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Showing posts with label property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label property. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22

22-Aug. Digest: Poverty, Homeland Security, Human Rights, NYPD, Muslim, Spying, Occupy, Civil Disobedience, Right to Property, Rape, Education, Wikileaks, Taxes, Facebook...


"Human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate." -Albert Einstein


Homeland Security Prepares for Civil War

Over the past 2 weeks, everyone from the mainstream media to bloggers and conspiracy theorists have questioned the government's mass purchasing of ammunition for federal agencies like the National Weather Service and even the Social Security Administration. Combined, both agencies ordered over 210,000 rounds. This ammunition is mostly made up of "hollow point" bullets, which are designed strictly for maximum damage to the human body and have been outlawed for use in warfare since 1969. 

Five Things Government Does Better Than You Do

Economics assumes people are rational actors in the market, but we know a lot less about how to manage money than we think.

http://prospect.org/article/five-things-government-does-better-you-do


Want to Be a Great Leader? Start Reading

Even though global literacy rates are high(84%), people are reading less and less deeply. This trend is especially detrimental to those in leadership roles. As John Coleman explains, deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of great leaders, and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.

NYPD official: Muslim spying by secret Demographics Unit generated no leads, terrorism cases

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Occupying For The Future
I was reading this study that said that if we don’t do anything to reduce our carbon emissions seriously and soon, at least one day of the year will be so hot that human beings physically can’t survive it. We’ll die of heat stroke. The likelihood of there being one day of the year like that if we don’t do anything about our emissions will be a very real threat by the end of my lifetime.

The Resilience Imperative And Civil Disobedience
If the oil and gas sector wants to explore the potential for broadening its social license, it would have to stand shoulder to shoulder with scientists, governments, businesses, and civil society and argue for a stiff tax on carbon. Only by taking such responsibility can Cenovus and its fellow corporations expand their social license. At the same time they would be helping to set the stage for the transition to a steady-state economy.


Human rights critics of Russia and Ecuador parade their own hypocrisy
The media's new converts to civic freedom over the Pussy Riot and Assange asylum affairs show a jingoism blind to US abuses

No Person Shall Be Deprived of Life, Liberty or Property… Unless the Oil and Gas Industry Says So

Eminent domain, the government’s right to condemn (or take) private land for “public use,” has at times been a highly contentious topic because it can displace people from their homes to make way for construction of different projects, like highways or roads, civic buildings and other types of public infrastructure. However, what some may not realize is that several states have granted eminent domain authority to certain private entities, including oil and gas companies. These companies are using it as a tool to seize private land, which increases profits and benefits their wallets.

Washington, Are You Listening?

The Bush tax cuts siphon off money that could fund education and other crucial programs.


A World of Hillbilly Heroin: The Hollowing Out of America, Up Close and Personal
During the two years Joe Sacco and I reported from the poorest pockets of the United States, areas that have been sacrificed before the altar of unfettered and unregulated capitalism, we found not only decayed and impoverished communities but shattered lives.  There comes a moment when the pain and despair of constantly running into a huge wall, of realizing that there is no way out of poverty, crush human beings.  Those who best managed to resist and bring some order to their lives almost always turned to religion and in that faith many found the power to resist and even rebel.

Almost immediately after the Dems and Reps cut last year's debt-limit budget deal(a.k.a The Budget Control Act of 2011), all the players started carping about the draconian effects of possible cuts on subsidies to sugar and corn producers, cowboy poetry readings, and prescription drug plans for wealthy seniors. But most of the bitching and moaning centered around defense spending, which was going to be cut to the bone, right (never mind that defense spending rose 71 percent in real terms between 2001 and 2010)? If sequestration was allowed to happen, the Department of Defense was going to see about $600 billion cut from its budgets over the next 10 years.

Farmers Fight Monsanto's Threats and Intimidation

 major lawsuit against Monsanto was denied in at the district court and has been appealed. On July 5, 2012, seventy-five family farmers, seed businesses, and agricultural organizations representing over 300,000 individuals and 4,500 farms filed a brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., asking the appellate court to reverse a lower court's decision from February dismissing their protective legal action against agricultural giant Monsanto's patents on genetically engineered seed.

Your Scientific Reasoning Is More Flawed Than You Think

New concepts don’t replace incorrect ones: they just learn to live together

WikiLeaks and Free Speech

e have spent our careers as filmmakers making the case that the news media in the United States often fail to inform Americans about the uglier actions of our own government. We therefore have been deeply grateful for the accomplishments of WikiLeaks, and applaud Ecuador's decision to grant diplomatic asylum to its founder, Julian Assange, who is now living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Here We Go Again: Warrantless GPS Tracking an Unreasonable Search?

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, concluded that physical trespass upon the vehicle in question — police attached a GPS tracker to the undercarriage of the car to track the suspect — triggered the unreasonable search.

Right now, according to Cheng's tests, it takes Facebook about two days to completely remove an image from its servers, rendering even direct links useless.  A Facebook spokesperson told Ars Technica that this is a result of recent changes. "As a result of work on our policies and infrastructure, we have instituted a 'max-age' of 30 days for our CDN links," he said. "However, in some cases the content will expire on the CDN much more quickly, based on a number of factors." 

Some Good News: New High Figures for Latino College Enrollment

In the midst of all the dismal economic news and crazy racism and sexism emanating from politicos, it's important to keep track of gains.

For-Profit Colleges Take The Money and Run

Imagine a business model where the government lends people money to pay you for a service that you may or may not deliver effectively, and no matter what goes wrong, someone else has to pay the government back and you get to keep almost $32 billion a year. 
Preposterous, you say!  No, in the real world it's called a for-profit college. 
"For-Profit College" -- isn't that on oxymoron?  Not really, according to the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU) in Washington, DC: "We are supplying a marketplace that has a growing need for skilled and trained workers in order to achieve 21st Century global competitiveness." http://www.career.org/iMISPublic/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=25566&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm 

Social Contract Theory for Occupiers: What Law, Culture and History Tell Us

The social contract, like the contract we think of in ordinary legal parlance, is what the law dictionary terms 'commutative' -- "in which what is done, given, or promised by one party is considered as an equivalent to or in consideration of what is done, given, or promised by the other" (Black's Law, 6th, emphasis added). Of special interest to theory is the fact that this use of the word 'consideration' is recent, and reflects in this writer's estimation an oversight serious enough to be largely responsible for the recent world-wide financial crisis, and in consequence the on-going Occupy movement. 

From Jehovah's Witness to Atheist: How & Why Witnesses Fade from Congregations

Jehovah's Witnesses Avoid Disfellowshipping by Fading, Not Announcing Atheism


Muslim community ‘vindicated’ after NYPD spy program produced no leads

According to the Associated Press, testimony unsealed Monday evening revealed that NYPD Associate Chief Thomas Galati said no conversations monitored by the department’s“Demographics Unit” ever led to a case.

Court limits federal employee appeal rights

A court decision issued Friday could limit on national security grounds the rights of many federal employees to challenge personnel actions against them, even if the employees don’t have access to classified information.

A struggle put on hold?

A Verizon worker looks at the battle for a union contract at Verizon year after a two-week strike by workers.

An Open Letter to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council: Let's Talk About Hate

Dear Mr. Perkins,
Let me again express my strong condemnation of the shooting at the Family Research Council offices, as well as my support and concern for all those affected. Security guard Leo Johnson, who took a bullet (and luckily did not lose his life, and is currently in stable condition), is a hero who saved others from being shot. I'm enormously grateful for that. 

5 Reasons Why the Ryan-Romney Economic Plan Would Be A Disaster for America

Mitt Romney hasn't provided details so we should be grateful he's selected as vice president a man with a detailed plan Romney says is "marvelous," "bold and exciting," "excellent," "much needed," and "consistent with" what he's put out.

Who is standing up to the Jewish New World Order?

The world should know that most Western hegemonic and colonial powers maintain a joint commitment to protect the entity of the Israeli regime, he added.

The Iranian chief executive stated that the Israeli regime is a tool to control the Middle East region and the entire world, stressing the regime’s existence is an insult to the mankind.

Israel kicks out migrants – by changing their nationality and sending them to another country

Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel are being issued with documents changing their nationality, allowing them to be removed from the country or imprisoned.

What do animals know of death?

Not having access to the consciousness of any creature except H. sapiens, we’re not sure.  Certainly some animals act as if they understanddeath: dying chimps are surrounded by what looks to be caregivers, elephants fondle the bones of other elephants, and mother primates can cling to dead infants for days.  I even  once saw a squirrel dragging the carcass of another squirrel across the quad of my university, but had no idea what that meant.  But none of these acts mean that these creatures conceive of death the way humans do.

‘Down’s syndrome girl’, 11, faces execution in Pakistan for desecrating Koran

An 11-year-old girl thought to suffer from  Down’s Syndrome is facing the death penalty in Pakistan for apparently burning  pages from the Koran.

Does megachurch ‘high’ explain their success?

A University of Washington study posits that worship services at megachurches can trigger feelings of transcendence and changes in brain chemistry – a spiritual “high” that keeps congregants coming back for more.

How to survive floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters

The reality seems so cruel that there is no home in anywhere in this world that is truly safe when it natural disasters strike such as freak floods or snow storms to earthquakes. CDC survey shows 48% of Americans lack emergency supplies for use in the event of a disaster. But the good news is proper precuations to a natural disaster can save loss of life or property.

So Many Similarities Between Copyright Law And Prohibition


A few months ago, we pointed to a video by ReasonTV, which noted that the over-enforcement of copyright law today had become this generation's Prohibition. While that might be slight (or significant) hyperbole, law professor Donald Harris has put together a fantastic paper thatcompares the two situations and finds an awful lot of similarities. 

Media Hacks: Why Our National Press Corps Is Failing the Public Abysmally

You want a serious debate about the issues? Good luck!

The 8 Worst Things Republicans Have Said About Rape, Sex and Women's Bodies

It's not just GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin. It's practically a party tradition.
http://www.alternet.org/6-worst-things-republicans-have-said-about-rape-sex-and-womens-bodies

8 Atheist and Agnostic Scientists Who Changed the World

Non-believers are among our most respected and beloved heroes.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/8-atheist-and-agnostic-scientists-who-changed-world

How Nonprofits Spend Millions on Elections and Call it Public Welfare

Forget super PACs, their much-hyped cousins, which can take unlimited contributions but must name their donors.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare

The Global 1%: Exposing the Transnational Ruling Class

The Occupy Movement has developed a mantra that addresses the great inequality of wealth and power between the world's wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of us, the other 99 percent. While the 99 percent mantra undoubtedly serves as a motivational tool for open involvement, there is little understanding as to who comprises the 1 percent and how they maintain power in the world. Though a good deal of academic research has dealt with the power elite in the United States, only in the past decade and half has research on the transnational corporate class begun to emerge. 

Poverty pulls the trigger

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor reports on the spike in violent crime in Chicago--and why it reflects a political and economic failing, not a moral one.

Why Protecting Medicare Matters

Since Mitt Romney selected cowardly GOP Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, the 2012 Presidential election has turned into a battle over Medicare. On one side, President Obama and Democrats have vowed to defend Medicare as a program of universal coverage for seniors and have worked to strengthen Medicare by protecting benefits while cutting back on waste, fraud, and subsidies to insurance companies. On the other side is GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s proposal to abolish Medicare and replace it with inadequate vouchers for seniors to try to buy coverage from private insurance companies.

The war against the weak:
Eugenics in America

Making sense of religion, science, and morality

Atheists On Religion, Science, And Morality (The Point)

LAPD filmed punching man for skateboarding on wrong side of street

In a scene that brought with it echoes of the Los Angeles Police Department’s most infamous moment, residents filmed four officers holding down and punching a young man picked up outside his home for allegedly skateboarding on the wrong side of the street.


The Invisible Wounds of War: Number of Soldiers Committing Suicide Reaches Record High


Kirk Cameron Defends Rep. ToddAkin In Wake Of 'Legitimate Rape'Furor

Kirk Cameron, who shot to fame playing the signature role on the 80s sitcom Growing Pains, is defending Congressman Todd Akinin the wake of his controversial comments about "legitimate rape."


Rebecca Walker: 'There Is No Reason to Wait for Revolution. It Is Here Already in Each of Us'

Author Rebecca Walker outlines a utopian vision of a world after capitalism underpinned by a moral and spiritual revolution.


Twisted Sexual Assault--The TSA Song



Obama Administration Outsources Torture: Can U.S. Ever End Human Rights Abuses?


 ______________
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Sunday, July 24

Scientologists, Catholics and More Money Than God

Religious Cult, Church of Scientology, Business Office
The Church of Scientology building in Los Angeles.

By GARRY WILLS | Published: July 21, 2011
[REPRINT]

We do not need these books to tell us that money and religion make for a poisonous combination. But it is of some interest to see that ancient truth confirmed in both a church as relatively new as Scientology and one as ancient as Roman Catholicism. Even religious leaders develop a certain swagger when they know they are backed by bundles of cash. When a French court fined Scientology nearly a million dollars, one of its officials shrugged that off as “chump change.” And when the Vatican ran a deficit of nearly 2.4 million euros in 2007, an Italian journalist familiar with the church’s finances dismissed the debt as “chopped liver.” Chump change or chopped liver, both churches have bigger sums they can get to and use, and few outsiders are given a look at how they do it. These two books trace the cash source of theological confidence.

As Janet Reitman describes in “Inside Scientology,” Scientology did not begin as a religion, which its founder, L. Ron Hubbard came to consider his initial mistake. In 1950 Hubbard published his book “Dianetics,” which proposed a variant on the “mind cures” that have littered the American landscape through most of its history. He offered his followers a process of “auditing” that combined Freudian sessions with elements of his former career as a writer of science fiction. People being audited could relive their births, or test their future hopes on the E-meter, a kind of super lie detector that revealed “the anatomy of the human mind.” Mental health authorities, Reitman notes, were quick to condemn Hubbard’s claims as fraudulent. He did not, at this point, have the money to fight against such attacks, a situation he would spend the rest of his career correcting.

Hubbard’s failure to secure a strong financial base exposed him to a takeover of his concepts and properties. Barely two years after founding the movement, he lost Dianetics to a wealthy supporter named Don Purcell, who simply bought him out. To restart his project, he needed protection for it. He found that protection in religion. After all, one cannot buy out a religion. This “religion angle,” he wrote in 1953, is “a matter of practical business.” Being a church, Reitman writes, gave Scientology tax exemption, clerical status for his “ministers” (who wore Roman collars) and clerical exemption from the draft for these ministers. It also allowed him to rally even non-Scientologists to his defense against increasingly hostile government agencies, presenting any of his troubles as a persecution of religion, violating the separation of church and state.

There was another advantage to becoming a religion. In the 1960s, especially in Los Angeles, where Hubbard’s early success came to him, there was a spiritual hunger among young people that took them to religious figures like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the Beatles’ guide) and the Hare Krishnas. Some of those who came into Scientology as ’60s “kids” stayed on to hold responsible positions under Hubbard.

Hubbard’s experience with Dianetics, Reitman writes, taught him to keep all parts of Scientology under his personal control, to keep his governance secret, and to have a cash supply to deal with enemies, real and imagined. It takes money, after all, to sue the Internal Revenue Service 200 times after it revoked the church’s tax exemption. The early criticisms Hubbard received from psychiatrists made him an unremitting foe to all mental health activities but his own. The general public became aware of this when the Scientologist Tom Cruise attacked psychiatry on the “Today” show. But for years Scientology had been trying, with lawsuits, propaganda and harassment, to bring down the mental health establishment. psychiatrists maim and kill, read a sign carried by Scientologists outside a London mental health center.

Hubbard’s feuds were deadly. Of a person suspected of stealing his secrets he wrote his followers: “The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway . . . will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. . . . If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.” Those who opposed Scientology in any way were called “suppressive persons,” of whom Hubbard wrote: “A truly suppressive person or group has no rights of any kind, and actions taken against them are not punishable.” They “may be tricked, sued, or lied to or destroyed.” Thus, when Hubbard became convinced that government agencies were collecting negative information about Scientology, Reitman writes, a secret agency of the church (Branch One) planted operatives inside the I.R.S., the F.B.I., the Justice Department and that old enemy, the American Medical Association. According to Reitman, they stole tens of thousands of documents to use for their own smear campaigns. The church gave them awards for this service.

Hubbard was particularly fierce against defecting members, especially if they put online the higher levels of enlightenment that were supposed to be revealed only to loyal trainees. Hubbard feared ridicule, Reitman argues, since the upper levels of disciples learned that a Galactic Confederation had destroyed earth millions of years ago (using hydrogen bombs) and planted captive souls in volcanoes. Even some of the most conditioned and docile disciples, including Tom Cruise, balked at this secret knowledge when first exposed to it.

When Hubbard died in 1986, his leadership role was taken over by a less flamboyant figure, David Miscavige, who had been a Scientologist since the age of 8. He followed the founder’s plans, especially his “celebrity strategy,” conceived in 1955. Hubbard’s initial hopes were to lure admired people like Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Edward R. Murrow into his church. But this ambition shrank, by Miscavige’s time, to recruiting show business personalities. The big catches here were John Travolta and Cruise, on whom Miscavige danced continual attendance, in a tactic the church called “admiration bombing.” A glitzy Celebrity Centre was built for any new catches, and less-known figures proved useful. Nancy Cartright, the voice of Bart Simpson, gave the church $10 million in just one of her years of devout service.

Reitman, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone who spent five years trying to pierce the walls Scientologists put up against outsiders, gives us the most complete picture of Scientology so far. She seems, now, uncertain of its future. But its continued existence, given its weird aspects, is its main claim to religion’s power. It is something of a miracle.

The Catholic Church offers a very different picture, but one where money is even more important. Jason Berry, the reporter who broke several of the priest abuse scandals of recent times, finds the same pattern of deception, denial and subterfuge in the church’s handling of money as in its treatment of pedophiles. The Vatican comes to its high-handed way with money in an understandable fashion. In the Middle Ages, all authority was male and monarchical, so the pope became a king. His multiple realms had all the appurtenances of a medieval monarch — armies, prisons, spies, torturers, legal courts in papal service. The money flowed in from many sources — as conquest, as tribute from subordinate princes (secular and religious) or from the crops on farm lands held by the pope, who was not accountable to anyone for use of these funds. When normal sources did not satisfy papal ambition, clerical underlings invented new kinds of revenue — like the granting of time off in Purgatory for cash contributions during life (“indul­gences” for sale).

All that seemed to be ending in 1860 when Italy at last united its secular government and began taking away the pope’s realms. Pope Pius IX rejected the Italian government’s efforts at partial restitution, calling the secular regime illegitimate. He made himself a “prisoner of the Vatican,” never venturing out into Rome, or even addressing it from his balcony. Catholics in sympathy to Pio Nono’s “martyrdom” by the modern state increased their popular donations to the Vatican called Peter’s Pence. This donation arose in the seventh or eighth century, when the pope was still a monarch. It was set aside from the monies exacted from various parts of the papal empire, as something coming voluntarily from the people in the pews. The announced purpose was for the pope to have extra money for the charities he supported.

But after 1860 a surge of sympathy made Catholics every­where, but especially in America, pour large sums into the Vatican, originally conceived as giving the pope military assistance, but then turned over to him for any use. No longer were papal charities the rationale. In fact, the lay cardinal who was Pius’s secretary of state, Giacomo Antonelli, took all available Vatican sums for ambitious new financing schemes. Already in 1857 he had used Peter’s Pence funds as collateral for a new loan from the Rothschild banking firm. Antonelli made one of his brothers the head of the Pontifical Bank. Another Antonelli brother secured a monopoly on Rome’s grain imports (a key to power in Rome since classical times). Antonelli soon had papal investments in countries all over Europe. The pope’s distress was made the excuse for a new financial empire, with no accountability for the funds used.

That non-accountability continues. The Vatican issues statements of its assets — in 2007 the amount was 1.4 billion euros —but the Vatican Bank is off the books, as is a metric ton of gold, and other things not reported. On a list of papal assets, St. Peter’s Basilica and other historic sites are listed as worth one euro each. No wonder, as Berry says, “the Holy See’s true net worth is invisible.”

Having set this historical background, Berry begins his true project — the use of funds in the American church during its modern time of troubles. He grants there are excuses for the financial maneuvering of the Catholic bishops. “The Roman Catholic Church in America is undergoing the most massive downsizing in its history,” he writes. “Since 1995 the bishops have closed 1,373 churches — more than one parish per week for 15 years.” There are many reasons for this wrenching development — lower church attendance, which means fewer donations from the pews; the movement of parishioners from inner cities to the suburbs, stranding old ethnic structures; the loss of free labor in Catholic schools by the declining number of nuns. We can add to this the payment of damages to the victims of priest pedophiles — though many bishops claim they haven’t closed churches because of the sex scandals.

Berry says it is hard to verify this claim because the ordinary bishop is as loath to reveal his transactions as the pope is. A lay group begun in Boston, the Voice of the Faithful, asked that the financial arrangements of the diocese be exposed, and it was fiercely resisted by bishop after bishop. Church authorities in some cities banned the V.O.T.F. from meeting in any parish. The same bishops had earlier opposed revealing what sums were paid to victims of sexual abuse. Settlements forbade the victims from revealing this. Even when settlements were reported, other hidden costs were kept secret — for instance, how much had gone to expensive rehabilitation centers through which the pedophiles were endlessly and uselessly recycled, and to legal costs while the bishops were denying accusations.

Lay people were also kept out of the decision on which churches to close. Good faith attempts by lay people to cooperate in evaluating this procedure were rebuffed. While Cardinal Sean O’Malley was trying to remedy the harm done the Boston diocese by Cardinal Bernard Law’s recycling of pedophiles, his auxiliary bishop Richard Lennon was managing a professedly separate operation to close churches — he would finally shut down 62 in the Boston area. The opponents to Lennon’s plan alleged that he was selecting properties most likely to bring the highest price for resale, not taking into account community support, unconsidered resources or the possibility of merged work with nearby parishes. At eight condemned parishes, people devoted to their churches kept round-the-clock vigils, refusing to give them up. Appeals were taken to Rome, but the man responsible for parishes, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, refused them a hearing. Berry finds the Boston pattern repeated in other dioceses, like those of Cleveland and Los Angeles.

Then, returning to Rome, Berry shows the power of money to squelch evidence that the founder of the ultra-conservative Legionaries of Christ, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, was a serial child molester and had illegitimate children in Mexico. I met Berry in 2002 at the bishops’ Dallas meeting on the sex scandals. He was just beginning his exposé on Maciel, and I followed his work after that, since he was up against vituperation from the Legionaries, criticism from people like William Bennett, and a cold shoulder in Rome, where he went with Maciel’s victims to plead their cause. Unfortunately, Maciel was a great favorite with Pope John Paul II and his secretary of state, Angelo Sodano. It helped that Maciel showered Rome’s cardinals with expensive gifts. Every Christmas Legionary brothers fanned out across Rome to deliver lavish Christmas baskets to the hierarchy, with fine wines, liqueurs and rare Spanish hams worth up to $1,000. He sent a million dollars in support of the pope’s visit to Poland. He gave large cash gifts to Sodano. He ordered a Mercedes-Benz for Cardinal Pio Laghi, though Laghi turned it down. Sodano and others were entertained in style at the Legionary headquarters.

Cardinal Ratzinger, who had taken charge of all sex claims reaching Rome, sat on the charges against Maciel, at the urging of Cardinal Sodano, who reminded him that Maciel was well liked by Pope John Paul. Ratzinger held off until John Paul was clearly dying; then he hurried to remove this incubus from the church. In December 2004 Ratzinger’s office ordered Maciel to step down, pending an investigation. Even then the Vatican Press Office, under pressure from Sodano, denied that there was any “canonical process” against Maciel. But once Ratzinger was Pope Benedict XVI, he consigned Maciel to a period of prayer and penitence and began a thorough re-evaluation of his order.

Whether Berry is considering sex scandals or money scandals, or the refusal of the hierarchy to be open with its own believers on many fronts, the thing that sours all relations is secrecy — as we can see from the conduct of our own government. Secrecy eats at the soul. Some are surprised that religion is so corruptible. They should not be. When secrecy is used to protect a higher order of knowledge, it can make the keepers of the secrets think of themselves as a higher order of humans. Corruptio optimi pessima, goes the old saying. Blight at the top is the deepest blight. It is the sin of taking God’s name in vain.
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