Dr. Farrell, the Russian Patriarch, and the Pope.
Feb 12, 2016 0:28:49 GMT -6
Nugget, Glencairn, and 1 more like this
Post by Charles1952 on Feb 12, 2016 0:28:49 GMT -6
All credit for this thread goes to Rickster for pointing out the article involved and encouraging me to write about it. All of the faults and weaknesses are my responsibility, as I didn't give this to him to edit or preview. Thanks, Rickster.
Dr. Joseph Farrell is an interesting man. His doctorate is in patristics, the study of ancient Christian writings. His website provides this information:
I have real admiration for anyone who picks up a doctorate from Oxford, but it should be noted that he almost never talks about patristics, his area of expertise, and he doesn't here.
Anyway, to his article, entitled "THE PERSECUTION, THE PATRIACH, AND LAST AND LEAST, THE POPE" posted on February 7 of this year. Dr. Farrell links to an article in the Russian news site Sputnik. Frankly, I've read that article several times (it's short) and I don't see what Dr. Farrel does. The article can be found here:
sputniknews.com/politics/20160206/1034320860/church-meeting-havana.html
It points out that the Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church will be meeting at the Havana airport on February 12. Francis will then continue to a six-day tour of Mexico, while Kirill will begin an eleven-day tour of South America.
According to the Sputnik article, the two leaders will discuss the plight of persecuted Christians. Following the meeting they will release a joint declaration which has already been agreed upon. There is thought, though it wasn't specifically stated anywhere in the article, that there will also be language celebrating the two Church's common heritage and expressing a desire to work towards a closer understanding and acceptance.
What does Dr. Farrell make of this meeting? Several things, so please allow me to number them.
1.)
Forgive my ignorance, but is the modern secular West viscerally afraid of Eastern Orthodox cultures? Wiki tells us that Orthodoxy is the largest single religious faith in:
Belarus
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Georgia
Greece
Macedonia
Moldova
Montenegro
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Ukraine
Somehow, I don't feel visceral fear when I think of those countries or cultures. I'll grant you that Russia has been a real pain in America's rear for the last seventy years, but I don't think that's because they're an Eastern Orthodox country.
2.) Dr. Farrell rightly points out that Eastern Orthodoxy has received short shrift when medieval history is studied, and that few know much of its contributions. He reports that a textbook he used had only one chapter on the subject:
I'll agree that there were and are significant differences between the Latin Church and Orthodoxy. I suspect, however, that most would think that an understanding of the Papacy was more desirable than an understanding of the Patriarchy. I can see the importance of knowing about Orthodoxy if you're studying comparative religion or Eastern European history and culture, but it seems that Dr. Farrell is frying some small fish here.
3.) Dr. Farrell shifts gears rather drastically at this point and begins an attack on Vatican II. He says:
Not surprisingly, I would disagree that "every classical formulation of Roman Catholic teaching was abandoned." Assume for a minute that he is correct in that claim. What then is the Catholic Church now, fifty years after the Council? It must not exist. Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Burke, and even Pope Francis would disagree.
Not only did the Council pretty much destroy Catholicism in Dr. Farrell's opinion, its emphasis on reaching out to other religions (Ecumenism) failed to protect Christians from Muslims. Of course, so has soldiers, bombs, drones, sanctions, and superpower diplomacy. Is he, or anyone else, really stunned that Muslims still kill Christians in spite of the Vatican asking them not to?
In fairness to Dr. Farrel, he does moderate his position somewhat.
4.) There is one other portion of Dr. Farrell's article which really leaves me baffled:
Why is that interesting? Christians in that part of the world are no longer being tolerated, they are being persecuted and killed. The Church has made clear that Christians retain the right of self-defense. Was that ever in question? Why even mention this?
5.) After laying all of this groundwork in his article, Dr. Farrell explains why this is interesting, why it caught his attention.
Yes, he's right, they will discuss the persecution of Christians. That has been announced. He believes that the choice of Cuba is interesting, in that it is a Catholic country. Except, it's really not. Our good friends at Wiki tell us that from 1.5 to 5 per cent of Cubans attend Mass regularly. That's not a Catholic country, no matter how the residents describe themselves. As an aside, what religion is Cuba?
Wiki also reports that 24% of Cubans identify as Atheist or Non-religious.
6.) What are the speculations and conclusions which Dr. Farrell draws from all this?
Unfortunately for us, he never describes what it is. Nor does he expect it to happen soon, no matter how much he says it "is in the offing."
What does he describe, or expect to occur?
So, soon the Churches will say that Muslims have to get serious about talking about how to stop the killing, Christians can defend themselves, even asking for help from others, and free speech will not fall victim to Muslim "Anti-blasphemy" demands. OK, fine, but these positions are only significant because the West, especially the US, has failed to uphold even these most basic principles.
Oh, Dr. Farrell notes that the Church's new blood isn't coming from the West any more. This was known well before Francis became Pope. The money may be coming from the West, but the Spirit is more easily found elsewhere while the West dries up. This is sad, but it isn't news.
Here's Dr. Farrell's article
gizadeathstar.com/2016/02/the-persecution-the-patriach-and-last-and-least-the-pope/
I have no idea why he refers to "Last Pope," or why he calls the Pope "Least." Anyone who wants to explain it to me will be welcomed. He seems to be saying, heck, he is saying, that there will be a Pope and a Catholic Church for some time to come.
Dr. Joseph Farrell is an interesting man. His doctorate is in patristics, the study of ancient Christian writings. His website provides this information:
Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".
I have real admiration for anyone who picks up a doctorate from Oxford, but it should be noted that he almost never talks about patristics, his area of expertise, and he doesn't here.
Anyway, to his article, entitled "THE PERSECUTION, THE PATRIACH, AND LAST AND LEAST, THE POPE" posted on February 7 of this year. Dr. Farrell links to an article in the Russian news site Sputnik. Frankly, I've read that article several times (it's short) and I don't see what Dr. Farrel does. The article can be found here:
sputniknews.com/politics/20160206/1034320860/church-meeting-havana.html
It points out that the Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church will be meeting at the Havana airport on February 12. Francis will then continue to a six-day tour of Mexico, while Kirill will begin an eleven-day tour of South America.
According to the Sputnik article, the two leaders will discuss the plight of persecuted Christians. Following the meeting they will release a joint declaration which has already been agreed upon. There is thought, though it wasn't specifically stated anywhere in the article, that there will also be language celebrating the two Church's common heritage and expressing a desire to work towards a closer understanding and acceptance.
What does Dr. Farrell make of this meeting? Several things, so please allow me to number them.
1.)
I'd like to put all my cards on the table, and explain the title of today's blog, and why I am emphasizing the Papacy last, and least in the headline, and it is not simply because of my long association in the past with Eastern Orthodoxy, but that is part of it. It has always bothered me - perhaps intensely - that the modern secular West seems almost viscerally afraid of Eastern Orthodox cultures, and especially, of Russia.
Forgive my ignorance, but is the modern secular West viscerally afraid of Eastern Orthodox cultures? Wiki tells us that Orthodoxy is the largest single religious faith in:
Belarus
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Georgia
Greece
Macedonia
Moldova
Montenegro
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Ukraine
Somehow, I don't feel visceral fear when I think of those countries or cultures. I'll grant you that Russia has been a real pain in America's rear for the last seventy years, but I don't think that's because they're an Eastern Orthodox country.
2.) Dr. Farrell rightly points out that Eastern Orthodoxy has received short shrift when medieval history is studied, and that few know much of its contributions. He reports that a textbook he used had only one chapter on the subject:
The meaning was clear: "Europe" meant the societies that emerged from the Christian West, i.e., the from the Latin Church and Papacy; the East remained an inscrutable reliquary, not worth studying in depth and comparing to the West, and this was particularly the case in the study of the major differences in theological formulation - and yes, the differences between the two churches are major, and not minor - that lead to major differences in church government, piety, and ultimately the cultures that emerged in each case.
I'll agree that there were and are significant differences between the Latin Church and Orthodoxy. I suspect, however, that most would think that an understanding of the Papacy was more desirable than an understanding of the Patriarchy. I can see the importance of knowing about Orthodoxy if you're studying comparative religion or Eastern European history and culture, but it seems that Dr. Farrell is frying some small fish here.
3.) Dr. Farrell shifts gears rather drastically at this point and begins an attack on Vatican II. He says:
[F]or all intentions and purposes virtually every classical formulation of Roman Catholic teaching was abandoned for a stew of platitudinous pronouncements, especially on relationships to other religious bodies, including Islam. The only "traditional" language that remained was the language concerning definitions of papal claims, power, and prerogative . . .
Under this new "ecumenical" outlook, a whole host of "dialogues" with the Islamic world was initiated; dialogues that have, to this day, not succeeded in seeing any Christian churches opened in Saudi Arabia, and which have produced no ameliorations of the second-hand status of non-Mulsims in many Islamic societies, and which, to the contrary, have presided over a period of increasing persecution of Christians - be they Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic, Coptic, Nestorian, or Armenian - in the Islamic world. To put it bluntly, but plainly, it has been a stellar, and stunning, record of failure.
Under this new "ecumenical" outlook, a whole host of "dialogues" with the Islamic world was initiated; dialogues that have, to this day, not succeeded in seeing any Christian churches opened in Saudi Arabia, and which have produced no ameliorations of the second-hand status of non-Mulsims in many Islamic societies, and which, to the contrary, have presided over a period of increasing persecution of Christians - be they Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic, Coptic, Nestorian, or Armenian - in the Islamic world. To put it bluntly, but plainly, it has been a stellar, and stunning, record of failure.
Not surprisingly, I would disagree that "every classical formulation of Roman Catholic teaching was abandoned." Assume for a minute that he is correct in that claim. What then is the Catholic Church now, fifty years after the Council? It must not exist. Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Burke, and even Pope Francis would disagree.
Not only did the Council pretty much destroy Catholicism in Dr. Farrell's opinion, its emphasis on reaching out to other religions (Ecumenism) failed to protect Christians from Muslims. Of course, so has soldiers, bombs, drones, sanctions, and superpower diplomacy. Is he, or anyone else, really stunned that Muslims still kill Christians in spite of the Vatican asking them not to?
In fairness to Dr. Farrel, he does moderate his position somewhat.
But after all, it is difficult to negotiate with an unreconstructed ideology of warfare against ... well, against just about everybody that isn't Islamic.As the former Muslim and scholar Ibn Warraq put it, the Islamic world needs not just a Reformation, but an Enlightenment. To the Vatican's credit, however, Pope John Paul II did warn that American unipolarism and intervention in Iraq would spiral out of control, and lead to increasing persecution of Christians. His foresight has proven to be the case.
4.) There is one other portion of Dr. Farrell's article which really leaves me baffled:
Which is why I find recent pronouncements from the Vatican so very interesting from this ecumenical-historical point of view, for Vatican spokesmen, including Pope Francis I himself, have made it clear, that Christians have the right of self-defence under the conditions that the old compact of their tolerance under otherwise reprehensible regimes of Saddam Hussein or, yes, a Bashar Al-Assad or Hosni Mubarek, has been broken.
Why is that interesting? Christians in that part of the world are no longer being tolerated, they are being persecuted and killed. The Church has made clear that Christians retain the right of self-defense. Was that ever in question? Why even mention this?
5.) After laying all of this groundwork in his article, Dr. Farrell explains why this is interesting, why it caught his attention.
What I found intriguing about Sputnik's take here is that the purpose of the meeting clearly is to discuss the persecution of Christians, which has reached epic proportions in the Middle East and Africa, with little being said by Western leaders. The choice of Havana itself is interesting, since Cuba is, of course, a largely Roman Catholic country, with a long history of association with Russia during the Cold War, making it difficult to ascertain if this meeting and its venue was largely a Vatican initiative, or that of the Patriarchate of Moscow. My intuition says that this was perhaps a bit of both, and that it has been in long quiet preparation.
Yes, he's right, they will discuss the persecution of Christians. That has been announced. He believes that the choice of Cuba is interesting, in that it is a Catholic country. Except, it's really not. Our good friends at Wiki tell us that from 1.5 to 5 per cent of Cubans attend Mass regularly. That's not a Catholic country, no matter how the residents describe themselves. As an aside, what religion is Cuba?
Cuba is home to a variety of syncretic religions of largely African cultural origin. According to a US State Department report, some sources estimate that as much as 80 percent of the population consults with practitioners of religions with West African roots, such as Santeria or Yoruba.
Wiki also reports that 24% of Cubans identify as Atheist or Non-religious.
6.) What are the speculations and conclusions which Dr. Farrell draws from all this?
I suspect, and suspect strongly, that it portends a huge geopolitcal shift is in the offing, and that religion, or if you will, "Christian civilization" is the cover behind which it is being engineered.
Unfortunately for us, he never describes what it is. Nor does he expect it to happen soon, no matter how much he says it "is in the offing."
If any of these predications and speculations are true, then we can expect them to be borne out, slowly. Time, of course, will tell if all these high octane speculations and predictions are true or not. But whether they are or are not, the meeting itself, and its venue in Cuba - a country with its own track record of religious persecutions - is significant enough. To put it country simple, I suspect that the venue's choice was deliberately chosen by both churches to emphasize that they mean business.
What does he describe, or expect to occur?
[W]e can expect any statement or statements to come from this meeting to do two things: (1) to emphasize the need for honest dialogue with the Islamic world, and not just a perpetual capitulation of the Christian to the Islamic worlds. In other words, expect the usual platidudinous ecumenical flannel, but lurking behind it, a subtle but nonetheless discernible change in tone behind the warm fuzzies and group hugs. (2) But I also suspect, if not in any initial statements, then in future "clarifications" both from Moscow and Rome, that it will be made clear that this right of Christians in the region to self-defense in the face of brutal, medieval, and barbaric persecution, that this right extends and is to be understood to include economic security, equal status before the law, and ultimately, the right to use force or to request military assistance - perhaps in the guise of "international peacekeeprs" - to secure those conditions.
One can also look forward to some subtle, but firm, opposition both from the Russian government, the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Vatican, to you-know-who's not-so-subtle attempts to introduce "anti-blasphemy provisions" against its religion at the U.N., an effort that undermines the most fundamental condition of any free society: free speech.
One can also look forward to some subtle, but firm, opposition both from the Russian government, the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Vatican, to you-know-who's not-so-subtle attempts to introduce "anti-blasphemy provisions" against its religion at the U.N., an effort that undermines the most fundamental condition of any free society: free speech.
So, soon the Churches will say that Muslims have to get serious about talking about how to stop the killing, Christians can defend themselves, even asking for help from others, and free speech will not fall victim to Muslim "Anti-blasphemy" demands. OK, fine, but these positions are only significant because the West, especially the US, has failed to uphold even these most basic principles.
Oh, Dr. Farrell notes that the Church's new blood isn't coming from the West any more. This was known well before Francis became Pope. The money may be coming from the West, but the Spirit is more easily found elsewhere while the West dries up. This is sad, but it isn't news.
Here's Dr. Farrell's article
gizadeathstar.com/2016/02/the-persecution-the-patriach-and-last-and-least-the-pope/
I have no idea why he refers to "Last Pope," or why he calls the Pope "Least." Anyone who wants to explain it to me will be welcomed. He seems to be saying, heck, he is saying, that there will be a Pope and a Catholic Church for some time to come.
