John Paul II who put the final nail in the
Catholic coffin. He worked hard to destroy liberation theology:
The late Pope John Paul II was frequently criticised for
the severity with which he dealt with the liberation movement.
His main object was to stop the
highly politicised form of liberation theology prevalent in the 1980s, which
could be seen as a fusion of Christianity and Marxism. He was particularly
criticised for the firmness with which he closed institutions that taught
Liberation Theology and with which he removed or rebuked the movement's
activists, such as Leonardo Boff and Gustavo Gutierrez.
He believed that to turn the
church into a secular political institution and to see salvation solely as the
achievement of social justice was to rob faith in Jesus of its power to
transform every life. The image of Jesus as a political revolutionary was
inconsistent with the Bible and the Church's teachings.”
And he worked with President
Ronald Reagan, the CIA and Solidarnosc. While I had little fondness for Poland
That brings me to an issue today—that is drug testing all high
school students, at a Catholic
high school in Ohio, Stephen T. Badin High School in Hamilton, about 30
miles north of Cincinnati. If this would be a public school I would complain
that the students’ rights are being violated. This is a private school and public
laws don’t apply. While drugs and vaping might be bad for the students, they
should be taught that they have rights like all other citizens. There are too
many adults who are willing to give their rights away because “they don’t use
drugs.” That is hardly important. People have rights and when they just give
those rights up there is no telling here that ends. A lot of workers at various
factories didn’t complain about
drug testing until it came to testing for nicotine. That is a substance
that is legal, but the owner of such plants decided they didn’t want their
people using nicotine products. Now they get mad. But it is too late because
these folks sat idly by while the company drug tested them.
So fight for your rights, even if you don’t use drugs.
I want to point out that Pope Francis is a major
improvement for the Catholic Church. It is unfortunate that I do not plan to
go back to the church, my decision on that was final. I love this quote
from the new pope:
“It has been said many times and my
response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like
Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the
marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the
people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is
they who must help to achieve equality and freedom”. -Pope Francis
As for me, today and my spiritual needs, I consider myself an Epicurean,
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