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28 tháng 6, 2009 |
LTS:
Năm 1994, Nhà Xuất Bản
Alfred A. Knopf ở New York phát hành cuốn Crossing The
Threshold of Hope, nội dung là những câu hỏi của nhà báo
Ý Vittorio Messori, một giáo dân Công giáo, và những câu trả
lời của Giáo hoàng John Paul II. Có tất cả 34 câu hỏi ngắn
và các câu trả lời của Giáo hoàng đã hình thành một cuốn
sách dày hơn 200 trang. Phân tích kỹ những câu trả lời của
Giáo hoàng, chúng ta thấy Ngài giảng đạo của Ngài chứ không
phải là trả lời thẳng vào câu hỏi, vì Ngài thường viện dẫn
Kinh Thánh để giảng đạo, kể cả những điều mà thế giới ngày
nay xếp vào loại mê tín hoang đường, làm như tất cả những gì
viết trong Kinh Thánh đều là những chân lý mạc khải, không
thể sai lầm. Cuốn sách trên được một số giáo dân Việt Nam:
Tiến sĩ Trần Mỹ Duyệt, Cựu Thẩm Phán Nguyễn Cần, Kỹ sư Trần
Văn Trí, và Giáo sư Trần Văn Nhượng, cùng đóng góp dịch ra
tiếng Việt. Tên sách là Bước Qua Ngưỡng Cửa Hi Vọng,
và được nhà xuất bản Thăng Tiến phát hành năm 1995.
Nếu cuốn sách chỉ nói về những đức
tin trong Công giáo thì chẳng có mấy người ngoại đạo quan
tâm. Nhưng trong cuốn sách, Giáo hoàng John Paul II đã có
những nhận định sai lầm và tiêu cực về Mohammed và Hồi giáo,
về Đức Phật và Phật giáo. Do đó cuốn sách đã gây nên những
phê bình phản đối trên khắp thế giới. Về Phật Giáo, trong
khi có một số ý kiến phản đối những nhận định sai lầm cố ý
của Giáo hoàng về Phật giáo, hầu hết từ những cá nhân, thì
tổ chức Giao Điểm ở Cali đã lên tiếng kêu gọi sự đóng góp
của giới trí thức Việt Nam để hình thành một cuốn mang tên
Đối Thoại Với Giáo Hoàng Gioan-Phao-Lồ II Nhân Đọc Cuốn
Bước Qua Ngưỡng Cửa Hy Vọng. Kết quả là có 18 tác giả ở
khắp nơi trên thế giới: Mỹ, Pháp, Úc, Đan Mạch, Việt Nam,
đáp ứng viết bài, và cuốn Đối Thoại… đã ra mắt độc
giả vào tháng 6 năm 1995, cùng đã được gửi đến Tòa Thánh
Vatican. Trong số các tác giả trên có cả sự đóng góp của
người Công giáo.
Cuốn Đối Thoại đã được độc
giả hoan nghênh và đánh giá cao cho nên chỉ hai tháng sau
khi ấn bản đầu tiên phát hành vào tháng 6, 1995, đến tháng
8, 1995 đã phải in lại ấn bản hai, rồi đến năm 2000 lại phải
in lại lần nữa để có thế đáp ứng sự đòi hỏi của độc giả.
Năm 1997, Giao Điểm lại xuất bản
cuốn Đối Thoại bằng tiếng Anh: Dialogue With Pope
John Paul II: A Vietnamese Buddhist Critique of The Pope’s
Crossing The Threshold of Hope, với tám tác giả chọn lọc
trong cuốn bằng tiếng Việt.
Sachhiem xin các bạn đọc giới thiệu cùng các bạn
trẻ đọc tiếng Anh bài của Gs Trần Chung Ngọc
trong bản tiếng Anh này. Bài dài 66 trang trong cuốn
sách, từ trang 1 đến trang 66, gồm có phần Tài liệu Tham
Khảo ở cuối. Đọc bài của Gs Trần Chung Ngọc chúng ta thấy ông nghiên cứu các vấn đề rất kỹ kèm theo dẫn chứng từ những tài liệu gốc, cùng những lý luận rất chặt chẽ. Đây là bài duy nhất mà Gs Trần Chung Ngọc ghi
học vị PhD của mình và đại học xuất thân: University of
Wisconsin – Madison (SH).
Lời tựa cho kỳ đăng tháng 6, 2009.
Bài này được viết trước khi Giáo hoàng John Paul II xưng thú 7 núi tội ác của Công giáo
trước thế giới vào ngày 12.3.2000, chưa có những tác phẩm về
Ki Tô Giáo của Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel C.
Dennet, Richard Dawkins v..v…, do đó có những chi tiết chưa
được bàn đến. Cũng chưa có những vụ Giáo hoàng chính
thức công nhận thuyết Big Bang về nguồn gốc vũ trụ, thuyết
Tiến Hóa về nguồn gốc con người, và phủ nhận sự hiện hữu của
Thiên Đường và Hỏa Ngục. Cho nên, so với bộ kiến thức ngày
nay thì bài này có đôi phần thiếu sót. Nhưng
những thiếu sót này đã được bổ túc trong những bài
viết đăng trên giaodiemonline.com và sachhiem.net qua vài
thí dụ sau đây:
● Trong cuốn Bước Qua Ngưỡng Cửa Hi
Vọng, sau khi viết sai lầm về mục đích và phương pháp tu
tập trong Phật Giáo, Giáo hoàng đặt câu hỏi: “Chúng ta có
thể tới gần God trong con đường này không? Điều này không
được nói tới trong sự “giác ngộ” mà Đức Phật truyền đạt.”
[Do we draw near to God in this way? This is not mentioned
in the “enlightenment” conveyed by Buddha.] Ngài không cho
độc giả biết God của Ngài là cái gì và tại sao chúng ta lại
phải tới gần God của Ngài? Nhưng với những tài liệu nghiên
cứu mới thì nay chúng ta đã biết God của Ngài là cái gì.
● Trong cuốn “The God Delusion”,
First Mariner Books, New York, 2008, mở đầu Chương 2, trang
51, về “Giả Thuyết Về Thiên Chúa” [The God
Hypothesis], tác giả Richard Dawkins viết:
Không cần phải bàn cãi gì nữa,
Thiên Chúa trong Cựu Ước là nhân vật xấu xa đáng ghét nhất
trong mọi chuyện giả tưởng: ghen tuông đố kỵ và hãnh
diện vì thế; một kẻ nhỏ nhen lặt vặt, bất công,
có tính đồng bóng tự cho là có quyền năng và bất khoan
dung; một kẻ hay trả thù; một kẻ khát máu diệt
dân tộc khác; một kẻ ghét phái nữ, sợ đồng
giống luyến ái, kỳ thị chủng tộc, giết hại trẻ
con, chủ trương diệt chủng, dạy cha mẹ giết
con cái, độc hại như bệnh dịch, có bệnh tâm
thần hoang tưởng về quyền lực, của cải, và toàn năng
[megalomaniacal], thích thú trong sự đau đớn và những
trò tàn ác, bạo dâm [sadomasochistic], là kẻ
hiếp đáp ác ôn thất thường.
[The God of the Old Testament is
arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction:
jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving
control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a
misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,
filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic,
capriciously malevolent bully.]
Nhận định này đã được chứng minh đầy đủ trong bài “Đây! Thiên Chúa Của
Những Người Theo Đạo Thiên Chúa”
[http://www.sachhiem.net/TCNtg/ TCN64.php] và đặt cho
chúng ta một câu hỏi: Một God như trên có đáng để cho
chúng ta tới gần không?
● Một thí dụ khác, trong cuốn Bước
Qua Ngưỡng Cửa Hi Vọng, khi được hỏi “Tại sao nhân
loại cần được cứu rỗi?” thì Giáo hoàng “trả lời” bằng
cách viện dẫn một câu trong Tân Ước, John 3:16: “Thiên
Chúa quá thương yêu thế gian đến nỗi ban Con duy nhất của
Ngài (nghĩa là Giê-su), để những ai tin vào Người
(Giê-su) sẽ không bị luận phạt, nhưng được sống đời đời.”.
Ngài cũng không cho độc giả biết người Con duy nhất của
Thiên Chúa là như thế nào. Nhưng gần đây, dựa trên những tài
liệu mới, tôi đã chứng minh trong bài
http://giaodiemonline.com/2009/03/god.htm, “Đây!!
Chúa Giê-su Của Những Người Theo Đạo Giê-su”, đưa ra
những nhận định về Giê-su của một số học giả ờ trong cũng
như ở ngoài Ki Tô Giáo, dựa trên những gì viết về Giê-su
trong Tân Ước như sau:
Giám Mục John Shelby Spong: "Có nhiều
bằng chứng trong Thánh Kinh chứng tỏ Giê-su ở Nazareth là
con người thiển cận, đầy thù hận, và ngay cả đạo đức giả"
Jim Walker : Có nhiều đoạn trong
các Phúc Âm trong Tân Ước, Giê-su được mô tả như là một con
người đầy hận thù, xấu xa, bất khoan dung, và đạo đức giả.
Học Giả Ki-Tô Russell Shorto:
Các học giả đã biết rõ sự thật từ nhiều thập niên nay –
rằng Giê-su chẳng gì khác hơn là một người thường sống
với một ảo tưởng – họ đã dạy điều này cho nhiều thế hệ
các linh mục và mục sư. Nhưng những vị này vẫn giữ kín
không cho đám con chiên biết vì sợ gây ra những phản ứng xúc
động dữ dội trong đám tín đồ. Do đó, những người còn sống
trong bóng tối là những tín đồ Ki Tô bình thường.
Với những tài liệu nghiên cứu mới về
Thiên Chúa và Con Thiên Chúa, chúng ta thấy rõ Giáo hoàng
John Paul II là một người Trung Cổ với những niềm tin của
thời Trung Cổ qua những gì Ngài viết trong cuốn Bước Qua
Ngưỡng Cửa Hi Vọng. Ngài cho rằng lịch sử loài người
chỉ bắt đầu từ khi Giê-su sinh ra cho nên đã viện dẫn một
câu hoàn toàn vô nghĩa trong Tân Ước, John 3:16, vì câu đó,
“tin vào Giê-su thì sẽ không bị luận phạt, nhưng được
sống đời đời”, chỉ có thể áp dụng cho những người sinh
sau Giê-su, trong khi lịch sử nhân loại đã có từ nhiều trăm
ngàn năm nếu không muốn nói là cả triệu năm trước khi Giê-su
sinh ra đời. Ngài cũng cho rằng nhân loại cần tới gần một
Thiên Chúa có 16 thuộc tính không lấy gì làm đẹp đẽ đáng ca
ngợi như trên, và cần đến sự cứu rỗi hay sợ sự luận phạt của
một người thường, sống với một ảo tưởng, và có những cá
tính như đầy hận thù, xấu xa, bất khoan dung, và đạo đức
giả? như Giê-su.
Đặc điểm bài viết là sự phân tích về những nguyên nhân
khiến cho Giáo hoàng John Paul II phải hạ thấp các tôn giáo
khác như Hồi giáo và Phật giáo, đồng thời nhắc lại những tín
lý đã lỗi thời để giữ tín đồ trước những sự khủng khoảng của
giáo hội Công giáo về sự suy giảm quyền lực của Giáo hoàng
và Giáo hội, về số linh mục và giáo dân bỏ đạo, về sự suy
thoái của Công giáo ở khắp nơi trên thế giới, và nhất là
trước sự phát triển mạnh mẽ của Phật Giáo và Hồi Giáo trong
thế giới Tây phương. Cho nên, dù viết cách đây đã trên 10
năm, bài này vẫn không bị lỗi thời và vẫn
còn giá trị nghiên cứu trí thức đối với những ai muốn tìm
hiểu về đạo Công giáo. Đây là một bài viết bằng tiếng Mỹ,
có thể thích hợp với giới trẻ ngại đọc tiếng Việt. (TCN)
Giao Điểm magazine has invited me to participate in this
"Dialogue
with Pope John Paul II..." It was indeed an honor for me. After thinking
seriously about this invitation, I accepted. The famous Catholic theologian
Hans Kung once said: "There is no peace in the world if there is no peace
between religions, and there is no peace between religions if there is no
dialogue betweeen religions."
Therefore, I believe a dialogue between religions is necessary,
especially when the Catholic Church, after the Vatican Council II, in 1965,
decided to promote ecumenism, and to open itself for dialogue with
non-Christian religions. However, instead of "reviewing" John Paul II's
Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that is, commenting on "how" he wrote
that book, I was interested in doing some research on "why" he wrote that
book. I believe that was the core issue. Therefore, the following analysis
is focused primarily on the "why" and just a little on the "how." And, I
must thank Pope John Paul II for giving me an opportunity to do a somewhat
in-depth research on the history of the Roman Catholic Church, and as a
result, to have gained a better understanding of it.
This analysis is based on documents and facts and not on rhetoric, and
those facts will be taken primarily from the work of the best Catholic
authorities: archbishops, bishops, priests, theologians and Catholic
scholars. However, it is possible that there may well be Catholics who still
believe in the infallibility of the Pope, that the Pope is the Vicar of
Christ, and who therefore, probably kneel whenever the Pope appears on TV.
This article is not for them, because they will find in this analysis some
painful truths that do not correspond to what they have heard in their
churches for so many years: that the Roman Catholic Church is the wisest and
most virtuous one in the world, that it is a champion in serving the poor,
and that the Church has always been an avant-garde in the promotion of free
speech and human rights. However, for others, especially for those who are
open-minded and who have a minimum respect for intellectual honesty, this
analysis may provide some food for conscientious thought. And, in the end,
they may have some concrete ideas about the motive behind the writing of the
book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.
First of all, from the standpoint of a Vietnamese-American lay Buddhist,
I believe a dialogue with John Paul II is rather unrealistic. Such dialogue
cannot be realized for two main reasons.
1. John Paul II is the spiritual leader of millions of followers. He is
in the highest position in the Catholic world. He sits on thrones and has to
devote his entire effort and time to serve the poor, as taught by Jesus
Christ. It is unlikely that he has time and/or is willing to lower himself
to have a dialogue with a number of unknown lay Buddhists who dare to
comment on his divinely-inspired book.
2. It is impossible to have a dialogue with a Pope who still believes in
his medieval powers, still believes that the so-called Catholic truth is the
only truth in this pluralistic world and therefore still tries to impose it
on the rest of the world.
Although it is very unlikely that we will have a dialogue with John Paul
II, if we want to make some comments on his book Crossing the Threshold
of Hope, then we should, because this is one of our basic rights in this
free world. We should try to understand his motive for writing this book.
Once we understand his motive, our understanding and compassion will lead to
forgiveness, and we will be able to detach ourselves from everything he has
written about Buddha and Buddhism.
This analysis is necessarily long, unfortunately, but by no means
exhaustive. Due to the nature of the analysis and for the sake of
completeness, the use of a large number of documents is necessary to
substantiate the main points in the analysis.
First, I will review briefly what John Paul II has written about Buddha
and Buddhism, then I shall go directly to some remarks on his book by some
scholars, Catholic and non-Catholic , and finally I shall develop those
remarks for a deeper understanding of them.
On page 43, John Paul II writes about Buddha as follows:
"Buddha is right when he does not see the possibility of human
salvation in creation, but he is wrong when, for that reason, he denies that
creation has any value for humanity."
and, on pages 85-86 he writes about Buddhism:
"The Buddhist doctrine of Salvation constitutes the central point, or
rather the only point, of this system. Nevertheless, both the Buddhist
tradition and the methods deriving from it have an almost exclusively
negative soteriology. The "enlightenment" experienced by Buddha comes down
to the conviction that the world is bad, that it is the source of evil and
of suffering for man. To liberate oneself from this evil, one must free
oneself from this world, necessitating a break with the ties that join us to
external reality - ties existing in our human nature, in our psyche, in our
bodies. The more we are liberated from these ties, the more we become
indifferent to what is in the world, and the more we are freed from
suffering, from the evil that has its source in the world.
Do we draw near to God in this way? This is not mentioned in the
"enlightenment" conveyed by Buddha. Buddhism is in large measure an
"atheistic" system. We do not free ourselves from evil through the good
which comes from God; we liberate ourselves only through detachment from the
world, which is bad. The fullness of such a detachment is not union with
God, but what is called Nirvana, a state of perfect indifference with regard
to the world. To save oneself means, above all, to free oneself from evil by
becoming indifferent to the world which is the source of evil. This is the
culmination of the spiritual process."
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:
- To put down other religious traditions by deliberately making malicious
remarks about them, based totally on one-sided, arrogant Catholic teachings,
and to discourage the Catholic flock from being impressed by and attracted
to the teachings of other religions, especially the teaching of true love,
true compassion, and self-salvation of Sakyamuni Buddha.
- To make an effort to consolidate the authority of the pope, the
Vatican, and the Catholic clergy to maintain the tradition of "keeping
the Catholic flock in a pyramid structure." This model structure will be
clarified by Penny Lernoux in a later paragraph.
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 Nhất Hạnh 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:
"In most European countries, secularism has already triumphed
completely. In that region, organized religions - Catholic, Protestant and
Jewish - are regarded as alike in their insistence to absolutes. They are
considered to have little or nothing to contribute, therefore, to the
current political, economic and cultural life of Western European
countries...
The author also quoted an American scholar:
“The Pope is well aware that, in the next century, Catholicism
will survive only in Third World countries. Catholicism has always
flourished only in poor population of low educational quality. The
sophisticated West can take Catholicism's narrowness no longer. The Pope
realizes that."
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 Ngô Đình Diệm 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 Église:
"This Church, which now collapses, is ruled by a pontiff of medieval
type who, even if he improved his technique, can do nothing more, in my
opinion, to prevent it from disappearing, practically and pretty fast,
during the third millennium, at least under its "Roman" form, a Church
which, for its two "great sacraments", has recourse to magic."
(Translated from French: "Cette Église, qui aujourd'hui s'effondre, est
régie par un pontife de type médiéval qui, même s'il amendait sa technique,
ne peut plus rien, à mon sens, pour empêcher de disparaitre, pratiquement et
assez vite, au cours du troisieøme millénaire, du moins sous sa forme
"romaine", une Église qui, pour ses deux "grands sacrements", recours à la
magie.)
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:
"With Hans Kung, I must agree that "the paradigm of
Constantinian-Byzantine imperial church in which church and state harmonized
only too well and thought that they themselves could realize the kingdom of
God on earth" must go!
And I must also agree with Dr. Kung's assessment that "the model of
medieval papal church in which a theocratic ruler thought he could exercise
absolute control over both the apostolic churches of the East and the
churches of the West, indeed, over the consciences of all people, and even
be able to dictate morality to secular governments - a pope-fixated church
that even today still thinks it can defend its medieval powers with
authoritarian decrees, disciplinary sanctions, and political strategies,"
must die!"
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:
"That most formidable breeder of monsters, the Catholic Church, will
be made to tumble with the greatest ignominy of all by the tide of her past
misdeeds recoiling upon her, as irresistible as the waters of the great
flood. The blood of the unjustly slain, which has flowed like an
ever-widening river through the somber valleys of history, has already run
too deep for man to suffer any longer the earth to be empurpled with it
anew.
The fixed star of the Catholic Church shall fall from the sky of the
West with thunder. For the bell of destiny, which has tolled for all
tyrants, verily is about to toll also for her."
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:
"In the beginning, Latin-American society was constructed like a
pyramid, with a few Europeans settlers enjoying all the privileges of empire
and a mass of Indians, blacks, and half-castes having no rights at all. The
pyramid survived because the mass at the bottom was repeatedly told that it
was stupid, lazy, and inferior. Foreign missionaries helped drum these ideas
into the native's heads by claiming that it was God's will that they should
be poor and ignorant. As the Archbishop of Lima told his Indians: "Poverty
is the most certain road to felicity." Any Indian or African who had the
temerity to doubt such wisdom by rebelling against the system was promptly
put to death...The Catholic Church must accept a lot of the blame for this
situation. Like the conquistadors, most of the European missionaries who
came to Latin-America saw themselves as bearers of cultures vastly superior
to those of the natives. The missionaries were less interested in
integrating the Indians and Africans than on subjugating them to the
European religious structures. Little attempt was made to understand or
appreciate the cultural heritage of the people, and most of the missionaries
remained a group apart, European colonists on the American continent, right
up to the 20th century. Although the mass of the people accepted the white
man's God, either under physical duress or because he seemed more powerful
than their own Gods, they never assimilated the ideas of Christianity.
Blinded by their own cultural limitations, the missionaries never saw
how superficial was the religious conversion."
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 Ngô Đình
Diệm'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:
"Roman Catholics are often genuinely surprised to find that they are
frequently regarded with suspicion by their fellow-citizens. They do not
seem to realize that, if they elect to march in the papal army, they must
expect to receive the consequences. Their Generals (the bishops) and their
Commander-in-Chief (the pope), concentrate upon the welfare of the Vatican
rather upon the welfare of mankind. No wonder that Romanists are unpopular
with progressive and intelligent people; they cannot become first-class
citizens owing to their dual allegiance...It is unfair to blame individual
Roman Catholic for being (unconsciously) detrimental to human progress. They
have been brought up in what Dr. Barnado called "The thick darkness of
Romanism"...Illiteracy is always prevalent in Romanist countries - to enable
Priestcraft to flourish."
Father Joseph McCabe, a Catholic priest for some twenty years, wrote in
his book Rome Puts a Blight on Culture as follows:
"The Church of Rome puts a blight on culture and intellect. There is
no other possible explanation of the facts. Of adolescent and adult
Catholics about one-half are illiterate, as I will show in the next chapter,
and half the remaining have only that paltry degree of literacy which makes
their creed or opinion of no particular interest. The cultural value of the
remainder you can judge by the number of distinguished men who emerge from
the body...
All of which points infallibly to the conclusion that the Church
itself is responsible. One of those fine-nature writers who are always
trying to say a good word for Catholicism, which they never study, asks all
sweetly reasonable folk to see that mental concern about religion must help
to develop the mind and promote thinking. We might admit this on one
condition: that the man or woman does really think about religion by reading
both sides and conscientiously weighing their arguments. That is just what
the Roman Church uses its heaviest weapons to prevent. The Catholic book is
a holy book: the critical book is a "bad" book and is on the same level as
the kind of book you cannot buy openly.
If we are
agreed that democracy is the ideal political form, we agree also to teach
all people to think critically and inquire without restriction as the only
way to get it to work satisfactorily. The law of the Catholic Church is
just the opposite. You must not inquire outside your own creed and you
must not think critically even within its range."
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:
"Rome loves the
illiterate. They are so easily persuaded to burn "heretics" and kiss bogus
relics."
In his famous
book Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church, Father Emmett
McLoughlin related his own experience as follows:
"It is my
contention and my sincere conviction, from my experience in the Catholic
educational system, my life of 15 years in the priesthood, and 13 years of
constant observation and intense study since leaving the Church, that its
influence on all civilization has been far more evil than of good.
Intellectually, the Church of Rome has done its best to strangle the human
mind and stifle mental initiative. It must do this if it is to survive. No
thinking, intelligent, historically studious person, especially a
freedom-loving American, can become or remain a Roman Catholic."
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 Điểm magazine, #8 :
"The Vietnamese
will no doubt be surprised when they find out that, to the Westerners with
progressive mind, it is Catholicism that is a bunch of outdated myths,
superstitions, and meaningless rituals. Westerners know very well that, not
many knowledgeable people still believe in Catholicism. All those who have
some knowledge about European history know that, the Roman Catholic Church
has done everything in its power to oppose the development of Science and
people's new way of living and thinking. In America today, the fanatic
Catholics are the first who fight against the new traditions and the
scientific world.
Therefore, in
the Western mind, Catholicism is inseparable from an outdated traditional
doctrine, a regret of the past. In the West, the majority of Catholic
devotees are the least educated, from lower classes and lower economical
levels, who have nothing else to expect."
(Translated from Vietnamese)
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:
"In fact during
the two centuries and more that the Catholic Missions have been operating in
China and the Indochinese peninsula they have probably not converted more
than ten scholars in all. The entire educated and governing class of the
population has evaded their proselytes. In general Catholic missionaries
only recruit from among the lowest classes, and mainly among those who, for
various reasons have been rejected by Annamese society."
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:
"Those who
dress in purple silk, live in palaces, sit on thrones - it is not easy for
them to act as servants of the servants of God or to represent the Poor Man
of Nazareth to the poor and starving of the world."
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 pope goes
on traveling around the world preaching that birth control is against God;
that any method of preventing the birth of a child is anti-God -
particularly in the countries of the East where people are so poor, and they
are going to become poorer everyday. But the pope's interest is not that
man should live comfortably, without hunger.
And, you will
be surprised to know that on one hand, the pope goes on talking against
birth control methods; and on the other, the Vatican has a hidden factory
where they make birth control pills - because it is good business; it brings
millions of dollars.
You call such
people religious?
...And his
interest in birth control is really to increase the population. Whatever
consequences happen to people is not the problem. If people are poor and
hungry, they can be easily converted to Christianity, particularly into the
Catholic church. Their schools, their hospitals, their orphanages are
nothing but factories for converting people into Catholics.
...The popes don't
seem to be interested in saving humanity. Their basic interest is how to get
more and more people into their religion, because that is going to be their
power. It is pure politics."
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:
"The emergence
of national churches was the problem threatening the spirituality of the
popes in the eighteenth century. In Rome nothing met with such relentlessly
thorough opposition as the 19th-century national-church tendencies, while to
this day liberalism is seen by Rome as the greatest enemy of the Catholic
Church."
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:
"Luther's
Reformation in the 16th-century was merely the successful climax of
centuries of struggle of sincere millions who disagreed as much with the
morals of Rome as they did with its doctrine. If the soil were not ripe for
revolt, the Reformation movement of Lutherans.. and others could not have
spread so rapidly through the most progressive nations of Europe. All of
these peoples were Roman Catholics rejecting the crime and immorality of
Rome, its pope and its clergy.
It is more than
a coincidence that the Christian peoples that rejected Rome became and still
are the most moral and law-abiding in the world. Norway, Sweden,
Iceland, Denmark, Finland, England, Scotland and Switzerland..they have
learned to rely on God and their own will power, and not on confession,
purgatory, indulgences, rosaries, medals and the like."
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:
"It is
important, therefore, to distinguish between the American Catholic people
and their Roman-controlled priests. The Catholic people of the United
States fight and die for the same concept of freedom as do other true
Americans; they believe in the same fundamental ideals of democracy. If
they controlled their own Church, the Catholic problem would soon disappear
because, in the atmosphere of American freedom, they would adjust their
Church's policies to American realities.
Unfortunately, the Catholic people of the United States are not citizens but
"subjects" in their own religious commonwealth. The secular as well
as the religious policies of their Church are made in Rome by an
organization that is alien in spirit and control. The American Catholic
people themselves have no representatives of their own choosing either in
their own local hierarchy or in the Roman high command; and they are
compelled by the very nature of their Church's authoritarian structure to
accept nonreligious as well as religious policies that have been imposed
upon them from abroad."
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. A petition 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.
2. The case of
Father Charles E. Curran:
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.
3. The case of the
German theologian Hans Kung:
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.
4. The case of the
Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx:
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.
5. The case of the
Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff:
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
centuries-old mistress of "tyranny over the mind of man," (i.e., the Catholic Church)
clothed now in
the robe of Ecumenical Brotherhood, protected by the slogan of "tolerance,"
seduces the rulers in high places, poses learnedly in academic hall, and
shares Protestant pulpits as she grows stronger - in money, in political
power, in the illusion of numbers.
Every
ex-priest knows the Church system's seductiveness, its duplicity, its
totalitarianism, its chameleon-like ability to wear the color of democracy
in America and the blackness of the swastika in Germany. He knows that it
seeks not the salvation of souls, but the enslavement of minds; not the
rewards of heavenly glory, but the accumulation of earthy power. Not the
eternal treasures in heaven where thieves cannot steal, but the passing gold
of every nation on earth - of each nation as it attains its zenith."
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 Church
in Latin America was born alienated. It has not, from the start and despite
some valiant efforts to the contrary, been the master of its own destiny.
Decisions were taken outside the subcontinent. After the wars of
independence of the last century, a sort of ecclesiastical "colonial treaty"
was established. Latin America was to supply "the raw materials": the
faithful, the Marian cult, and popular devotions; Rome and the Churches of
the Northern hemisphere were to supply "manufactured goods": studies of
Latin-American affairs, pastoral directives, clerical education, the right
to name bishops - and even supply them - money for works and missions. In
other words, the general dependent situation of Latin America is just as
real in Church affairs."
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:
"..One thing
is certain. The story of the Latin-American Indian from 1492 to the present
is mostly one of suffering. The Indians have been economically exploited,
culturally destroyed and Europeanized, and raped in matters of religion."
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:
1. From its
first appearance in the New World, the Catholic Church was part of the
overall enterprise of conquest and colonization of the native people by
Spain and Portugal and the imposition of colonial rule.
2. The Catholic
Church always sided with the local Government and the rich.
3. The Catholic
Church says one thing but practices another thing. The Bible says to serve
the poor but the Church always searches for lands and money. This is
accurately described by Desmond Tutu, the priest who won the Peace Nobel
Prize in 1984: "We have our lands and they came with their Bible. We
believed in them and we pray with the Bible in our hands and our eyes
closed. When we open our eyes, we have the Bible and they have our lands."
4. The Catholic
Church is an authoritarian institution. That's why:
"Liberation
theology is a critique of the activity of the Church and of Christians from
the angle of the poor. It also paid special attention to the Church with
strong anti-authority and anti-institution spirit. The poor, nonwhites, and
women are finding new meaning in Christian faith as well as revealing the
shortcomings of interpretation made by Western males." (Phillip
Berryman, “Liberation Theology”)
And, in A
Vision of Hope: The Churches and Change in Latin America, Trevor Beeson
& Jenny Pearce wrote:
"..It is not "a
new theology" which has been discovered, but "a new way of doing theology"
in the Latin America context, - in the context, that is, of the struggle for
liberation. The primary fact is a growing number of Christians all over the
continent have engaged themselves in the struggle for the political, social,
economic, cultural and spiritual liberation of their people."
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:
"But Rome
has a lot to offer, too. Rome does provide a refuge for the countless
millions who are unable to think for themselves, to take on the burdens of
personal responsibility." (Louis Baldwin, “The Pope and the
Mavericks”.)
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
"The shortage of
priests in the US is crumbling the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church."
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:
"We are
disciples of Jesus Christ, we live by God's grace, and our future is shaped
by God's design for his Church - not by sociologists."
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:
"100,000 Roman
Catholic priests have walked out in the last 20 years - more than one every
two hours. Almost half of all American priests will leave - most often, to
marry - before the 25th anniversary of their ordination. The Vatican won't
talk about this exodus, yet it is the most grievous crisis to face the
Church since the Protestant Reformation."
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:
"To help
Mussolini in his political difficulties, in 1923 the new Pope dissolved all
the various Roman Catholic political parties.. Thus the curious partnership
between two ambitious Italians enabled the formation of the first Facist
state - largely due to Vatican patronage and support.
By 1930
Mussolini (now firmly established) showed his thanks by returning favors to
the Pope. Under the Concordat - Vast sums of money were given to the
Pope. Roman Catholicism was declared the State Religion. Only textbooks
approved by the Church could be used in schools. Privileges for priests
were extended. "Catholic Action" (the new propaganda machine of the
Vatican) was recognized. Very soon the immoral alliance had resulted in
Italy in the abolition of such items of Civilization as: Free Speech, Honest
Education, Liberalism, Democracy, The Free Press.
In the mean
time, in Germany, another intolerant Romanist, Adolf Hitler, had launched
out into similar indecencies, receiving valuable Vatican support."
(Adrian Pigott, Ibid.)
The following is
in a figure caption in "The Godfathers" by Chick Publications:
"Like Italy,
German signed a concordat with Vatican in Rome, 1933. Signing the concordat
is Cardinal Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII). By 1933 he was
the Vatican Secretary of State. Second from left (in the figure
caption) is Franz Von Papen, a sinister Nazi and devout Roman Catholic
who was Hitler's ace diplomat and the Vatican agent in helping to bring
Hitler in power."
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:
"And on the
subject of the green, it's now of no secret that the papacy has financially
benefited from its ties to the Italian Mafia, as documented in several
books. It even led to the poisoning of John Paul I and the indictment of
Archbishop Paul Marcinkus." (Mark Pitsch in "The Daily Cardinal", Sep.
15, 1987)
"Archbishop
Paul Marcinkus was the head of the Vatican Bank. This is the man who was
running all the Mafia heroin money through the bank. In 1982 Archbishop
Marcinkus was involved in a huge financial scandal after an Italian bank
collapsed..
A warrant for
the arrest of the Archbishop had been issued, but the Vatican is a separate
government - just eight square miles - and the Italian government has no
power to interfere in the Vatican. And the Pope was hiding the man inside
the Vatican; the arrest warrant was waiting outside."
(Rajneesh, B.S., Ibid.)
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:
"When outsiders
first come into contact with the Vatican they are struck by how much
attention it pays to administrative, bureaucratic, legal, and political
business, and how relatively little it seems to care for transcendental
matters. This should explain why the reader will find plenty of mundane
material in these pages rather than descriptions of the Vatican's spiritual
life. It may seem as though I am reporting on one of the multi-national
corporations or the United Nations. But the Vatican is a complex business."
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, the 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:
"The book uses
interviews with victims to examine children's unique vulnerability to
priests and with priests abusers to explore their dangerous isolation. It
documents the failure of prosecutors, judges, psychologists and reporters to
monitor bishops, who spend million of dollars to protect the church's image
rather than its believers."
On the same
subject, Jason Berry wrote in his book Lead Us Not Into Temptation:
Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children:
"In fact,
between 1984 and 1992, 400 Catholic priests in North America have been
reported for molesting children. To date, $400 million has been paid by the
Church to resolve these cases. One source projects that $1 billion may be
paid by century's end."
Reviewing this
book, Father Andrew M. Greeley, a sociologist-priest, professor of Sociology
at the University of Chicago, remarked that:
"I am familiar
with many of the cases and situations about which Jason Berry writes. I can
assure the reader that to the best of my knowledge his reporting is accurate
and restrained, indeed if anything almost too conservative. It is my strong
impression that the situation is actually much worse than it appears in this
book. One will become very angry, I suspect, as one reads through its
pages, not so much at the victimizers, who themselves were often if not
always victims when they were children, but at Catholic leadership. Bishops
have with that seems like programmed consistency tried to hide, cover up,
bribe, stonewall, often they have sent back into parishes men whom they knew
to be a danger of the faithful."
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:
"Since the
early 1980s, when the silence that surrounded the sexual abuse of children
was broken, the Catholic Church has seen hundreds of its priests accused of
a deed made even more horrific by their vocation. To the faithful, a priest
is a Christ figure, celebrating Mass, preaching the Gospel, forgiving sins,
watching over his congregation. A priest who molests a child betrays not
only that child but all those who believed in the institution he represents.
And that
institution, historically powerful and secretive, has until now, largely
chosen to protect its own servants rather than the people they are pledged
to serve, to deny that a systemic problem exists."
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:
"From every
corner of this country and from other countries around the world, reports of
sexual abuse, exploitation, and outgoing sexual misconduct by Catholic
priests have appeared in every major newspaper, magazine, and TV and radio
talk show. What was first denied by Church officials finally turned into a
deluge of overwhelming evidence played out in legal settlements and
courtrooms.
Richard Sipe
startled the world in 1990 with his controversial book "A Secret World:
Sexuality and the Search of Celibacy" which presented evidence of sexual
activity by almost 50% of the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Now, 5 years
later, Richard Sipe examines the continuing sexual crisis facing the
Catholic Church today. Has the storm of publicity and controversy caused
the church to acknowledge any of the accusations? Will the church accept
statistical evidence or alter the way it trains its clergy? How has it come
to grips with reforming or retraining abusers? Has it acknowledged the
spread of AIDS among its ranks? Why does the church oppress women and react
with hostility and fear towards them?
"Sex, Priests,
and Power" addresses these and other questions. The book substantiates its
conclusions with many vivid and chilling stories of sexual abuse by clergy
against children, women, and members of its own ranks.."
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 Nhất Hạnh, 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 Nhất Hạnh 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 Nhất Hạnh 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 Thiện Ân in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Vietnamese Zen
Master Thích Nhất Hạnh 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:
"Wherever
Buddhism has traveled during its 2500 year history it has entered into a
rich and dynamic relationship with its host cultures. For Buddhism this has
meant new forms of expression and communication as well as considerable
differences in emphasis and approach. To its surrounding societies have
come new ideals, new ideas, new ethical standards, fresh social, cultural,
and artistic life - indeed, rarely anything less than radical
transformation.
Now Buddhism is
coming to the West, and judging from the seriousness with which many
Westerners are taking to its principles and practices, there can be no doubt
that history is going to repeat itself. Buddhism is about to become
integrated into Western society."
(Sangharakshita, Ibid.)
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:
"Whatever else
Christianity may be, it seems on its face clearly to be a religion which
preaches salvation and a savior. Before one becomes instantly bored with
that idea, it is important to note that most other significant spiritual
contenders not only don't preach salvation, in some cases they positively
dislike it. Islam is a case in point. Islam means "surrender"; there is no
God but Allah and there you are! Muslims find the Christian notion of a
savior demeaning both to the saver and the saved. God can accomplish his
ends for humanity without complex metaphysical gyrations, and dependence on
a savior would devalue the moral independence and fortitude of the intended
clients. Human folks ought to stand on their own two bare feet and get on
with saving themselves.
Buddha is not a
savior, he is the Enlightened One. He has seen the truths of human life,
and he offers the Noble Eightfold Path as a guide to similar enlightenment
and release from suffering...
For
enlightenment or morality one needs teachers, not saviors. The distinction
is crucial. On the whole, religions of morality or enlightenment are much
more palatable to contemporary American taste. They have two distinct
advantages over the Biblical tradition. In the first place they appear to
be do-it-yourself spiritualities. This conforms to an American taste for
independence and self-reliance. Self-help is what we seek in the latest
nonfiction remainder list. Although great teachers are valuable in these
traditions, they are also dispensable, and one can be self-taught. One
cannot be self-saved in the Biblical story. The second advantage of
religions of enlightenment and morality is that they can dispense of most
theological machinery. If there are Gods at all - and in Buddhism there
appear to be none - then their role is either as helpful (but dispensable)
teachers or as ideals and exemplars. The truth is in the teaching, not in
the teacher-savior.
Americans like
to believe they are self-made. Rugged individualistsm, hard work, and
Yankee cunning have conspired to make a raw continent an everlasting "bread
machine" of wealth and comfort. The preacher piously advised the New
England farmer on his cultivated field: "What you and God have
accomplished!" The farmer replied, "You should have seen it when only God
was working the field." If this metaphor of "self-made" is truly a defining
character, Americans will have no need for an outside maker or an external
savior."
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:
"The "Awakening
of the West" is a beautifully written history of the Encounter of Buddhism
with the West during the past 2000 years - a chronicle of missed
opportunities, cultural arrogance, political tragedy, and unfulfilled
dreams.
Since the time
of Alexander the Great, European kings and popes longed for the power to be
gained through the conquest of Asia. They sent periodic streams of envoys
and missionaries to establish contact with the "infidels," but the
European's narrow-mindedness prevented them from learning much at all about
Buddhism.
Buddhism is
said to be the fastest growing religion and one of the most influential
spiritual movements in the West."
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:
"Communism is a
socio-economic political system. Atheism is a position taken in respect to
religion. The one is completely separate from the other. One could exist
without the other, and has - since Atheism has been around for thousands of
years and Communism is only about 100 years old."
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:
"Why should a
believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God,
and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the
rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least,
as well as he treats us?"
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":
" The clericalism,
that is the enemy" (Le cléricalisme,
voilà l'ennemi);
and Émile Combes, a
senator who openly declared in the French Senate:
"It is not that
we attack the religion but the clergy, those who want to use religion as an
instrument of domination" (Ce n'est pas à la religion que nous
attaquons, c'est à ses ministres, qui veulent s'en faire un instrument de
domination);
and Jean Bossu who,
when fighting for the democracy of the French people, had declared:
"Anti-clericalism is the fundamental basis of the democratic spirit. For
us, the clericalism, that is the Church, that is Catholicism, which has
always been the enemy of all liberty." (L'anticléricalisme est la base
fondamentale de l'esprit démocratique. Pour nous, le cléricalisme, c'est
l'Église, c'est le Catholicisme, qui a toujours été l'adversaire de toute
liberteù).
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, dévoiler les hypocrisies de l'Église).
That's why the French Minister of Education, Charles Dupuy had openly
declared:
"We declare it
very frankly, it seems to us intolerable that under the cover of the
liberty in education, whoever could raise the children against their country
and against their time." (Nous le
déclarons très franchement, il nous parait intolérable qu'à la faveur de la
liberté d'enseignement, qui que ce soit puissent élever des enfants contre
leur pays et contre leur temps.)
And, Victor Hugo,
the great French writer of all times, stated that:
"There are only
two criminals: Ceasar and Peter. Ceasar who kills, Peter who lies. The
priest is, or can be convinced and sincere. Should we blame him? No.
Should we fight against him. Yes." (Il n'y a que deux coupables, César
et Pierre; César qui tue, Pierre qui ment..Le prêtre est, ou peut être,
convaincu et sincère. Doit-on le blâmer? Non. Doit-on le combattre? Oui.)
and also this famous
remark:
"The
civilization, that light, can be extinguished by two modes of submersion;
two invasions are dangerous to it,, the invasion of the soldiers and the
invasion of the priests. The one threatens our mother, the country; the
other threatens our children, the future." (La civilisation, cette
lumière, peut être éteinte par deux modes de submersion; deux invasions lui
sont dangereuses, l'invasion des soldats et l'invasion des prêtres. L'une
menace notre mère, la patrie; l'autre menace nos enfants, l'avenir.)
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:
"He who
endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant, and he who submits is a
slave." (Ingersoll).
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 "à 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:
"Buddha is
right when he does not see the possibility of human salvation in creation,
but he is wrong when, for that reason, he denies that creation has any value
for humanity."
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:
"Children of
Buddha, if explained in brief, there are ten kinds of causes and conditions
by which all oceans of worlds have been formed, are formed, and will be
formed. What are the ten? They are because of the Buddhas' mystical
powers, because they must be so by natural law, because of the acts of all
sentient beings, because of what is realized by all enlightened beings
developing omniscience, because of the roots of goodness accumulated by both
enlightened beings and all sentient beings, because of the power of the vows
of enlightened beings purifying lands, because enlightened beings have
accomplished practical undertakings without regressing, because of the
enlightened beings' freedom of pure resolve, because of the independent
power flowing from the roots of goodness of all enlightened ones and the
moment of enlightenment of all Buddhas, and because of the independent power
of the vows of the Universal Good. This is a summary explanation of ten
kinds of causes; if I were to explain in full, there would be as many as
there are atoms in an ocean of worlds."
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:
1. "When Christ
speaks of the love that the Father has for the world, He merely echoes the
first affirmation in the Book of Genesis which accompanies the description
of creation "God saw how good it was... He found it very good" (page 56)
2. "The world
that the son of man found when He became man deserved condemnation, because
of the sin that had dominated all of history, beginning with the Fall of our
fist parents." (page 57)
3. God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
might not perish but might have eternal life." (page 54).
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:
"1. In the
beginning God created the heavens and earth. 2. The earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
was hovering the face of the waters. 3. Then God said, "Let there be light";
and there was light. 4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God
divided the light from the darkness. 5. God called the light Day, and the
darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first
day."
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:
"In 1981 my
interest in questions about the origin and fate of the universe was
reawakened when I attended a conference on cosmology organized by the
Jesuits in the Vatican. The Catholic Church had made a bad mistake with
Galileo when it tried to lay down the law on a question of science,
declaring that the sun went around the earth. Now, centuries later, it had
decided to invite a number of experts to advise it on cosmology. At the end
of the conference the participants were granted an audience with the pope.
He told us that it was all right to study the evolution of the universe
after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big bang itself
because that was the moment of Creation and therefore the work of God. I
was glad then he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given at
the conference - the possibility that space-time was finite but had no
boundary, which means that it had NO BEGINNING, NO MOMENT OF CREATION."
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:
"Is there
an intelligent man or woman in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden
story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you
will hear an echo. Something is for rent. Does any
intelligent man now believe that god made man of dust, and woman of a rib,
and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the midst of it? Was there not
room outside of the garden to put his tree, if he does not want people to
eat his apples?
Does anybody
now believe in the story of the serpent? I pity any man or woman who, in
this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. Why did Adam
and Eve disobey? Why, they were tempted. By whom? The devil. Who made
the devil? God. What did God make him for? Why did he not tell
Adam and Eve about this serpent? Why did he not watch the devil, instead of
watching Adam and Eve? Instead of turning them out, why did he not keep him
from getting in? Why did he not have his flood first, and drown the devil,
before he made a man and woman.
I defy any man
to think of a more childish thing. This god, waiting around Eden - knowing
all the while what would happen, then does what? Holds all of us
responsible, and we were not there. Here is a representative before the
constituency had been born. Before I am bound by a representative I want a
chance to vote for or against him; and if I had been there, and known all
the circumstances, I should have voted "No!" And yet, I am held
responsible.
We are told by
the Bible and by the churches that through this fall of man - "Sin and death
entered the world."
According to
this, just as soon as Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, god
began to contrive ways by which he could destroy the lives of his children.
He invented all the diseases - all the fevers and coughs and colds - all the
pains and plagues and pestilences - all the aches and agonies, the malaria
and spores; so that when we take a breath of air we admit into our lungs
unseen assassins; and, fearing that some might live too long, even under
such circumstances, god invented the earthquakes and volcano, the cyclone
and lightning, animalcules to infest the heart and brain, so small that no
eye can detect - no instrument reach. This was all owing to the
disobedience of Adam and Eve.
In his
infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers
and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this, but
he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life
should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by
accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that look like
food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious
organs. ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He
changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He
cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned
every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on
every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve,
that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents
and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life long
fried, baited with present pleasures - with a moment's joy. Then and there
he fore knew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the
prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God.
Increase and multiply all human grieves until the mind has reached
imagination's farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly
tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called
"The Fall of Man."
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:
“The Book of
Genesis is generally thought, as Professor Huxley said, to contain the
beginning and end of sound science. The mythology of the Jews is held to be
a divine revelation of the early history of man, and of the cosmic changes
preparatory to his creation. In every Christian country the masses of the
peoples are taught in childhood that God created the universe in six days
and rested on the seventh. Yet every student knows this is utterly false,
every man of science regards it as absurd, and the more educated clergy are
beginning to explain it away. But they must retain the Creation story in
some sense or other, for two very strong reasons. First, it stands at the
very threshold of the Bible, and if it is a mere fiction it inevitably
throws discredit on all that follows. Secondly, it is inseparably connected
with the story of the Fall. Both live or perish together. And if the Fall
is to be regarded as a myth, what becomes of Christianity? The Christian
scheme of salvation is unintelligible without the antecedent doctrine of the
Fall of Man. Without the Fall, and the ensuing curse, the Atonement is a
baseless dogma, and the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection
are gigantic mistakes.
The Creation
theory, as we shall attempt to show, is incoherent, self-contradictory, and
absurd. It is also discordant with the plainest truths of Science..."
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 are not responsible for the sin,
if in fact there is any, of Adam.
Interestingly
enough, more than two hundred years ago, Voltaire, in his Treatise on
Metaphysics, Chapter I, "On the Different Species of Men", after
recounting many different species of men he has met, wrote:
"At Goa, I meet
a type even more extraordinary than all those before; it is a man wearing a
long black cassock, who claims he was made for instructing others. All
these different men, he says, are born from the same father, and he goes on
to tell me a long story. But what this animal says seems very unlikely to
me. I inquire whether the negro man and a negro woman with their black wool
and flattened noses, ever have white children with blond hair, aquiline
noses, and blue eyes; if beardless nations have come from bearded people; or
if white men and women have ever produced yellow people. I am told no, that
negroes transported to Germany, for example, only have negroes, unless the
Germans take it upon themselves to change the species. And it is added that
no man wìth some learning has ever asserted that unmixed species might
degenerate and that hardly anyone but Abbeù Dubos would have said such a
foolish thing in a book entitled "Reflections On Painting and Poetry".
It seems to me
then that I have fairly good grounds for believing that in this respect men
are like trees; just as firs, oaks, pear trees, and apricot trees do not
come from the same tree, white men with beards, negroes with wool, yellow
men with manes, and men without beards do not come from the same man."
Lastly, another
question comes up in my mind: Is Jesus Christ the "only son" of God
as John Paul II made a big point about it several times in his book?
I am a little bit
confused here, because reading the Bible, I find not one, not two, but three
Jesus Christs completely different from one another.
According to
Matthew 1:1-17, the genealogy of Jesus Christ is the following, from King
David down:
"David, Solomon,
Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah,
Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim,
Azor, Zadok, Akim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph, Jesus." , 27
generations in total.
But, according to
Luke 3:23-38 the genealogy of Jesus Christ is as follows:
"David, Nathan,
Matthata, Menna, Melea, Eliakim, Jonam, Joseph, Judah, Simeon, Levi,
Matthat, Jorim, Eliezer, Joshua, Er, Elmadam, Cosam, Addi, Melki, Neri,
Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Rhesa, Joanan, Joda, Josech, Semein, Matthathias,
Maath, Naggai, Esli, Nahum, Amos, Matthathias, Joses, Jannai, Melki, Leci,
Matthat, Eli, Joseph, Jesus."
altogether 42 generations.
And, according
to another account in the Bible, Jesus Christ was also the product of an
illegal impregnation of an innocent girl named Mary by the Holy Ghost.
So, which one of
the above was the "only Son" of God? The one in Matthew? Or the one in
Luke? Or the Holy Ghost Junior? But, that is not the issue. The issue here
is, two of the above stories must be wrong, because we cannot accept all the
three at the same time unless we are out of our mind. This leads to the
question: if the Bible has something wrong in it, and there are indeed many
inaccuracies as proved by many eminent scholars, God must be wrong because
the Bible is the "Word of God". And if God himself is fallible, what about
Jesus Christ? and what about the pope who is the vicar of Christ? And if
God can write one thing wrong, who knows? - he may have written many things
wrong.
But, the above
questions came from a mind capable of reasoning, and not from a faithful
believer's mind. Reason and blind faith do not mix, so actually the mind of
a freethinker and the mind of a no-question-asked-believer are functioning
at different frequencies, it is very hard to attune them to have even some
kind of resonance.
But we, Buddhists,
do believe in something. We do believe in the following teaching of our
Lord Buddha (Anguttara-Nikaya Sutra):
Don't believe
anything on mere hearsay.
Don't believe
traditions because they happen to be old and have been passed down through
many generations.
Don't believe
anything because people talk a lot about it.
Don't believe
solely because the written testimony of some ancient wise man is shown to
you.
Never believe
anything that begs to be taken for granted, or because ancient precedent
tempts you to regard it as true.
And don't
believe anything on the mere authority of your teachers or priests.
What you should
accept as true and as the guide to your life is whatever agrees with your
own reason and your own experience after thorough investigation, and
whatever is helpful both to your own well-being and that of other living
beings.
Because of the
above belief, Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote in his new book, Living
Buddha, Living Christ:
"People kill
and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and
ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the
truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result."
"...Do not
think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth.
Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice
non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive other's
viewpoints"
Buddhism considers
ignorance, greed and hatred as three poisons which have to be eradicated.
Because of ignorance one is narrow-minded. Because of ignorance one
practices intolerance. Because of ignorance one is arrogant. Because of
ignorance one attaches to the concept of exclusiveness. And because of
ignorance one lives in illusions.
Therefore, the
first step in the practice of Buddhism is "crossing the threshold of
ignorance." Aiming at “crossing the threshold of hope”
while still living in the thick darkness of ignorance is an illusion, just
like aiming at plucking a flower in a mirror, or grabbing the moon in the
bottom of a pond. Thích Nhất Hạnh's new book, Living Buddha, Living
Christ, opposes narrow-minded, arrogance, intolerance, and exclusiveness
with open-minded, humility, tolerance, and inclusiveness through the concept
of inter-beings. So, let me conclude my analysis with his following lesson
that summarizes it all:
"John Paul II,
in "Crossing the Threshold of Hope", insists that Jesus Christ is the only
Son of God: "Christ is absolutely original, absolutely unique. If He were
only a wise man like Socrates, if He were a "Prophet" like Mohammed, if He
were "enlightened" like Buddha, without any doubt, He would not be what He
is. He is the one mediator between God and humanity."
This statement
does not seem to reflect the deep mystery of the oneness of the Trinity. It
also does not reflect the fact that Christ is also the Son of Man. All
Christians, while praying to God, address Him as Father. Of course,
Christ is unique. But who is not unique? Socrates, Mohammed, the Buddha,
you, and I are all unique. The idea behind the statement, however, is the
notion that Christianity provides the only way of salvation and all other
religious traditions are of no use. This attitude excludes dialogue and
fosters religious intolerance and discrimination. IT DOES NOT HELP."
Trần Chung Ngọc, Ph.D.
University of Wisconsin - Madison
****************************
SELECTED READINGS
Aarons, Mark &
Loftus, John, "Unholy Trinity: How The Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed
Western Intelligence to the Soviets", St. Martin's Press, New York, 1991
Aterin, Karl Otmar
Von, "The Papacy and the Modern World", Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
London, 1970
Baldwin, Louis, "The Pope and the Mavericks", Prometheus Books, New York, 1988
Batchelor, Stephen,
"The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture",
Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA., 1994
Beeson, Trevor &
Pearce, Jenny, "A Vision of Hope: The Churches and Change in Latin
America", Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1984
Nino Lo Bello, "The Vatican Empire", Triden Press, New York, 1968.
Berry, Jason, "Lead Us Not To Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of
Children", Doubleday, New York, 1992
Blanshard, Paul, "American Freedom and Catholic Power", Beacon Press, Boston, 1950
Berryman, Phillip, "Liberation Theology", Pantheon Books, New York, 1987
Boff, Leonardo, "Church: Charism & Power", Crossroad, New York, 1986
Burkett, Elinor &
Bruni, Frank, "A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the
Catholic Church", Viking, New York, 1993
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