Well, it's easy to be a
bit put off by some aspects of Religion.
There is this from
the week's news. You see the whole idea is differential diagnosis. Religion is fascinating, and not opposed to science at all.
See
Doctors, Priests Form Exorcism Commission
ROME (Reuters, Friday, February 13, 2004) - Faced with growing demand for exorcisms, Catholic
Church leaders in the Italian city of Genoa have created a taskforce of doctors and priests to determine when the devil is
at work and when psychiatric help is needed.
The team of three priests,
one psychiatrist, one psychologist and one neurologist - dubbed the "anti-Satan pool" by Italian media - will work
on a case-by-case basis, a local church official said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
"They'll meet on a regular basis to determine when there has been a case of demonic possession and call for
an exorcist, or problems better cared for by a psychologist," said the official, who asked not to be named.
Well, that seems fair.
You see the whole idea is differential diagnosis. One needs to know the cause of the problem - a matter of etiology as they say. Then one can proceed.
For Catholics, exorcism is the casting out of what is believed to be an evil spirit through prayer
and the laying on of hands.
One of the church's leading exorcists praised
the initiative, saying medical experts are needed to rule out mental problems before spiritual work can begin.
"I never accept anyone who arrives without a medical certificate," Father Gabriele Amorth
told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Not unreasonable, I guess.
And the Church is just doing its job.
The Genoa taskforce was created by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. And while
the Church does not often talk openly about exorcisms, Bertone said the need for them is there.
"It has become difficult to talk about Satan, but the signs of the devil are palpable,"
he told Corriere della Sera in comments published Thursday.
Yep, your doctor may probe you with his or her fingers
looking for palpable masses, but he or she could, it seems, find the devil. One
never knows.
____
The again there are serious
matters:
See Ex-Ranger pleads guilty in abortion-bombing plot
Larry Lebowitz, The Miami Herald, February 13, 2004
The basics:
A former Army Ranger inspired by anti-abortion activists pleaded guilty Friday to devising a plot
to blow up abortion clinics and gay bars nationwide.
Stephen John Jordi,
an evangelical Christian from Coconut Creek with a flaming cross tattooed to his right forearm, pleaded guilty to one count
of attempted firebombing.
In stark contrast to his agitated, grizzled
appearance after his Nov. 11 arrest, Jordi was calm and clean-shaven during the
brief hearing at U. S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale.
In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors John Schlesinger and Gerald Greenberg agreed to drop
two other counts: spreading explosive information and possession of an unregistered firearm.
This evangelical Christian
seems to be ready to God's work.
Yes, evangelical Christians claim to
be about love, and justice in this world. This guy seems to be a little heavy
on the justice side.
And how does one get to where Steve here got?
Estranged siblings said Jordi had become increasingly impassioned about a bombing campaign after
the arrest of Eric Rudolph last May.
Rudolph, who is accused of orchestrating
a bombing campaign against abortion clinics, gay bars and the Atlanta Olympics park, disappeared into the Appalachian Mountains
for five years before he was captured last May.
Like Rudolph, Jordi was
planning to embark on a firebombing campaign targeting abortion clinics, gay bars and churches that refused to take a tough
stance against abortion.
Authorities said Jordi was banking on survival
skills he learned in the Army so that he could hide in the mountains between bombings, like Rudolph.
Jordi also corresponded last year with Florida Death Row inmate Paul Hill, who was convicted for
the 1994 murders of a Pensacola abortion doctor and his bodyguard.
Jordi
and the informant flew to Starke to for Hill's execution on Sept. 3. They were photographed outside the prison with leading members of a militant anti-abortion group called
The Army of God.
Well, The Army of God
is a curious concept. Steve here thinks he is doing, or was attempting to do,
God's will.
Yes, that's not how some others understand Gods will. Some chat about love and tolerance.
This
business about "purifying the world of evil" through the use of military skills is anomaly, pretty much - save for our
official foreign policy these days.
Maybe at the end of Steve's prison
term there's a place for him in the second Bush administration, somewhere in the State Department, once Colin Powell is shown
the door. He's got the basic concepts down pat.
Or maybe he'd fit in at Justice, working for John Ashcroft.
Hey,
it's not like these ideas of his come out of nowhere. He's in tune with the zeitgeist.
____
Then again, some folks
just dont take religion seriously at all.
Controversy everywhere
these days!
See Catholic Backlash Over Pope on a Pogo-Stick
Pete Harrison, Tuesday, February 10, 2004
LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of angry Roman Catholics have written to Britain's BBC complaining
about a planned cartoon show mocking the Pope as a puerile preacher on a pogo-stick, the broadcaster said Tuesday.
Petitions are circulating in parishes and some Catholics are even risking jail by refusing to pay
their TV license fees if the show goes out as planned this summer.
"I
am not prepared to pay for the Holy Father to be mocked," said human rights activist James Mawdsley who met Pope John Paul
after the Vatican intervened to have the campaigner released from a Burmese jail.
Luke
Coppen of the Catholic Herald newspaper said the cartoon was "gratuitously insulting" and had caused "quite a big uproar.
" The BBC said complaints about "Popetown" -- a satirical cartoon about office politics in the Vatican -- had numbered "a
few thousand."
Extracts from the show have appeared on the Internet where discussion boards are buzzing.
So who is this James Mawdsley
fellow?
Mawdsley hit the headlines in December 2001 when the Pope helped secure his release from a Burmese
jail where he had served 14 months of a 17-year sentence for handing out pro-democracy leaflets.
"I will not pay the 1,000 pound ($1,800) fine, so that means prison -- never mind," he told Reuters.
Mawdsley said at least 6,000 people had written to the BBC complaining, while
28,000 had signed a protest petition.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church
in England declined to comment.
And what about the BBC,
now so disgraced for not being pro-government in the Fox News way of reporting the real truth?
The clash comes at a critical time for the BBC. A
furious row with the government over its reporting of the run-up to war with Iraq left the corporation bloodied and weakened. And now its future funding is up for review.
Last week, it was accused of caving in to the government after several lines were cut from its satirical radio
show "Absolute Power," which poked fun at Prime Minister Tony Blair and the culture of spin.
The BBC declined to comment on media reports that it was thinking of shelving Popetown.
CHX Productions, which is producing the show for the BBC and uses the voice of American comedienne
Ruby Wax for its pogo-ing Pope, also declined to comment.
When in doubt, decline
to comment. No Comment.
