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and, on pages 85-86 he writes about Buddhism:
It is obvious that John Paul II has deliberately used a number of terms peculiar to Catholicism such as "salvation" and "soteriology" which either have different meanings or no meaning at all in Buddhism. It is well known worldwide that Buddhism is a religion of Enlightenment and not a religion of Salvation. The difference between those two kinds of religion is crucial. I will come back to this later. Salvation, if this word has any meaning at all in Buddhism, it must be understood as self-salvation, that is, salvation without a savior. This is clearly understood in Buddha's last words before He entered the Inconceivable Nirvana: "Strive diligently for your own salvation". So, salvation in Buddhism means "liberation from ignorance, awakening to the truth of things by one's own effort" and not "salvation from sin through a savior". Likewise, the word "soteriology" means "the division of Theology which treats the mission and work of Christ as a Redeemer" ("Catholic Word Book", Catholic Information Service, Knights of Columbus, New Haven, Connecticut), therefore, it didn't even exist before Christ. It has no meaning at all in Buddhism, because Buddhism already existed more than 500 years before Christ was born. However, Pope John Paul II deliberately labeled Buddhism as a religion that has a "negative soteriology", and then he asked a completely meaningless question, at least to the Buddhists: "Do we draw near to God in this way? This is not mentioned in the "enlightenment" conveyed by Buddha." More than 500 years before Jesus Christ was born, Buddha had already attained complete enlightenment. He showed the human race a way to repeat His spiritual experience through great strength and great compassion, following the Boddhisattva Way, breaking through ignorance by right understanding and awakening to the truth of things. Therefore, the concept of salvation in an outside being, whoever he is, is incompatible with the Buddhist teachings. In a Buddhist mind, the concept of an outside God doesn't exist, and so who needs to be drawn near to a non-existent God? We all know that "enlightenment" is a state of mind which is unthinkable, indescribable and beyond any notion of duality: Saints and common people are all the same; God, if there is any, and Devil are not different, so what use is it "to draw near to God," when one is enlightened? But, I have no intention to explain Buddhism in this article, my concern is about the Pope's remarks regarding Buddha and Buddhism, so, let me first quote a few comments on his book by some scholars and priests. A member of the Federation of Buddhist Organizations in Sri Lanka, Nalin de Silva, said the Pope's remarks were malicious and appeared to be a reaction to the recent spread of Buddhism and Islam in Europe. "He is trying to defend his faith," de Silva said, "Islam and Buddhism are the main challenges to Christianity." Rev. Ken Tanaka, a professor at the institute for Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, said it is clear that the pope "hasn't done his homework" and presents "a very simplistic view of Buddhism. "Essentially, Buddhism is about becoming detached from greed, hatred and ignorance - not from the world," Tanaka said. "That's how one awakens to a higher level of awareness." Rev. Thomas Hand, a Catholic priest, said he wished the pope "were able to speak about Buddhism from experience. You can't speak about anything as obviously profound as Buddhism without getting into it." Rev. Alan Senauke, a Zen priest and coordinator of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, said the pope's comments on Buddhism were little more than "setting up straw men, then knocking them down. "Whether through ignorance or intention, it is a serious misrepresentation of what Buddhism is all about". Lama Ole Nydahl, a teacher affiliated with the Kamtsang Choling, U.S.A., part of a Tibetan Buddhist sect, was not surprised with the pope's comments. "How could a man like him possibly agree with a religion like Buddhism, which takes people beyond dualism and produces a healthy relationship with their bodies and minds?" he asked. Let us take a close look at the above comments. It is obvious that Rev. Ken Tanaka, Thomas Hand, and Alan Saunake made the same point: The Pope indeed has a poor background in Buddhism, and therefore, he seriously misrepresented Buddhism. But the most important point is revealed in the comments of Nalin de Silva and Lama Ole Nydahl: The intellectual level of the Pope is inappropriate for an understanding of the profound teachings of Buddhism, and the pope's remarks on Buddhism were malicious, as he is trying to defend the waning faith of his followers around the world. In the following, I'll try to analyze the implications in Nalin de Silva and Lama Ole Nydahl's comments. In fact, if we read the book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, carefully, we will recognize right away that, besides a number of gratuitous affirmations about the Catholic faith and dogmas, the book has two principal purposes:
With the above purposes, the pope has quoted selective parts in the Bible, and reminds his flock with a number of dogmas that he considers them as divine truths. He knows very well that his followers rarely read the Bible, much less the history of the Catholic Church, and are therefore, unaware of the many mistakes and contradictions in the Bible, the pagan origin of the Bible, and are ignorant about what the Catholic Church has done to the human race in the last 2000 years. He slandered the founders of other religions, talked about the 'Enlightenment' of Buddha even though he has no experience of it, and glorified Jesus Christ as "absolutely unique". That's why Rev. Thomas Hand, a Catholic priest, said he whished the pope "were able to speak about Buddhism from experience," and Zen Master Thích Nhaát Haïnh has commented on this arrogance in his new book Living Buddha, Living Christ, but I would like to reserve this comment for the conclusion of this article. Now, let us try to analyze the motive behind the writing of the book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. I believe the pope had two major concerns that compelled him to write the above book. THE FIRST CONCERN that bothered the pope was the decline and falling trend of the Catholic religion in general, and of the authority of the Church and of the pope in particular, all around the world, and especially in the West. This is reflected in the number of his trips, mostly to Third World countries, where he tries to consolidate his authority and the faith of his followers, through his skill of acting, both as a spiritual leader and as an actor, but primarily as an actor. He admitted to J. Michener of their PBS series in 1977, "I trained for the stage as a young man. Yes, I wanted to be an actor." Therefore, we Vietnamese were not surprised when he tried to speak a few Vietnamese words to excite his Vietnamese followers in some of the audiences he granted to the Vietnamese Catholics overseas. This type of special acting has its own purpose, but we should not understand it as an expression of love toward the Vietnamese people. This point will be clarified later. If we believe in the principle of "cause and effect", we can see that the decline and falling trend of the Catholic Church have many causes. In the following, I will only cite just a few principal ones. The First and most important Cause for the decline of the Roman Catholic Church is clearly explained in the following remarks of Malachi Martin in his book, The Keys of This Blood:
The author also quoted an American scholar:
Who else but Malachi Martin, a former Jesuit, an eminent Catholic theologian, an expert on the Catholic Church, and former professor at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute, could possibly know the Catholic Church better? In fact, about 70% of Catholics in the world are now residents in South America, Latin America, Africa, and the Philipinnes. The level of economic development and the level of education of these peoples are well known. Therefore, we are not surprised when most of the pope's travels were concentrated on Third World countries, where the pope can vaguely apologize to these people for all the crimes the Catholic Church has done to them in the past. He asked them to forget the past, forget all the misfortunes that the Catholic Church had brought to their countries, and to forget the imposition upon them of a narrow, arrogant and oppressive Western culture known as the Christian culture. These astute apologies should be understood as follows: "Sorry, in the name of our God, we enslaved you. Sorry, we killed you. Sorry, we destroyed your cultures and traditions. Sorry, we divided and messed up your peoples. Just forgive us and forget all this. You can trust us now." This is especially true with regard to the Vietnamese Catholics overseas, where he "stirred up" the illusion of a vision of replacing the communist regime by a Catholic regime similar to that in Poland where 90% of the population is Catholic. He did this while ignoring the fact that over 90% of Vietnamese are non-Catholics, and that the Vietnamese people still have a vivid memory of the role played by the Vietnamese Catholics in the invasion of the French colonialists, in the 100 years under the French domination, in the war for independence against the French comeback in the 1940-50s, and in the 9 years under the totalitarian Catholic regime of Ngoâ Ñình Dieäm in the South. He has no hope in the more advanced, civilized countries where his followers directly confront him with their opinions on the Church's outdated dogmas that are against their time and incompatible with their social realities. Malachi Martin didn't make his remarks lightly. In fact, many scholars and Catholic priests agree with him on two major points in his remarks: The Catholic religion no longer appeals to the Western mind, and the Catholic Church will survive only in Third World countries, i.e., in countries where large numbers of people live in poverty and receive little or no education. Let us review some of them. Henri Guillemin, a practicing Catholic and well known French scholar, wrote in his recent book, Malheureuse EÙglise:
Maximilian F. Russer, a Catholic, a former Trappist Monk, and a profound theologian in his own right, wrote in his book, Authority in the Roman Catholic Church:
Avro Manhattan, the British author whose expertise in the Catholic Church has made him famous with his best sellers The Vatican 's Holocaust, Vietnam: Why Did We Go? etc.. wrote in his Catholic Imperialism and World Freedom:
The following paragraph in Penny Lernoux's Cry of the People will clarify what I have mentioned before about the pyramid structure of the institutional Catholic Church in the world and at the same time will support Martin's second point:
Looking back at the works of the European missionaries in Vietnam in the 19th century and up to early 20th century, a very familiar picture appears in my mind, and I can't help but feel proud to be a Vietnamese because Vietnam was able to preserve almost intact its culture and traditions, and rejected the white man's God in spite of nearly one hundred years under the French domination during which the missionaries, and later on the Ngoâ Ñình Dieäm's dictatorial Catholic government, had tried their best and with all their power to Christianize Vietnam. Now, let me quote a few more remarks about the same subjects written by some scholars and Catholic priests: In Freedom's Foe - The Vatican, Adrian Pigott wrote:
Father Joseph McCabe, a Catholic priest for some twenty years, wrote in his book Rome Puts a Blight on Culture as follows:
Father McCabe wrote a whole chapter on Rome Loves the Poor Illiterate, analyzing the influence of Roman Catholicism on several cultures, using many statistics in several parts of the world and concluded:
In his famous book Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church, Father Emmett McLoughlin related his own experience as follows:
Dr. J.C. Cleary, a graduate from Harvard University, majoring in Linguistics and Oriental Civilization, wrote in his article Buddhism and The Modern Vietnamese, Giao Ñieåm magazine, #8 :
And, regarding the proselytization in Vietnam , about 100 years ago, the Governor General of Indochina, J. L. de Lanessan, wrote in his book Les Missions et leur Protectorat, quoted by Patrick J.N. Tuck in French Catholic Missionaries and the Politics of Imperialism in Vietnam, 1857-1914, as follows:
The above documents are only a small sample from the vast amount of literature about the Catholic Church, readily available in public and university libraries. These documents prove that the remarks of the theologian Malachi Martin are accurate. And now, we should be able to understand why the Vatican opposed the Population Summit in Egypt in September 1994. The motives for opposition were not in the moral conscience but rather in the prospective number of followers in the Third World and in the vision of imposing the Vatican's authority on the poor mass, transforming that authority into a political force in the world. Throughout its history, the Vatican never cared for the poor. Its primary concern was and still is to accumulate wealth at the expense of the poor mass. Just look at the wealth of the Church and we will know where the truth lies in its professed missions of serving the poor. Peter de Rosa, a former archbishop, remarked in his book, Vicars of Christ:
In the underdeveloped poor countries, population growth without control will lead to millions of human beings, mostly infants, dying of malnutrition, diseases etc... Who is responsible for this? Does the Vatican care about this? Let's read B.S. Rajneesh in his book, Priests & Politicians: The Mafia of the Soul:
The Second Cause for the decline of the Catholic Church is the movement for independent national Churches. These movements that have fought for the liberation of the local churches from the indoctrination and authoritarian structure of the Vatican, are growing larger and larger. These movements started many centuries ago and culminated in the movement of "liberation theology" which took place in Latin America in the 1960s, and then spread to Africa and Asia. In the history of the Catholic Church, since the 17th century, many national Catholic Churches have refuted the powers of the Pope. Gallicanism in France is a movement of the French clergy which asked for limiting the authority of the Pope and for the autonomy of regional churches. French Gallicanism was a national church which acknowledged the pope but denied papal infallibility and central authority. In 1790, although over eighty percent of the French population were Catholics, French National Assembly rejected a proposal that made Catholicism a national religion. In The Papacy and the Modern World, Karl Otmar von Aretin wrote that:
And, in Father Emmett McLoughlin's book, Crime and Immorality In The Catholic Church, there is a chapter entitled, "What Catholicism Has Done To Catholics", where he wrote:
And, Paul Blanshard wrote the following in his book, American Freedom and Catholic Power, to suggest that the American Catholic Church should be independent from the Vatican:
Paul Blanshard published his book in 1950 and since then, the ideal for an independent American Church picked up more and more momentum among the American Catholic communities. In reality, the American Catholics practically defy almost all the Pope's decrees and encyclicals by simply ignoring them. And on more than one occasion, they even confronted the Pope with questions relating to the incompatibility of the Pope's moral laws with their everyday social lives. This is reflected in the statistics on the opinions of the American Catholic population regarding recent Vatican encyclicals. For example, the encyclical Humanae Vitae condemned all artificial birth-control methods. But, according to a survey conducted 10 years later by the sociologist-priest Andrew Greeley of the University of Chicago, 87% of American Catholics disagreed with the encyclical. Another survey by Newsweek, published in November 1993, showed that 59 % favor gay rights, and even 47 % favor abortion rights.
In fact, in America as in Europe, Catholics are no longer docile subjects of the Vatican. Not only do they simply ignore the Vatican's authority in several encyclicals, but they also openly protest against the Vatican's injustice in dealing with the freedom of expression of their leaders. This is exemplified in two cases in America where the Vatican tried to silence the voices of dissent within the American Church, the case of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle and the case of Father Charles Curran at the Catholic University of America, and two cases in Europe where the Vatican tried to punish those theologians who disagreed with the Church teachings and/or theology: the case of the German theologian Hans Kung and the case of the Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, and one case in Latin America where the famous Brazilian theologian, Leonardo Boff, was silenced by the Vatican because of his highly acclaimed book Church: Charism and Power. The above five cases of intellectual repression are worth recounting here, even only briefly:
1. The case of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen:
In September 1986, Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle was ordered by the Vatican to hand over his decision-making authority to his auxiliary bishop, Donal Wuert, because the Vatican did not agree with his views on moral and social issues. When Archbishop Hunthausen announced this order, the Seattle Catholics reacted and protested. 252 of his 280 priests, i.e., 90%, supported him. Apetition with more than 13,000 signatures from the Seattle Catholics protested this act of repression and urged the Vatican to restore his full authority. The Canon Law Society of America expressed its concern to the national bishops' conference and to the Vatican, and voted 173 to 53 to question whether the Vatican's order to relieve Hunthausen from his authority conformed with canon law. In May 1987, the Vatican announced that Archbishop Hunthausen's full authority would be restored.
Father Charles E. Curran was an assistant professor at the Catholic University of America, teaching moral theology. In April 1967 he was fired. The University administration, being loyal to and under the pressure of the Vatican, gave no reason for his dismissal, but there is no doubt that his unorthodox views on birth control did not agree with the Vatican teaching. Father Curran has the support of his students and especially that of his colleagues on the faculty, who voted 400 to 18 to discontinue classes until he was reinstated. The boycott closed down the university for three days. The Administration announced that Father Curran would be re-hired and be promoted to associate professor.
From his writings, Hans Kung pointed out that from the New Testament we can see that Jesus himself did not found a Church, the Roman Church was a movement which over the course of time took on increasingly institutional forms. He questioned papal infallibility, proving that it has no basis in Scripture and that it is built on an inadequate concept of truth. So, in December 1979, the Vatican declared that Hans Kung, professor at Tubingen University, one of the most famous universities in Germany, "in his writings has departed from the integral truth of Catholic faith, and therefore can no longer be considered a Catholic theologian nor function as such in a teaching role." The protest against Vatican’s suppression of professor Hans Kung was strong, world-wide. Hans Kung himself received more than 5,000 letters of support. Organizations were formed "for the rights of Catholics", for the recognition of such rights by the Vatican. Not all of the protestors agreed with Kung’s opinions, however they conceived that he had the right to express his views as a Catholic theologian without having his fundamental right violated. Kung was removed from the Catholic faculty of theology at Tubingen, but he remains as director of the Institute of Ecumenical Research.
The Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, professor at Nijmegen in Holland, published his first Jesus book, "Jesus An Experiment in Christology", in 1974. The major points of disagreement with the Vatican teaching concerned the divinity of Christ, his awareness of being the Son of God, and the objective reality of his resurrection. Schillebeeckx realized that the religious environment in which the New Testament originated is so different from ours today. He raised the question: "we do not live in a cultural-religious tradition that expects a messiah, or a mysterious celestial son of man; or an approaching end of the world" as taught clearly in the Bible by Jesus himself. He went as far as "Today, Science and Technology are widely looked on as a source of salvation for mankind, and non-Christian religions of worldwide repute offer alternative routes." Because of this book, in December 1979, he was grilled at the vatican on charges of deviationism in Christology. This act of repression raised a storm of protest from Catholic and non-Catholic theologians, university faculties, priests, nuns and lay people in Europe and the America. A petition with more than 60,000 signatures collected by a group of Amsterdam theological students was hand-carried to the Vatican. And, in September 1982, Schillebeeckx was awarded the National Erasmus Prize for Theology. This showed clearly an act of defiance of the Dutch government with regard to the Vatican authority.
Leonardo Boff, the eminent Brazilian theologian, had published a book entitled "Church: Charism and Power" which was highly acclaimed all over the world. He not only believes that the Church must be a Church of the poor, but he also criticizes the totalitarian structure of the Vatican, and most interestingly, he raises the issue of human rights within the Church. For that reason and for that reason only, the Vatican tried to "silence" Father Boff. In May 1985, the Vatican ordered Father Boff to begin immediately and unspecified period of time of "obedient silence" to allow him time for "serious reflection." He was told to give up his duties as editor of the Revista Eclesiastics Brasileira, the most influential theological journal in Brazil, and not to teach and publish. As the announcement of the silencing was widely reported in the press, Father Boff became instantly famous. His picture appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world. At the monastery he was residing, he received daily many letters, cards and telegrams of support. Catholic groups all over the world protested Rome about what some called the rebirth of the Inquisition. Ten Brazilian Catholic bishops publicly criticized the Vatican’s treatment of Boff. Even some Protestant religious bodies issue statements of support for Boff. Labor unions organized public demonstrations protesting the silencing. T-shirts and posters appeared for sale in Brazil picturing Boff with his mouth gagged. A little less than a year later, the Vatican lifted the silencing. "L’affaire Boff" was reported and analyzed in detail in the book The Silencing of Leonardo Boff. The Vatican and the Future of World Christianity by Dr. Harvey Cox, a Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School.
The 5 cases of intellectual repression illustrated above show the totalitarian character of the Roman Catholic Church, and from these we can see clearly that the Vatican's policy of silencing dissidents in the Catholic Church failed in every case because of the reactions of the progressive Catholics around the world. This also shows that the Vatican no longer has the power to enforce its authority upon the regional churches, unless some regional church, such as the Vietnamese Catholic Church, voluntarily and completely submits to the Vatican. Indeed, the Vietnamese Catholic Church has been proved to be a very docile one. I wonder how long it will take the Vietnamese Catholic Church to realize the true nature of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore, to realize the importance of an integral and independent national church in Vietnam if it doesn't want to be alienated from the rest of the Vietnamese people as it has always been in the past. The violation of human rights in the Catholic Church is unknown to most of the ignorant Catholic mass at the bottom of the pyramid-like structure of the church. The Catholic mass still believes their church is a champion of human rights without knowing that historically, the Catholic Church was and still is an organization that has violated human rights the most in the world.
Ironically, Father Emmett McLoughlin also wrote in his book Letters To An Ex-Priest:
The Boff case took place in the midst of the decade on "Liberation Theology". Therefore, I would like to analyze the subject of "Liberation Theology", recently one of several major concerns of the Vatican. We already know that Liberation Theology was a national movement that took place in Latin America in the 1960s and then spread to Africa and Asia. The theology of liberation takes its name from an economic and sociological analysis of the Latin American context. According to Latin American liberation theologian Gustavo Gutieùrrez in his "Contestation in the Church", the situation of Latin America today is no less abominable than it was in the beginning:
The above statement was confirmed by Clauss Bussmann, professor of theology at the University of Duisburg in Germany, who wrote in his book, Who Do You Say? Jesus Christ in Latin American Theology:
It is obvious that once that situation began to surface as a state of dependency, "liberation" became the order of the day. It is also obvious that the Latin American Church, dictated by Rome, would not be able to serve its poor people efficiently, the people who have been exploited for centuries. This is true, wherever there is a regional Catholic Church, not only in Latin America, but also in Africa and Asia. The reason is simple, if a regional Church is dominated and dictated by Rome, it does not have any self-identity, and by that very fact, it cannot be said to exist independently within its own cultural spheres of which the Vatican knows nothing. Therefore, it is incapable of fulfilling its own mission: to serve its own followers. In summary, Liberation Theology is nothing but a declaration of cultural and intellectual independence. There are many reasons for the emergence of the Liberation Theology. Here I will cite the main ones:
2. The Catholic Church always sided with the local Government and the rich.
4. The Catholic Church is an authoritarian institution. That's why:
And, in A Vision of Hope: The Churches and Change in Latin America, Trevor Beeson & Jenny Pearce wrote:
In the Liberation Theology movement we can find those eminent theologians such as Gustavo Gutieùrrez, Juan Luis Segundo, Leonardo Boff etc.. and those who made a substantial contribution to the Vatican Council II such as Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung.
In summary, the emergence of the "National Church" movement and the "Liberation Theology" movement was able to develop worldwide because of the following reasons: There is no reason that the peoples in Latin America, in Central America, in Africa, and in Asia have to accept the power and authority of the Vatican, and to accept its interpretation of the Bible of some Western white males. If we read the history of the Catholic Church, the history of the popes, the history of the crusades and Inquisition, and with the knowledge that it took 359 years for the Vatican to admit its wrongs in the case of Gallileo Gallilei, then a few important questions must be taken into consideration: Is it true that the popes and those cardinals, archbishops, and etc.., who reigned in the Vatican are more intelligent and more virtuous than the rest of the people in the world? In the past, the Catholic Church has made many mistakes, and committed many crimes, so, what is the point of blindly following the teachings of the Church? Every culture is different. There is no reason that the cultures of Latin America, Central America, Africa, and Asia have to duplicate the Western Christian culture. To accept dependence on Western Christian culture, under any form, is to show a mentality of a slave, a lack of self-confidence of the natives who, because of ignorance, put their church above their nation, and by that very fact, betrayed their nation. The idea of democracy developing in the Third World countries, must be applied in the religious life as well as in the socio-political domain. The above progressive ideas above, indeed threatened the power and authority of the Catholic institutional church, that is why the pope is trying to reverse this trend of thinking to save his wordly power. It is unfortunate that, while in more advanced and civilized countries, people have already recognized the true nature of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore have been fighting for their cultural and intellectual independence. In a number of underdeveloped countries, the ignorant Catholic masses still believe in the infallibiblity of the pope, still believe that the pope and the church have the God-given exclusive right to interpret the Bible and the power to excommunicate their followers. They still believe that a direct communion with Christ is impossible and one has to go through an intermediary such as the pope or the Vatican. They still believe that the pope is the Vicar of Christ, therefore, he holds all the tickets to heaven. Because of such superstitious belief, they willingly and totally submit their body and soul to the Vatican. The following remark describes accurately this sad situation:
The Third Cause for the decline of the Roman Catholic Church is that more and more Catholic priests and lay Catholics are leaving the Church, especially in Europe and in North America. If one reads the statistics given out by the Church, one finds some impressive numbers, because the Church only counts those who have been baptized and not those who have left the Church. The Catholic Church maintains that "once a Catholic, always a Catholic" and those who left will eventually come back. However, the result from several researches based on scientific methods: gathering data, analyzing the data, then making projections for the future, indeed have caused a great concern to the pope and to those Catholic leaders in the Vatican about this exodus.
For example, the book, Full Pews and Empty Altars is the result of six years of research, from 1984 to 1990, by two sociologists, professors Richard Schoenherr and Lawrence Young at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, in which the authors warned the Catholic Church that
and projected that from 1966 to the year 2005, the number of priests will drop 40%, from 35,000 to 21,000. This research was commissioned in 1984, ironically, by the US Catholic Conference and funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, part of Lilly Pharmaceutical. But in 1990, when the authors announced the results of their research to the US bishops, the final funding was cut off. The reason? Cardinal Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said at the time:
With that kind of mind-set, how can science possibly be reconciled with blind faith?
In fact, the above result of research revealed nothing new, because the problem of priests leaving the Church has become more and more serious since then. The Pope is aware of this and he is trying to reverse this trend primarily through recruitment and prayer. In the book Shattered Vows: Priests Who Leave, David Rice, a Dominican priest travelled 38,000 miles to interview a large number of Catholic priests who have left the Church, wrote:
The fourth cause for the decline of the Roman Catholic Church is the image of the Church which has been gravely damaged by many scandals all over the world. It is well known that the Vatican signed some concordats with Hitler and Mussolini and sided with them as reported in the following accounts:
The following is in a figure caption in "The Godfathers" by Chick Publications:
And, after World War II, the Vatican smuggled out thousands of Nazis war criminals, using such charity organizations as the Caritas and Red Cross to provide the criminals with false passports to resettle them in Argentina, Austria, and even in America. ABC Prime Time reported in May 1994 that the Vatican's "Ratlines" smuggled out Hitler's killers, one of them butchered 335 civilians in one day, including women and children.
In the business of finance, the Vatican connection with the Mafia is of no surprise to anyone:
All of these scandals have seriously tarnished the image of the Roman Catholic Church all over the world. The world now realizes that the Roman Catholic Church is primarily a political, economic institution rather than a religious one. This is exactly what Paul Hofmann wrote in his book O Vatican: A Slightly Wicked View of the Holy See:
I have no intention to go into more detail with the above scandals. Readers who are interested in the above topics should consult the following books to have a more complete picture of the Roman Catholic Church: The Vatican's Holocaust by Avro Manhattan, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941-1945 by Edmond Paris, The Vatican Empire by Nino Lo Bello, The Vatican Connection by Richard Hammer, Priests and Politicians: The Mafia of the Soul by B.S.Rajneesh, and Unholy Trinity: How The Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets by Mark Aarons & John Loftus, Rich Church, Poor Church by Malachi Martin, and The Vatican Billions by Avro Manhattan.
Besides the above scandals, the most recent and damaging scandals have involved the physical and sexual abuse of orphans in some orphanages, and the molestation of children by quite an impressive number of priests. ABC Prime Time reported the "1.2 billion law suit" concerning the immoral abuses of orphans in an orphanage in Canada where the "gray nuns" (nuns who wear gray clothes) mistreated some of the orphans to death, and deliberately disabled a number of them. For example, thew nuns would pierce their ear drums, to receive $2.5 per day from the Government for each disabled child instead of $0.75 for each normal child. And most recently, the movie The Boys of St. Vincent, based on a true story in the book Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel by Michael Harris, exposed the physical and sexual abuses of young orphans in the orphanage of St. Jones in Newfoundland, Canada and the cover up by the regional Church. But the most serious problem the Church is facing now is about a large number of its priests who sexually abused young girls and boys in their parishes. And, the more damaging effect is, instead of finding a way to protect the followers, the Church has made every effort to cover up the abusive priests to save the Church image. The book A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church by Elinor Burkett and Frank Bruni describes the following:
On the same subject, Jason Berry wrote in his book Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children:
Reviewing this book, Father Andrew M. Greeley, a sociologist-priest, professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, remarked that:
In fact, in Father Andrew Greeley’s research, he projected that at least 2,500 priests nationwide have victimized tens of thousands of children in the past generation (Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1993) Jason Berry also wrote in the article Fathers: The Catholic Church has to Confront the Problem of Sexually Abusive Priests, Los Angeles Times Magazine, June 1995:
And, we can read the following on the front cover of the book Sex, Priests, and Power: An Anatomy of a Crisis by A. W. Richard Sipe, an ordained Catholic priest:
The four principal causes for the decline of the Roman Catholic Church analyzed above, will no doubt lead to the irreversible falling trend of Catholicism in the world. The Pope is aware of that, and by writing the book Crossing the Threshold of Hope he hopes to somewhat reverse this trend. Unfortunately, people all around the world, even in Third World countries, are becoming more and more educated, and there is no way the Church can possibly suppress the truth as it has done so often in the past. His book only confirms that the true nature of the Roman Catholic Church has not changed at all. It still dreams of imposing its teaching upon the rest of the world.
THE SECOND MAJOR CONCERN that bothered the Pope is the spread of Buddhism and Islam in Europe and America. I do not know anything about Islam, but regarding Buddhism I can see clearly its rather rapid spread throughout the West. More than thirty years ago, when I studied physics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the bookstores in town carried only a very limited number of Buddhist books, for example the three volumes of Zen Essays by Daisetz T. Suzuki, A Buddhist Bible by Dwight Goddard, Zen Keys by Thích Nhaát Haïnh, and a limited number of works by such well known authors such as Edward Conze, Christmas Humphreys, Sir Edwin Arnold, Theodore Stcherbatsky, Alan Watts, Charles Luk, Sangharakshita, John Blofeld and Philip Kapleau. But now, I am very impressed by a very large selection of Buddhist scriptures, texts etc... available at every large bookstore. In 1993, the book The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thích Nhaát Haïnh was one of the best sellers. Books on Tibetan Buddhism are also numerous, especially after the Honorable Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Nobel Prize. The influence of Buddhism on Western societies has been developed rapidly because of the works of the above-mentioned authors and many more. Apart from Zen Buddhism, which was introduced to the West by Daisetz Suzuki, the most recent contribution to the spread of Buddhism in the West has been by the Dalai Lama with Tibetan Buddhism and by Thích Nhaát Haïnh with Engaged Buddhism combined with Mindfulness, and of course, with the assistance of many other monks and lay Buddhists. A recent CBS's "60 Minutes" reported that there are over 2 million American Buddhists, not to mention those of Asian origin such as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean... NBC TV Network also reported that there are about 300 Buddhist Centers in Los Angeles alone, and about 50 in Boston etc.. In the book How The Swans Came To The Lake, Rick Fields recounts the history of the development of Buddhism in America with major contributions from His Eminence the Dalai Lama, Tripitika Master Hsuan Hua from the city of "Ten Thousand Buddhas" in Talmage, California, and the late Vietnamese Zen Master Thích Thieân AÂn in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Vietnamese Zen Master Thích Nhaát Haïnh teaching in several American communities. The development and spread of Buddhism in the West were reported in Buddhism in Europe by Kosho Yamamoto, Zen Comes West by Christmas Humphreys, Buddhism and the West: The Integration of Buddhism into Western Society by Sangharakshita, Buddhism in Australia by Paul Croucher, and The Awakening of the West by Stephen Batchelor etc... It is not my intention to advertize Buddhism. Buddhism is not for sale. It does not have any relic, holy water or indulgence for sale either. So, there is no need to advertize it. I am only reporting the facts. But, it is worth trying to understand why Buddhism has captivated the Western mind. Let me quote just a few observations:
The following is from the book God and the New Haven Railway. And Why Neither One Is Doing Very Well by George Dennis O'Brien, professor of Philosophy and President of the University of Rochester:
And, we can read the following on the back cover of the book, The Awakening of the West: The Encounter Of Buddhism and Western Culture by Stephen Batchelor:
In Western countries, the influence of Buddhism in general, and of the Dalai Lama in particular, especially since he received the Peace Nobel Prize, no doubt made John Paul II worried. That's why he characterized the Dalai Lama as "stirring up" interest in Buddhism outside Asia. Why John Paul II was worried about this "stirring up" is beyond my understanding. The history of Buddhism shows that it is a peaceful religion, and in the course of more than 2500 years, Buddhism has never had to rely on swords, guns, forced conversions, and political manipulations to support its propagation in the world. Does the Pope want to keep his followers away from the tree of true knowledge? Is he afraid of some kind of crusade and/or inquisition behind the present Buddhist movement? Is it a sign of lost confidence in the Catholic teachings? If his followers are satisfied with the Catholic teachings why do they bother to take up Buddhism? And, to keep his followers from being attracted to Buddhism, he characterized Buddhism as an atheist religion. For many decades the Catholic Church has been against the Communists, associated Communism with Atheism, brainwashed its followers that the Communist atheists are evils. This is a distortion of the facts. Dr. Madalyn O'Hair wrote that:
To label Buddhism as atheist, John Paul II exploited the hatred of Communism, as taught by the Church for so many years, hoping that his followers will hate Buddhism as they were taught to hate Communism. That's why Nalin de Silva commented that the Pope made malicious remarks about Buddhism. And, even before the emergence of Communism in the world, Robert Ingersoll already asked:
John Paul II must know about the history of the Catholic Church, its development and expansion throughout the world. Let me review briefly the Vietnamese contact with the spread of Catholicism along with French colonialism in Vietnam to see if there is any parallel between the spread of Buddhism and that of Catholicism in the world. We Vietnamese, have experienced tremendous sufferings when the European missionaries came to our country a few hundred years ago to "save" us, to make us know the "love" of the Christian God and believe in a Jewish Savior. First, they slandered Buddha, calling him a "black liar", and all other Vietnamese religions: Taoism and Confucianism (Catechism in Eight Days by Alexandre de Rhodes), then they urged us to give up our roots, to abandon our sacred tradition of worshipping our ancestors. Finally, they transformed their Vietnamese followers into religious fanatics who betrayed their country by siding with and fighting for the French colonialists under the command of their Catholic priests, all in the name of the Christian God of Love. This method of propagation of the faith was beyond the understanding of the majority of the Vietnamese population. They used to live in harmony with their three main religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Now they encounter an alien religion which is at odds with everything they believe in. But later on, when we read about the history of the Catholic Church, about the history of the popes, about the eight Crusades, the Inquisitions, the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Eve etc.. we began to understand the true nature of the Catholic Church. And, as a result, it's not a surprise to anyone that over several centuries, including nearly one hundred years of French domination and nine years of Catholic dictatorship under Ngo Dinh Diem, during which the Catholic bishops, priests, European as well as indigenous peoples have tried their best to proselytize Vietnam, and they still could not bring the Vietnamese Catholic population to above seven percent. Although we lost our independence for nearly one hundred years to the French, we did learn some progressive ideas from them, especially in the matter of religion. We still remember Leon Gambetta who had shouted a "cry of war":
and EÙmile Combes, a senator who openly declared in the French Senate:
and Jean Bossu who, when fighting for the democracy of the French people, had declared:
The French intellectuals realized the importance of a liberal system of education, therefore they were successful in their opposition to the Catholic education and they could be able to pull their children out of the arms of the Catholic priests and at the same time, unmask the hypocrisies of the Church (Arracher l'enfant au moine, deùvoiler les hypocrisies de l'EÙglise). That's why the French Minister of Education, Charles Dupuy had openly declared:
And, Victor Hugo, the great French writer of all times, stated that:
and also this famous remark:
So, for many centuries, the European intellectuals have known the true nature of the Roman Catholic Church, unlike the ignorant poor masses in Third World countries who still believe in the supernatural, the miraculous, the superstitious, and the impossible. We also were able to learn from many other progressive minds such as Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, Robert Ingersoll, Charles Bradlaugh, Bertrand Russell, just to name a few. All of them were freethinkers who fought for the freedom of thought, against the myths that enslave the mind of man. In their opinion:
Now, I would like to make a few comments on John Paul II's remarks about Buddha and Buddhism. I have no intention to go into the faith of the Catholics because I conceive that religious faith is a right of man, including blind faith and/or superstitious faith. However, it is unethical for a spiritual leader of a religion like Catholicism, based solely on his own faith and the truth he conceived from his tradition, to make malicious remarks about the founder of another religious tradition, Buddha in the case of Buddhism, and to misrepresent another religion. Although his representative already apologized to the Buddhist Community, the harm was done, and this is a classic tactic "aø la Machiavellianism" (i.e., immorality, craft and deceit are justified in pursuing and maintaining political power). Let me first comment on his following remark about Buddha:
It is obvious that, as professor Ken Tanaka said, the pope "hasn't done his homework". It is also obvious that, as Rev. Alan Senauke remarked, the pope's comments were little more than "setting up straw men, then knocking them down" Why? Let's read the following in the Flower Ornament Scripture (The Avatamsaka Sutra), Book Four, "The Formation of the Worlds", translated from the Chinese by Thomas Cleary:
So, in the Buddhist's view of the universe, the formation of the multitude of world systems depends on many causes that encompass the law of interdependence, the law of dependent origination of all things, therefore there was no beginning, no first cause, no creator. Buddhism doesn't accept the creation theory with a God creator, therefore the question of acceptance or denial of any value of Creation to humanity is totally irrelevant, because you cannot have any concept about something non-existent. Furthermore, the concept of an ocean of world systems shows clearly that the Buddhist's view of the universe is more accurate compared to that in the Bible which, until the 17th century C.E (Common Era), still believed in an incorrect concept of a unique world system. In fact, Creation and God Creator are myths believed by a small fraction of people in this pluralistic world. It's not a verified truth, much less a universal truth. For those who believe in those myths, creation has some value. But for those who don't believe in those myths, there will be no value whatsoever. John Paul II believes in that myth, therefore for him creation is valuable. But he cannot say that whoever doesn't believe in that myth is wrong. That is a very narrow point of view in this modern, civilized world. His statement implied that the truth he conceives is the only truth in this world, and he tries to impose that truth upon the rest of the world. It didn't work in the past, even with the support of swords, guns, forced conversions. It never will. But, for the sake of completeness, I think it is interesting to view the creation theory in the light of science, of simple reasoning and common sense to see if it has any value at all to humanity. John Paul II wrote:
That is essentially the Creation theory that leads to the doctrine of salvation. Now, let's see how God created the world, and what kind of love God has for the world and how good the creation was. The Bible reads, Genesis, Holy Bible, The New King James Version:
When was "the beginning"? Buddhism conceives that the world has no beginning, no end. And science knows nothing of a beginning. Stephen Hawking, the foremost cosmologist of our time, reported in his book A Brief History of Time:
It is clear that the above view of the origin of the universe corresponds to that of Buddhism more than 2500 years ago. It is also clear that the pope didn't want the scientists to inquire into the big bang itself, fearing that their discovery would definitely refute, once and for all, the Christian Creation theory with a God Creator. In fact, if he accepted the big bang theory, he already denied the likelihood of the existence of a God Creator, because big bang is nothing but the explosion of an infinitely hot singularity of infinite mass.
According to Genesis the earth was made first and it was "without form and void". If we can believe the Bible as the "word of God" then God didn't even know that besides our world system there are infinite numbers of other world systems just as described in the Buddhist Flower Ornament Scripture (Avatamsaka Sutra). The universe as we see it today is the revelation of modern science and not of God, because God didn't even know that the earth was round, that the earth revolved around the sun. That's why Giordano Bruno was toasted at the stake, Galileo was confined in his home until he died, and it took the Church 359 years to admit that it was wrong in the Galileo affair. Furthermore, it is impossible to conceive of anything without some form. And if the earth was "without form and void" then how could it hold water so that the "spirit of God" was hovering the face of the waters? Moreover, who was there to listen to God then later reported in the Bible that "Then God said..?" Next comes the creation of light, God divided the light from the darkness, and called the light day and the darkness, night. The sun was not yet created, and we have here evening and morning, day and night. Every school child knows that this is utterly impossible and absurd. Then, how could God divide the light from the darkness? Is darkness a part of light or just the absence of light? Those absurdities reflect the ignorance of the primitive priests who knew nothing about cosmology, physics etc... Are we all wrong for not seeing any value in these absurdities.
Now, let us go a little further into the Bible. We know that God then made Adam and Eve, and because they disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, they were cursed, by God himself and kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve then gave birth to two sons: Cain and Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, talked his brother into going to the field and killed him...Then Cain lay with his wife and she gave birth to Enoch etc... The question is, why did the God of Love create such an injustice that induced the murder of Abel by his brother Cain? And, who was Cain's wife? At that time, there was only one woman in the world: his mother Eve. So, Cain must have committed incest. It is quite possible, because later on in the Bible there is the story of Lot's two daughters who got their father drunk and slept with him and got pregnant by him. Why would God create a world in which the beasts kill each other to feed themselves, with all the germs, and viruses for every disease, and especially for the human race, the first generation with disobedience (Adam), the second generation with murderer (Cain) and incest (Cain & Seth), and God found it good, very good. It is really beyond my understanding as a human being to conceive of such a notion of goodness in God. The Christian concept of goodness is a very peculiar one, maybe what I need is some kind of superblind-faith to believe in that kind of goodness. It is worth noting that more than one hundred years ago, Robert Ingersoll, the greatest American freethinker, or "infidel" if you wish, commented on this subject as follows:
To understand why, in this scientific and civilized world, the Catholic Church still teaches that horrific doctrine, let us read the following explanation of G.W.Foote in his book Bible Romances:
So much for the Creation theory and the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Do we see any value in that theory of Creation? Now, we shall go into the dogma of "First Parents". Let's assume that the story of Adam and Eve is true, in the sense that God made Adam out of dust and Eve from one of Adam's ribs. Does this story imply that Adam and Eve are the first parents of the human race? Genetically speaking, during the last 6000 years, the age of our world according to some Bible (actually, the age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years), have we ever seen a white couple giving birth to an African child? There are many races in the world. So, was Adam black? white? yellow? or red? Where did the different races with different languages come from? If God was a little bit more intelligent he would have made one set of parents for each race in the world. From the point of view of a Vietnamese, I cannot find any Vietnamese name in the Bible. All of them are Jewish names. Not only that, all the events in the Bible occurred in the Middle East. So, if Adam was in fact a first parent, he could be only the first parent of the Jewish race, or of some race in that region. Why do we, Vietnamese, have to accept a Jew as our first parent knowing that it is impossible for a Jewish couple to give birth to a Vietnamese, or an Indian, or an African child? So, those Vietnamese who believe in this doctrine of first parents are indeed living in illusion, because from the above reasoning, Adam and Eve could not be the first parents of the human race as a whole. Therefore, at least for us Vietnamese, the myth of the "Fall of Man" is irrelevant, and we do not need any Savior who saves us from an immaginary sin unrelated to our race. We |