According to an AP wire story, on Sunday June 16th, a monk, Padro Pio, was canonized and elevated to the Saint Hood by the Pope, for 'suffering in silence' and for obeying authority figures. According to reports the Pope, in these troubled times, was looking for inspirational role model for Catholics world wide, and apparently this particular monk is what is called for under the circumstances (in particular with the authority of priests and bishops being called into question again and again, without respite in recent months). "Rev. Forio Tessari, said it was Padre Pio's uncomplaining life of pain which impressed John Paul. "The pope was struck above all by the spiritual figure of Padre Pio, a man who had a strong experience of God, who prayed, suffered in silence, obeyed his superiors with faith," Tessari told AP. According to reports not all the monks silence was voluntarily. When he allegedly began bleeding from the hands and feet and reported mystical experiences, he was ordered to stop practicing as a priest for over a decade.

Given the troubled times of the Catholic church and the constantly recurring world wide scandals of recent days, it seems reasonable to assume that the canonization of this particular saint who 'suffered in silence' and obeyed the church authorities is no coincidence. However I was disturbed by this description, and also disturbed by how far this attitude of heirarchy and authority figures and 'suffering in silence' deviates from the many of the earlier and foundational traditions upon which the church is supposedly based. Granted the Bible is double minded about almost everything, demanding slavish obedience to authorities and extolling suffering, but the Bible is also revolutionary and demands an end to suffering, so we can see then that given the internally inconsistent nature of this book, that people make choices, and given that this is the fact, we can then ask why people make the choices they make (and ignore that bit about 'obeying the authority of the Bible' since it is not the authority which is responsible for people making the choices they make, but rather the people themselves who are their own authority, which is best demonstrated by examining the choices that they don't make.)

For example, it was a tradition among the prophets, also extolled in the gospels, that no one owed obedience to religious authorities, but rather they were subjected to constant pointed criticism.

All one needs to do is type in the word 'priest' into an electronic Bible, and then restrict the search to the Jewish prophets to find that just about reference to 'priest' is negative...For example we find Isaiah mocking the priesthood for quoting line after line from their books, and imposing rule after rule on the people, hardly an example of 'obeying the authority figures', which leaves us to suppose that Isaiah would have a snow balls chance in hell of ever being canonized for that very reason...

Isaiah 28:7 "The priests err in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. For all tables are full of vomit, no place is without filthiness. For it is rule upon rule, rule upon rule, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."... so that as they go they will fall backward, they will be injured, trapped and snared."

The references from Jeremiah are hardly any better. In addition Jeremiah crapped all over the Holy Books of the day, called them forgeries and the priests frauds, and thus would hardly be in line to be canonized either...

Jeremiah 2:26 "As a thief is ashamed when he is caught breaking in, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, (the whole list of authority figures in otherwords)Jeremiah 4:9 "In that day, says YAHWEH, courage shall fail both king and princes; the priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded."Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it this way, but what will you do when the end of it all?Jeremiah 7:21 Burn your whole offerings and eat the flesh yourselves, for on the day that I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I gave them no instructions or commands concerning whole offerings and sacrifice. (The attack is against the book of Leviticus, among so many others.)Jeremiah 8:7 Now my people do not know the requirements of God. How can you say, 'We are wise, for we have the Torah,' when, actually, the lying pen of the scribes has had it falsified.Jeremiah 26:7 The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the Temple.... then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, "You shall die!" Then the priests and the prophets said to the princes and to all the people, "This man deserves the sentence of death." (Being killed for heresy is a very old practice.)Jeremiah 20: Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the Temple (an authority figure to obeyed, in otherwords), heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.2 Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the Temple.3 On the morrow, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, "YAHWEH does not call your name Pashhur, but Terror on every side."

Now it is easy to understand how the religious authorities might want to give Jeremiah a good beating, and then even have him put to death for heresy, and as for Jeremiah, his opinion of the Bible (the Torah in his day) was one of radical rejection. Jeremiah 23:11 "Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in the Temple I have found their wickedness..."

This pattern continues throughout the books of the prophets, and is picked up in the gospels where once again the main villains of the piece turn out to be priests, with the charge against them being that they 'nullified the prophets for the sake of their religious traditions, and they did many other things just like that." Now given that the Bible is supposed to be 'God's word' and just infallible and inerrant, according to conservative American religion, and given the constant admonitions to 'obey in subjection the ministers' (which also is heard repeatedly on American relgiious broadcasts) one can clearly see how things are chosen, for clearly ideological reasons, and the bit about 'the authority of the Bible' is just a canard. Authoritarianism has to be based on something, after all, and apparently the Bible is it.

The attitude of the Jewish prophets can be contrasted with the prevailing attitude in the letters which were collected on voted into scripture by the priests of the church in the 4th century. The following passage is one of the sources of the doctrine of the 'divine right of the King'. We read,

Romans 13
Let every person be subject to the authority of the governent. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.... for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

Therefore, according to this doctrine, the death penalty against Jeremiah, not to mention the wrath of God against the Jewish prophets was entirely justified, for they resisted authority, and as the passage above suggests, the death penalty against dissenters is entirely appropriate (and Amnesty International way out of line).

We can keep in mind the story of Moses rescuing the slaves from Egypt, and then contrast the attitude towards the Pharoah (the authority figure) with the following advice from the priestly letters...

Ephesians 6:5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ;Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;Colossians 3:22 Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing YAHWEH.Titus 3:1 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient.Philemon 1:21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them.

A slavish adherence to this doctrines would have excluded Jewish prophecy from the Bible altogether, not to mention the gospels as well, where struggle against Ceasar and priest is one of the main themes of the book.

As for 'suffering in silence' this is once again a church doctrine, but it can hardly be said to be the doctrine of the Bible, for once again the Bible proves to be double minded, so therefore the choices people make are simply the choices they made.

As a good example of refusing to accept the state of a serf-like slave, obeying the 'earthly masters' with 'fear and trembling' and 'suffering in silence' you can consider as just one example of so many, the words of Micah, who was one of the earliest recorded communists, based on his demand for dispossession of the feudal landlords of his day, and what we today would call 'land reform' by dividing the land among the peasants. This is one of the earliest polemics against feudal oligarchy and it is passages of this type that inspire the priests and the nuns who are periodically machine gunned to death in some of the poorest nations in the world, where it is the constantly repeating scenario that over three quarters of the land is held by just a few very powerful, very rich families.

Micah 2
Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil upon their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says YAHWEH: Behold, against this family I am devising evil, from which you cannot remove your necks; and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time. In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you, and wail with bitter lamentation, and say, "We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! Among our captors he divides our fields." Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of YAHWEH. (Note : This means, 'therefore, you will lose every last square acre...')"Do not preach to us" —thus they preach—"one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us."

Now given how radically left wing the prophets really were, one has to wonder how so much of American religion has become so notoriously far right wing (even the Republicans are not far enough to the right for those churches).

Amos was also famous for the same type of revolutionary preaching, and he also damned Ceasar's sword. So once again we can see that the doctrines preached by churches are simply the doctrines chosen by churches, and the appeal to the 'authority of God' via the Bible is just a deceptive canard, this being particularly true when you consider how harshly prophets condemned the very Bible which is alleged to 'God's authoritative word' ('infallible and inerrant' according to conservative American Christianity). While today, in light of recent events, the Vatican has chosen to canonize a saint for 'suffering in silence' and 'being obedient to authority figures' the whole affair has disturbed me, since the criteria for being considered 'a saint' in this place excludes a great swath of the authors of the very Bible which was also said to be 'canonized' although the truth be told, it is canonized only in part, and then only those parts that serve the interests of the most powerful, the ministers, the broadcasters, and the ruling powers and the wealthy, and not the 'slaves' and the obedient religious folk, who apparently just love their servitude, and are always found at the feet of authorities or off attempting to get some virtue by visiting the shrines of praying in the names of the great saints, including the Holy Virgins whose merit came from conceiving without being human in the process, which doesn't say much for being human, but then these obedient and pious religious folk never seem to mind the implied filthiness that their saints impute to them. Rather they take upon themselves the guilt, which of course, requires the intervention of saints, those ghostly representatives of power and authority on earth.


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