Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
There is some lack of understanding about the Vatican position on the papacy and the pope. The pope IS Christ. He is God, pure and simple. It is important to understand how they view this. He is, like the Dali Lama with whom he competes, God on earth. So there is no room for anyone else claiming they are God or suggesting anything like that.
Since there are folks here who also claim to be God, there should not be a lot of trouble understanding that the pope and the Papacy has this notion about the Pope, also. Of course, the Pope claims to be the one and only God. And there Mazzoleni (Papal Priest excommunicated for devotion to Sathya Sai Baba) ran into trouble. He did not understand — or was willing to undergo — the fullness of Vatican dogma on this point.
Also, he did not realize — or was willing to undergo — the fullness of the simultaneous Vatican claim that the Pope is plenary temporal authority precisely because he is God. This is a subtlety Gods here have not figured out about their claims, yet. But the Vatican, in typical Roman thoroughness, figured it out long ago and makes no bones about it and brooks no opposition to it. Who do you think has been starting all these wars of dominion?
And now we have another God: the Hizzbolah (Party of God) soi-disant clergy now make the same claim based on Sufi mysticism. And you wonder why I look with a jaundiced eye on people who claim to be God? It is because the history of these claims starts out apparently spiritual and soon becomes merely worldly — which it only was all along — and extensively bloody. We have enough self-proclaimed religious claimants going around claiming to be God … and their hands are red.
Swami’s first public revelation in Europe/America was via Craxi right at the Vatican door, in the late 70s and early 80s. A bit of delightful dramatic irony that Swami would announce the Solar Dynasty at the Vatican front door by means of a guy named Cross. This was significant. As Luther and Calvin said, the Vatican is the anti-Christ. It is the anti-God, the center of a-dharma in the world, or at least, the Latin Church (aka Western Civilization to her cultured despisers). Anyone who claims to be God is anti-God. The thing just is not done. Mazzoleni did not understand — or was willing to undergo — the depth and breadth of the drama, the stakes involved. He does now. The Vatican is a nation state. It is not a church. It certainly is not The Church.
So Swami put the point right to them right at the top of the play. His sense of history is, of course, elegant without a fault. He put the attack right at the center of the enemy line. Then He sent out flanking forces ….
When we discard viveka in a paroxysm of premature, superficial maturity, people lose their lives and society goes under the boot of the latest tyranny posing as a religion. Should we say this is all just scripted karma and lah dee dah? That’s not the attitude coming out of Puttaparthi. From there there is work education, training up a young leadership which can think and act heroically, toughened by hardship, accustomed to viveka, mentally hard as diamond, paying attention to facts., etc.
Mazzoleni is a good object lesson in the stakes of the drama at the onset of the Sai Era. Here is Mazzoleni in the words of people who feel betrayed by Swami.
The thing turns on the distinction between The Church, The Spiritual Community, and the organizations presenting themselves as such: the churches. Except for Vatican dogma, Christian Theology has always maintained that there is an essential and an existential difference between The Church and the organizations, the churches. All reformations are based on this distinction. Appeal for reform is always made to The Church, The Spiritual Community, against the organizations, the churches, contextually representing her.
The thing involves an important distinction between a vessel and the substance contained in it, or, between a symbol and the reality it symbolizes. The distinction is decisive operationally, meaning, in how people live out their lives, how they conduct their piety.
Truth is more than and can never be contained by any of the symbols or organizations or thoughts or any other aspects of the jagadath we necessarily employ to indicate it.
When we speak of God we speak of Truth sub specie conditions, as having aspects. God, therefore, is by definition conditional. The truth of this fact is behind [Name’s] and my demurrer at being labeled devotees: on the one hand the label is incorrect for saying too much about us and on the other hand it is incorrect for not saying enough.
This is the case with all labels, including the much overworked label, God. The thing qua label is only provisionally useful. Ultimately it cannot be taken as substantial at all. And so too with The Church. The Church is just another name for reality, for ultimate truth. All creation is The Church. This is the meaning of Augustine’s esse qua esse bonum est. No symbol or organization can contain that truth, that Church. That truth must be referenced by means of symbols, but we must always keep in the back of our minds that all the symbols are provisional, conditionally useful, and ultimately non sequiturs.
This the Vatican does not do. Actually, Vatican dogma is that the Pope IS Christ on earth, not just representative of Him. That is, he IS God in the Second Person of the Trinity — which equivalizes to Siva in the Vedic Trimurthi. (Christianity is a Saivite religion.) Roman laity hardly believe this, as a rule, and the Papacy does not promulgate the dogma with vigor — except when one of the officer corps tries to quiestion it — but it is the official dogma of the Vatican in re the position of the Pope. You can believe me on that. Jesuits love to dissemble it to the public, as they do so much, but in the clerical club that is exactly the score with those people. And it is very old dogma, predating St. Francis.
It is not the Roman Catholic Church which takes the Pope for God. It is the the Vatican that does. So, I am making a distinction not only between The Church and the organization(s) — the churches — that call themselves so, but also, on a lower level, between the organization called the Roman Catholic Church and the organization called the Vatican. This, however, is a corrollary consideration.
Indications showing that the Vatican considers the Pope God are contained in the language of any Papal Encyclical and in particular in the documents coming from Vatican I (1868) which promulgated the dogma of infallibility. The language used in all such indications is technical.
Christian theological language is technical and is used with its technical meanings by Christian theologians. This is not understood by non-theologians yet it is important. It allows theologians, if they wish, to say all manner of things among themselves without non-technicians understanding what they are saying and therefore not having to face up to the music if others would not particularly care for their claims. The infallibility language is one of these instances, but any encyclical or bull prior to say 1800 would make the same point so long as one understands the import of the technical language being used.
The word vicar for example is one of these technical words that means a whole lot more than non-technically-oriented appreciate appreciate, especially in context of Vatican dogma that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ. We have in this instance another reason the greatest theologians and church leaders of all religions always put the language back into common (“vulgar”) form so the rest of humanity can understand what is being said and thereby check and correct the theologians where necessary.
So many do not realize that Christian theological language is technical and do not understand the technicalities in this instance. “Peter” means a whole lot more than is realized. It means Vicar for starters.
There are two principle lines of theological development in the Latin Church: one coming from Augustine and based on Truth (Atma) as prius (called Realism) and the other coming from pre-vision Aquinas, though starting far earlier (e.g., Aristotle) and including also Ockham and Abelard, and based on the five senses as prius (called Nominalism). As is known, Aquinas abandoned the Summa — the Nominalistic base for Vatican dogma — after he saw The Author of it.
It looks like I jump from Augustine to Luther. But that evaluation is from a cursory glance. The Augustinian line, in which I reside, drops several flowers on the way to Luther and since: Fiore, Cusa, Bonaventure, Bernard, Teilhard, Tillich and Graham to name just some professionals. It is up to you, of course, but you might give the Old Man some credit for knowing what hehe iss talking about. 🙂
Update 1: Why The American Church Should Go Off The Grid
Update 2: Pope Francis Tears At History’s Wall Against Islam
Update 3: The Communist Cardinals of Pope Francis
Update 4: ‘Doctrinal Anarchy’ as Bishops’ Conflicting Positions on Amoris Laetitia Show
Update 5: De Mattei: The Plan Of “Reinterpretation” For Humanæ Vitæ
Update 6: Clergy and Lay Scholars Issue Filial Correction of Pope Francis
Update 7: Robert Spencer: Muslim-Catholic document on world peace “full of outrageously false and misleading statements”
Update 8: Bishop Schneider says Vatican is betraying ‘Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind’
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
