Israel Shamir: Darkness from the West

Readers Responses to Darkness from the West

From Tom White, Texas

Dear Israel:

10,000 thanks for your brilliant, true words on the Church. As a Catholic I would vote for you for Pope if it could ever come up.
Maybe we'll get some of God's strength to do what you say. I agree with every word you say about how it ought to go from this point, and have long accepted that we will be led out of the current darkness by people, like yourself, who are or were Jews. Our poverty of thought and bravery in the U.S. is a horror. Take care of yourself. We need you. Tom White, Odessa, TX

From Paul, Rome

Dear Adam,

Tuff stuff, as always, dear Adam! Auguroni!

The abuse issue is horrible, no matter where, whether in the church or in a family or in a kibbutz, and I hardly feel like touching it.

It might be worse in the church though, by priests, as I assume and it would be great if it could be uprooted forever (which I doubt for many reasons).

What irritated me very much, however, is the fact that the filthy files have been opened in a great scale by the Boston Globe exactly the very same week when Sharon entered Jenin 2002 - conquering immediately all the headlines in the world.

Best Paul

From Kevin Boyle

Hi Israel,

Thank you for your latest article. It was the most brilliant and inspiring piece I have read in a very long time.

It is a time for action. I am a Catholic who has kind of left the church in despair.

I became aware of the lies of 9/11 about 18 months ago. I am a physics teacher and the case for controlled demolition of the towers is made way beyond the tiniest reasonable doubt.

I went to my parish priest with this. He is a Canon, so probably quite well connected withing the church in London. I see this issue as one for the Church to take on....however, when I arrived to speak to him this priest was placing his golf clubs into the back of his very nice car. He referred me to an assistant priest who was available. This man was an Asian Jesuit. He looked aghast when I spoke to him, saying he was very worried about me. I told him not to be concerned but if he would take a look at the DVD I had brought him and consider bringing this information to the archbishop or Cardinal, I would be grateful. He got angry.
"I don't have time for this rubbish. The world has always been like this! This is none of your business! Look after your family and forget about it."

I was shocked by his response and have been rather lost and disorientated about 'The Church' ever since.....but you are right. The church is made of individuals but is much more than that. I must engage with this institution again.

Anyway,

Thank you. I agree with every word you say, including that only a One-State solution is acceptable for Israel/Palestine.

Sincerely,

Kevin Boyle

From Jim Dean, Atlanta TV

Israel, There is no public visibility over here of the Church being persecuted for their other positions and the peddy priests being used as a diversion or punishment.

Where the church put it's head in the noose is by hiding these priests, moving them around, where often they continued to abuse. The churches position to keep these crimes an internal matter and not let them get publicized acted as kind of a protection screen for them, exposing the bishops to aiding and abetting charges. They settled to avoid criminal charges. That is the only reason they would do it.

Where I do have sympathy with them is this problem has not in any way been confined to the Catholic church. Many others and the synagogues have had similar problems. The rabbis scoot back to Israel where they don't get extradited and that rarely makes the news.

Problem youth ministers are shifted and swapped around, but from what I an tell the first time scares the hell out of them and there does not seem to be a continuation of the problem.

The perception over here is that the church solely settles these things because they don't want the details to get public...the individual ones or the scale.

I am not sure of the statue of limitations on the criminal prosecutions. That may vary from state to state.

I am more familiar with the protestant cases through the contacts that I have. One of the differences is they involve the family in okaying the 'transfers' and keeping it quiet, which is often what they want. They are promised that the offender will be closely watched and only given this one chance.

While certainly some may be jumping aboard with bogus claims, there is no perception with the public here that the whole thing is contrived. It's viewed as a massive coverup...and the church could have avoided all of this if they had handled it differently.

It the church is being persecuted here, their PR people are keeping it a big secret.

Jim

From Karin Maria Friedemann, Boston

Hi Shamir

While the call to stand up for Christ certainly does possess true power, I think you are deluded about the potential usefulness of the Catholic Church in America. Because all the Catholic universities are going broke, they have begun to accept Jewish money and have become thoroughly embedded in the ADL's affairs.

This year I thankfully was able to take my kids out of Catholic school. There were many weaknesses in their approach. First, the clinging to European - in this case Irish - ethnic cliquishness. The administration is unwilling to pass along leadership to the next generation. Or else there is no one applying for their jobs. At least no one Irish enough. I had an interesting chat with the Father where he complained that none of the hundreds of children attending Catholic school belonged to the parish. He felt that the Muslims were becoming the more powerful force. We were watching a local parade, and he waved familiarly at every military contingent that passed. He was clearly not anti-war because he did not wave at the peace activist contingent. At the end of our conversation I needed to use both hands and tug to help the elderly Father stand up.

The school provides mediocre education completely free of creative or critical thinking, taught by white teachers to a 95% non-white student body. One thinks of Catholic schools civilizing the barbarians in Africa and India, and that is the general if subtle attitude.

Having sent my kids to Montessori school before that for preschool it was truly amazing the difference in education, since Montessori's philosophy is essentially Christian but in a more spiritual way.

The Montessori school paid attention to the natural rhythms of children throughout the day in order to keep order by never letting things get chaotic. The kids took in huge amounts of info without realizing they were learning, because they were being taught in a holistic way that validated different parts of their personalities. Education was seen as a way to help the human being unfold and discover his or her innate talents.

Conversely, the Catholic school seemed to operate from the belief that these children are bad. Even the head priest was quoted in the newspaper saying, "Some of these kids will be lost." The focus was on getting the children to stand in line, do boring worksheets, and behave. I think the expectation is that they will grow up to be obedient cannon fodder. I liked the verbal emphasis on loving. But the actual teaching method was to allow the kids to get out of control and then when it's too late, to scream at them in an angry way. (They don't beat kids anymore, but my mom came home from Catholic school black and blue).

So I'm sorry to inform you that the Catholic Church is not currently in the position to defend Palestine, except perhaps in some indirect way in hushed tones. But Christ-love is very much alive in America and I agree with you that nurturing the "Christ-light" within is the key to getting back on the right path. I like that people are starting to break the Jesus taboo - something that would have been unheard of even twenty or fifteen years ago.

What is increasingly necessary is that people speak in favor of Palestine to Catholic and interfaith audiences. My husband and I attended an ADL Catholic indoctrination event and sidetracked it by mentioning Palestinians. All the Catholics were supportive of the Palestinians and would instantly AGREE with us, but if we had not been there they would have kept silent about Palestine with their new Jewish friends.

Please read our report, "ADL Feeding Self-Hatred to Christians"

http://karinfriedemann.blogspot.com/2006/01/adls-interfaith-enmeshment.html

Thanks,

Best wishes to you and your family

Karin Maria Friedemann

From Robert Hickson:

Dear Israel Adam,
Have you read Randy Engel's book, THE RITE OF SODOMY: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church(2006)--1282 pages, with 20 years of careful and reliable research?! She also had to protect herself very carefully against Legal Action and the Litigious Process--an incentive, for sure, to be accurate and reliable with her evidence and argumentation.
You should be in touch with her--and with the Cuban-American Priest, Father Enrique Rueda, who wrote an important book in 1983, entitled THE HOMOSEXUAL NETWORK. I give you Randy Engel's e-mail address in the "cc." box above. (She lives in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.)
For the first time, I found myself in disagreement with you, after I read your attached DRAFT ESSAY. I shall answer you more fully over the next few days, but I believe you trivialize the manifold violation of children and its consequences (also for the parents of those violated children).
Our Lord considered the perversion of children a very grave matter, and I expected you to do the same. I was surprised and shocked by some of your words.Remember the Millstone? And "Sinite Parvulos ad Me venire"....and "Nisi conversi fueritis et efficiamini sicut parvuli, non intrabitis...."
Let me send you some additional thoughts over the next few days. Would that be good for you.
God bless you, Robert David

From Janet Marsh, NY:

My dear Shamir, just a note, when this atrocity of priest abuse first came out and that is all anyone heard of, one of the ministers of the so called "other religions" stated that he wondered what people would think of the truth. Truth being that we would all faint away if we knew that ministers of other faiths were just as bad as catholics, and maybe worse when it comes to sexual abuse from a minister that is not catholic. Other churches just hide it better. Notice that I do not capitalize these churches when otherwise I would. Am I wrong when I state that the even the jewish religion actually condones it? Well, I will not judge the perpetrators of this terrible sin as there is a higher Judge whether we want to believe it or not and He will take care of them.

God love you Shamir, I always love it when your emails come in. janet ny

From Ken Freeland, Texas:

Adam,

I found the material about homosexuality in Israel interesting and revealing. There is much good in what you write here, but it is admixed with a tendency to downplay the harm of sexual abuse. You seem to be totally unaware of the role of the American Catholic church in covering up for pedophile priests, and obstructing justice. Can you begin to imagine the harm to the psyche of a young boy seduced by the man of God from whom he is supposed to draw religious inspiration? It is incomprehensible to me that you so utterly lack empathy here. But this is the long and the short of it. Christ's words are apt: There must needs be scandal, but woe onto him through whom scandal comes. It is better that he be drowned with a millstone tied around his neck than that harm should come to any of these little ones. The quote is not exact, but you can research it for yourself. I find this paragraph indefensible for a Christian: "I do not feel sorry for any etc". Not very charitable in my opinion.

From Ian Buckley:

Dear Israel Adam,

Found 'Darkness from the West' to be of great interest, and will certainly re-read it a couple of more times. One problem with the Catholic church is that so much of its hierarchy has become tainted by the ideas of marketing and big business.

They close down ten parishes, demolish three 19th century churches and claim that this is necessary to 'spread the message and increase our faith community'.

Go figure, as the Americans would say...

From Enrique Ferro:

For goodness sake! Chaotic, and deranged. Shamir used to write well, but his ghosts of hatred make him fall more and more irretrievably into a lunatic trap of extremely reactionary, integrist pseudo-spiritual bigotry. He speaks of "our" enemies, but in fact by exorcizing them he creates them. In the end everybody may qualify to that, except an abstract institution which only exists in his atavistic mind. It is a pity that his moral conscience may reach such deep lows...

Didn't his Saviour say that those who would make harm to the children should be thrown with a millstone down to the river...?

Shamir replied:

Dear Karin Maria,
thank you for forwarding the response of Enrique. Because of his and his comrades' obstinacy, Italy is forever ruled by Israel's slaves and servants. For them faith is something reactionary. The people of Italy do not agree with them and vote for Berlusconi or Prodi. I offer a way to gather majority on our side. Moreover, not everybody can or should understand my theological and metaphysical allusions. They are an extra, and maybe Enrique (a capital guy, sending good letters) is not equipped to understand them. But he can understand the hardcore news in this text of mine: the Israel Lobby in the US orchestrated the campaign against the priests in the time of siege of Bethlehem, and they activate it whenever the church shows some critical mood or over-independence. In my view, we muct always reject their advice, whether they criticise Saddam Hussein or the priests. That much can be understood even by Enrique, if his anti-Christian reflexes would allow him a second thought.
Shamir

From Peter Myers:

Israel,

Darkness from the West is a masterly piece of work.

From E. Michael Jones, CultureWars

Dear Israel Adam,

I liked your piece, especially the use of this sort of accusation in time of war. Rod Dreher, who has since left the Catholic Church (I believe he is now Russian Orthodox, so good luck with your new brother in Christ), used the so-called priest pedophile crisis in March 2003 in an article in National Review as the reason why Catholics did not have to listen to the pope, who condemned the war. I wrote it up in an article which appeared in Culture Wars. It was also reprinted in the Vol. II of the Neoconned books.

I suppose this means that war with Iran in imminent.

All the best,

E. Michael Jones

From Stephanie Bodene:

I think they actually went one step farther -- if you read books like Goodbye Good Men, you realize that the Catholic seminaries in the 1960's and 1970's were in the grip of the Lavender Mafia (a phrase of Father Andrew Greeley). All the abusing priests came out of those seminaries during those years. And I do not recall one single American newspaper pointing to the fact that up to 90% of the abused children were teenaged boys. They call them pedophiles, they don't call them gays who can't keep their hands off young boys.
I really believe the Left, the New World Order, the so-called reforms of Vatican II, the Zionist-Satanist coalition-- whatever it could be called -- set this whole thing up to destroy the Church. It was brilliant, a master stroke. Many archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church have declared bankruptcy, and will be unable for years to tend their flocks and provide the kind of education and services to the poor which is their mission in the world.
I was very gladdened to read that Benedict XVI issued an order to keep the gays out of the seminaries from now on. The Church has learned a terrible lesson, let's hope the lesson has been LEARNED.
I don't think gays should be persecuted, or denied legal equality in any society. But when they band together, watch out. It's unbelievable. In one generation they took over the music world in New York. There isn't a single organist, conductor or church music director left in New York who isn't gay. At one large Catholic church, the (Catholic, straight) conductor was driven out by a protestant feminist from the Union Theological Seminary and a protestant gay organist.

Stephanie

From Tom Mysiewicz

We noticed in the 1970s an upsurge of apparently homosexual seminarians. Wonder if their desire to get religion, specifically Catholicism, wasn't orchestrated?

From Eric Walberg, Cairo:

well done Israel. I bet more than 1/2 of us ALL have had some form of sexual 'abuse' (or given it). It is up to the individuals involved to come to terms with it - forgiveness should be asked for and given personally. That is how spiritual healing occurs. Not through giving money to cynical lawyers and yellow journalists. The public discourse should be concerned with raising people's spiritual and moral being, not in dragging it down and disparaging it.

Your project to revive the Catholic church has come at a fitting time. After JPII and the even worse Benedictus, there is no where left to go. I recommend a good critique of the latter in my favorite paper(!):

We are the Church: The man dubbed "God's rottweiler" is fanning religious passions in Egypt once again, writes Gamal Nkrumah http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/854/eg3.htm

More from Enrique Ferro:

Guess what, Israel? I even read some of your books, with some delight: Chozjaeba diskursa, and, especially, Sosna i oliva, which I haven't finished yet, but I will continue at a certain moment, as I was enjoying it. I also used to enjoy your articles, and I even stood up on your behalf when there was an attack against you, and the suggestion you didn't even exist!

Now I don't take issue with most of your positions on Palestine. Not even on your Christianism, although I have detected since your conversion (and my perception may be wrong, I admit) a very disquieting development, which I sense as reactionary. I have many Catholic friends, even priests, who are against Israel's crimes against the Palestinians and others, but they (we) work shoulder on shoulder with progressive Jews, Atheists, non-believers, etc... They'll never utter anti-Semitic words, and they will take people as human beings, on an individual basis, considering their commitments, their talents, their morals, and why not their faith. When I watched not long ago the film Sophie Scholl, I was admiring Sophie's faith in her debate with the Nazi policeman, a modern revival of Antigona facing her uncle Creon... It is bigotry, the literal reading of criminal utterances which appear in the Bible what makes me aghast. Because they are the worst religion may offer.

Torquemada was a convert. Like the Taliban or the settlers in Qiriat Arba. A convert can become a fanatic enforcer of ancient laws which had been forgotten by the usual believers, as they had understood that life cannot be submitted to the texts, when the texts are obsolete and belong to a past epoch. It is like that with all fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslims, Jewish or Hinduist. They deny life on behalf of their own ghosts...

I remember an article of yours which spoke of an Archangel in a Spanish church, if I don't get it wrong. The text was beautiful. But I felt a chill in my spine. Especially when I thought that in the name of that angel of revenge one million of Spaniards had been slaughtered and half a million exiled... On behalf of that church of power and money, which ruled then the Catholic world General Franco had raised his armies to murder the Spanish people...

All that is history, and it can be interpreted, even as you do. But in your last, long article on the paedophile priests, I acknowledge I began to lose my patience as I progressed in my reading. As a father, as a member of the movement against the kidnapping, rape, and murder of young children, I found your comments lacking of sensitivity and compassion for the victims, hardly a Christian feeling, which is why I even obliged quoting a saying by Jesus. As a father of three daughters, your comments on women were outrageous to me: was it possible in the 21st century to speak of women in such a derogatory way? And then gays and lesbians... I stand for the freedom of everyone to enjoy their sexuality as they please, as long as they don't harm the others (like the paedophiles). It is not my business, I don't see them as "gays" or "machos", but as human beings. And I value them for what they are, as workers, poets, or scientists. And I don't give a damn whether they are heterosexuals or not! I had enough, but I still went on. Until the III part, which I didn't begin.

If faith is being anti-Semitic, homophobe, pro-paedophile, misogyne, and what next, I'm very happy being a secular free thinker. At least I don't hate people as such. Only their life and their works will give me a ground to deem what I make of...

Now please adhere to the bright faith of the interfaith wide minded people, and stop decrying people in old texts.

Freedom, equality and justice for all, irrespective of their ethnic belonging, their gender, or their sexual orientation. And protection of the weak, including children!

Enrique

Responses at Peter Myers� list:

From: Jocelyn Braddell, Dublin

> Yes, I thought that Darkness from the West was a masterly piece of work.

Dear Peter I agree with you and it is going in the Handstand alongside stastistics of related newspaper articles. Those ragamuffins who disagree hate the church anyway and probably have a re-iterated whinge against Israel Shamir who is nevertheless good and bad like all the rest of us. He has written a terrific piece to congratulate Turkey on elections. regards, Jocelyn
From: Tom White

Dear Peter:

Thanks for standing your ground re Shamir's great piece on the Church under assault again. If only we had a few bishops on his wavelength. Peter Kirsch (don't know him at all) seems rather caught up in the "naturalist" thing: if it gets itself done, it's OK. This leaves out what Buddhists called the Norm. It's what I suppose could be called crystalized "Enlightenment." K. should catch up on the fact that (as Shamir realizes) it's all about religion these days. Almost similar situation with Rowan B., British version. Tub thumping? Tom White,
Odessa, Tx

From: "Rolando Lequeux"

To Peter Kirsch: My thoughts are that your point of view might change dramatically if you read the work of Dr. Wilhelm Reich. I especially would start with "Children of the future".

Click to join shamireaders