Pope Benedict XVI & His True Nature

Do people remember, that this man, without the pomp and security and superb public relations directions, is the same man in charge of Catholic priests who violated the Human Rights of Children? That upon being told of a priest harming a  child, this man simply moved the priest from one place to another. Thousands of such complaints rolled into his office in the Vatican. What did this man do as a Cardinal, representing Christ on earth? He protected the men who abused the children.

He declares he’s sorry. Sorry for what? For the millions of dollars paid to American parents and abused children! He must be repeating Hosanna’s that many other poor, uneducated villagers around the world lack the American litigious nature!

Once I too had hung onto every one and every action of the Pope, as a devoted Catholic child. When told many people didn’t care for news about the Pope, I was in shock. That was like saying the sun didn’t shine or the Beatles were just four guys. Now Pope John XXIII was a man to admire, who opened the windows and demystified the Mass with local languages. He opened so many windows and laid bare the bareness of the Church that his obedient priests and sisters fled in droves.

With priests in the confessional telling Catholics birth control was their choice, because those supposedly celibate Vatican men could not agree on a decision, more  and more Catholics abandoned the slavery of producing Catholic soldiers for Christ. (Confirmation, during puberty, similar to Jewish Bar Mitzvahs, actually had the newly confirmed, from child to adult, state their status as ‘soldiers for Christ’.)  How else can a Church grow? Condemning Catholic women to being baby factories was two-pronged: this strategy created a larger tithe-tax-base while keeping the families poor and thus more easily oppressed.

The history of the Catholic Church does bring some light of Christ and goodness to the world, but its more preferred role is one of a small, political body dominating masses across borders with threats of an afterlife. Like the Italian Mafia, the Church sells after-life insurance for Heaven or Hell.

Papal elections traditionally were full of butchery and blood running in the streets. Pope’s ‘nephews’ were often candidates for the role. The Church proclaimed Catholics could only read books with its Imprimatur in them. And when Pope Joan gave birth during a procession, having disguised her gender until then, what did those Holy Men of the Vatican do? They killed her.

Maybe a new Pope Joan would care about abused children, and not fight the truth with a smooth public relations tour.

     The Terrifying Terrible Twenties is when people rehearse at being an adult, with the script written by their genetics and family yet the script is only part of the reality. The stage is the Culture, the Times the producer. From flickering campfires, to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, onto Media is the Message and YouTube forums, where and when a person reaches youth is just as influential as genetics and childhood.

Do young people in their 20s really have free choices in their lives?

• Kinda, but their minds are still attached to their parents by genetics and family upbringing.  
• Kinda, but their bodies are still evolving. Controlling the reins of hot hormones and dreams requires talent and time. Even short, relaxed periods of inattention can destroy an entire lifetime.
• Kinda, but the Culture and Times provide the background, costumes, music, props, and fundamentals of the script which shape the drama with a beginning, middle and, for many, an untimely end long before a three scores and ten years’ natural death.

Family Heritage (Upbringing + Genetics)

From research done on childhood, it now seems logical to hold parents responsible for what type of person they unleash onto the world. A young person’s childhood environment, mostly controlled by parents, brands a child with more than their initials. Family influence never ceases to affect a youth’s emotions, outlook on life, interactions with others, and a zillion other variables. Additionally, genetic tendencies and realities are always with the person. Young people may fight, negate or embrace their family heritage but no one can disown it or even run away from it.

Culture

Few people grasp the concept and impact of culture on people’s psychological makeup because most people usually live within one culture. Tourists are cocooned and thus largely ignorant of a foreign culture, its parameters, demands, rules, consequences and overall realities.

A culture of freedom raises children with a strong sense of individuality, self-confidence and creativity.  A police state raises children to be wary, cautious, selfish and fearful adults. Tyranny forces a mental prison state on its people, so people become their own jailers. A culture of poverty (40 million in the USA) strips life to its essentials without material distractions: survival, family, food and health. A culture of wealth may offer no challenges and no need to seek fulfillment because all physical needs are indulgently overfed.

The Times

Every age can be controlled, manipulated, shaped and ruled by the media. Compare the media’s presentation of Vietnam with Bush’s forbiddance of even flag-draped military coffins from Iraq to be published.

Children born during a depression or an economic boom experience radically different opportunities and choices. Famines, epidemics, and other natural and human-made disasters can shape a youth more drastically than genetics.  

Western history is segmented into Ages: Greek, Roman, Dark, Middle, and more.  Alongside each era, war has been a dominant force. Murder (aka war) on a mass scale has crushed, killed, maimed and perverted millions of people of all times, places and ages. Historically, youth was just a brief blink before work and parenthood claimed people’s lives until decrepitude caused old age. Nowadays, a person can spend more than ten years as a youth.

When does a person pass from youth to adulthood? After the affair when I was 24 with Robert Harlow, the head of the Creative Writing Department at UBC, I felt that an ‘adult’ was an ideal rarely attained. Older people used the adult cloak to intimidate young people. As I grew older, I found less and less adults in the world.

The only real ‘adult’ behavior I have discovered over the years is the ability to mask one’s feelings and realities, never expressing one’s emotions to others. This is often proclaimed as ‘control’ but from my experience, the control is often superficial. Most adults’ actions originate from their inner child’s emotions. Adulthood is a façade.

My youth was over when I was 33, in the mountains of Topanga Canyon, talking to a German friend my age and still writing Virgins! I asked him, ‘When did your youth end?’  Since I could form the question, that was the moment my youth ended. But not until I was in my 50s, did I feel any inkling of being an adult. On an over-50 Internet chat forum, I said that I wanted to change the world when I was young but the world changed me. And not for the better.

In conclusion, the years from 20-29 are perilous. The actions and decisions made then determine our 30s and 40s.  In our 50s, we try to untangle our lives to find peace within as we await the sunset. So if you’re in your 20s, be careful out there. It’s a dangerous world – you’re building your own stage upon which to weep and wail or laugh and rejoice over your fate.