From Kierkegaard's 'Sickness Unto Death'

Currently reading "Basic Writings of Existentialism," I am in the mist of a work called "Sickness Unto Death" by Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard, who, somewhat ironically, is known as the father of existentialism, even though many of his fellow existentialists, Sartre, Nietzsche, Camus, Heidegger and others, were less conspicuously Christian or religious. Some, like Nietzsche, in their writings, leaned heavily toward being hostile regarding religion or the idea of a god, in fact.

That said, if anyone might be interested in exploring existentialism further and wants to remain within the Christian worldview, Kierkegaard would be an excellent choice. The following is the conclusion of the chapter titled "The Universality of This Sickness (Despair)." By "despair," Kierkegaard means humankind's supposed situation in original sin or spiritual "sickness." I found this to be a particularly stirring and elegant summation of this argument.

Ah, so much is said about human want and misery -- I seek to understand it, I have also had some acquaintance with it at close range; so much is said about wasted lives -- but only that man’s life is wasted who lived on, so deceived by the joys of life or by its sorrows that he never became eternally and decisively conscious of himself as spirit, as self, or (what is the same thing) never became aware and in the deepest sense received an impression of the fact that there is a God, and that he, he himself, his self, exists before this God, which gain of infinity is never attained except through despair. And, oh, this misery, that so many live on and are defrauded of this most blessed of all thoughts; this misery, that people employ themselves about everything else, or, as for the masses of men, that people employ them about everything else, utilize them to generate the power for the theater of life, but never remind them of their blessedness; that they heap them in a mass and defraud them, instead of splitting them apart so that they might gain the highest thing, the only thing worth living for, and enough to live in for an eternity -- it seems to me that I could weep for an eternity over the fact that such misery exists! And, oh, to my thinking this is one expression the more of the dreadfulness of this most dreadful sickness and misery, namely, its hiddenness -- not only that he who suffers from it may wish to hide it and may be able to do so, to the effect that it can so dwell in a man that no one, no one whatever discovers it; no, rather that it can be so hidden in a man that he himself does not know it! And, oh, when the hour-glass has run out, the hourglass of time, when the noise of worldliness is silenced, and the restless or the ineffectual busyness comes to an end, when everything is still about thee as it is in eternity -- whether thou wast man or woman, rich or poor, dependent or independent, fortunate or unfortunate, whether thou didst bear the splendor of the crown in a lofty station, or didst bear only the labor and heat of the day in an inconspicuous lot; whether thy name shall be remembered as long as the world stands (and so was remembered as long as the world stood), or without a name thou didst cohere as nameless with the countless multitude; whether the glory which surrounded thee surpassed all human description, or the judgment passed upon thee was the most severe and dishonoring human judgement can pass -- eternity asks of thee and of every individual among these million millions only one question, whether thou hast lived in despair or not, whether thou wast in despair in such a way that thou didst not know thou wast in despair, or in such a way that thou didst hiddenly carry this sickness in thine inward parts as thy gnawing secret, carry it under thy heart as the fruit of a sinful love, or in such a way that thou, a horror to others, didst rave in despair. And if so, if thou hast lived in despair (whether for the rest thou didst win or lose), then for thee all is lost, eternity knows thee not, it never knew thee, or (even more dreadful) it knows thee as thou art known, it puts thee under arrest by thyself in despair.

Here's the entire chapter for those interested.

Vale of tears, ctd.

The woes continued for the Catholic Church this week as documents obtained by The Associated Press show that Joseph Ratzinger, then-cardinal, now Pope Benedict XVI; Pope John Paul II; and other church officials were, by any account, snaillike in investigating yet another minister, Stephen Kreisl, whose record includes being accused of 15 male and female children.

He pleaded no contest to lewd conduct in 1978 for tying up and molesting two boys. He left the ministry in 1981, only to become a volunteer at a youth ministry three years later in Oakland, Calif. He was also imprisoned for six years in 2004 for molesting a girl at his Truckee, Calif., vacation home.

For those keeping score, here's a handy site which is tracking the Church's whole calamitous affair of, how can we say, unholy priests. Here is a detailed New York Times story about it, and here's a link to letters urging then-"Most Holy Father," Pope John Paul II, to defrock Kreisl.

[Photo: A 1985 letter, written in Latin, to the Diocese of Oakland signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The letter said that a California priest accused of molesting children should not be defrocked without further study. - Kim Johnson/Associated Press]

The Catholic Church's vale of tears

For a church which seems absolutely consumed with the topic of sex, from abstinence, to prohibiting condom use in Africa, to circumcision, to homosexual priests, to continued and near ubiquitous charges of molestation of children (some deaf, no less!), readers shouldn't be surprised that the Catholic Church and Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope, is summoning every possible excuse to deflect the allegations.

Indeed, charges against Catholic officials are mounting. Heaped onto the allegations, the short list includes that of:

• Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 55, who is an Indian priest accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl, may be extradited to the U.S. to face trial. He was alleged to have sexually assaulted the female church member while serving in Minnesota.

• Peter Hullermann, a German priest who, after receiving therapy for his pedophilia, was allowed to continue working. Current allegations have surfaced, spanning from the 1970s to the late 90s. Only in mid-March of this year was he suspended.

• Father Donald McGuire, who sexually abused two teen boys in the 1960s and was only convicted in 2006. He also allegedly had sexual relationships with at least seven teenage boys between 1969-2004. Here is a timeline of the egregious mess.

• Michael Teta and Robert C. Trupia — Two more, of which the late Tucson Bishop Manuel Moreno struggled with the Vatican to get defrocked.

I could, no doubt, continue. In the latest episode of blame-shifting, the Catholic News Agency is claiming that this New York Times article fails to mention that the lawyer Jeff Anderson has been the lead attorney in numerous suits against the church and has an obvious vested interest in seeing that new allegations come to light. Lawrence Murphy is the topic of The Times article, and he is accused of molesting up to 200 deaf children.

According to a William McGurn opinion piece, what Laurie Goodstein, the author of The Times story,

did not tell readers is that Mr. Anderson isn't just any old lawyer. When it comes to suing the church, he is America's leading plaintiffs attorney. Back in 2002, he told the Associated Press that he'd won more than $60 million in settlements from the church, and he once boasted to a Twin Cities weekly that he's "suing the s--t out of them everywhere." Nor did the Times report another salient fact about Mr. Anderson: He's now trying to sue the Vatican in U.S. federal court.

And the Catholic News Agency:

According to the Pioneer Press, Anderson charged that the Pope along with his predecessors was"the mastermind, head, of an international conspiracy to cover up their own crimes and keep them above the law."

Donald Marshall, who has accused Fr. Murphy of kissing him and attempting to fondle him when he was a teenager at Lincoln Hills Boys Home in Irma, Wisconsin, also spoke at the press conference.

Now 45, Marshall said he was shocked when he was told that “then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — had a chance to defrock Murphy but instead did nothing,” the Pioneer Press says.

Then-Cardinal Ratzinger "may have not fondled me, but he's no different because he allowed it to happen," Marshall said, according to the Pioneer Press.

In fact, Cardinal Ratzinger was not appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) until 1981, well after the abuse took place.

His office addressed sexual abuse cases only when it involved abuse of the confessional until 2001, when it took over abuse cases from the Roman Rota. Allegations against Murphy came to the CDF’s attention in 1996 because of claims he abused the confessional.

The documents provided to the New York Times by Anderson and Finnegan, as well as the Times’ interpretation of them, have been called into question.

The documentation included the minutes of a key Vatican meeting between three Wisconsin bishops and CDF Secretary Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. However, the same documentation revealed that these Italian-language minutes were translated “very roughly” into English using a computer translator.

Properly translated, the minutes show that the Vatican never ruled out the laicization of the priest, but a lack of records from the archdiocese created barriers to a canonical trial.

In his Wall Street Journal essay, McGurn provided additional documentation challenging the Times’ claims that the priest was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system. In fact, Fr. Murphy was stripped of his priestly faculties, a process McGurn declares the equivalent of taking away a doctor’s medical license.

McGurn challenged the press to continue examining the “hard questions” about Catholic prelates’ action in the Murphy case. However, he suggested reporters provide “some context, and a bit of journalistic skepticism about the narrative of a plaintiff’s attorney making millions off these cases.”

One can only wonder, however, what difference all this makes. We can't dispute the fact that lawyers are in law to make money. That Anderson is, perhaps, taking an active role in uncovering corrupt activity either says something about his good character or his bad character. But it doesn't matter which. The case against Murphy is only one case of a multitude leveled against the Catholic Church. In addition to cases pointed out here, the Murphy case

is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

And now, we have Ratzinger and other Catholic officials equating the ill-fated church with the persecution of the Jews.

If that sounds like a heinous analogical leap, you would be right.

Speaking in St. Peter’s Basilica, the priest, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, took note that Easter and Passover fell during the same week this year, and said he was led to think of the Jews.

“They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence, and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” said Father Cantalamessa, who serves under the title of preacher of the papal household. Then he quoted from what he said was a letter from a Jewish friend he did not identify.

“I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole world,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

Quite the contrary, if any institution should feel a generous measure of guilt at this point, it should be the Catholic Church, and it should apologize to us all for the immoral acts it has both condoned, turned a blind eye to and exacted on humankind through these 1,800 or so years. Not to mention the less unseen, but just as disastrous, effects of teaching young children that they are created innately and spiritually sick and commanded to make themselves better by believing (however forced and obligatory that belief may be) or else face the fire. And in such a lowly spiritual condition, children are taught that confession is where they are to by reconciled to God, who, presumably, made them sinners to begin with. At least Protestantism claims to offer direct access to Jesus without a necessary, and also presumably, an equally or possible more sinful, intermediary, as we have learned, and it's in this sad context that the sex scandals with children only begin, making them, at once, even more internally wanton and deplorable than just the physical act itself.

Current illogical fears, spiraling passions lead to ...

If anyone needs tangible proof about what I've said for quite some time on where the current wave of frenzied and irrational rhetoric might lead us, here it is:

Associated Press Writers= DETROIT (AP) — Nine alleged members of a Christian militia group that was girding for battle with the Antichrist were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral — all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the U.S. government.

...

The arrests have dealt "a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Authorities said the arrests underscored the dangers of homegrown right-wing extremism of the sort seen in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

...

David Brian Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., and one of his sons were identified as the ringleaders of the group. Stone, who was known as "Captain Hutaree," organized the group in paramilitary fashion and members were assigned secret names, prosecutors said. Ranks ranged from "radoks" to "gunners," according to the group's Web site.

"It started out as a Christian thing," Stone's ex-wife, Donna Stone, told The Associated Press. "You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far."

And this was "Christian" right-wing outfit, no less.

Indeed, Frank Rich with The New York Times recently touched on some of this "rage," in describing the heated fervor over this politically moderate, Mitt Romney clone of a health care bill:

Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

All the while, he correctly notes that folks previously cried foul about "socialism" regarding other sweeping overhauls, but

there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since ...

Here's another look from The Atlantic: Anti-Government Unrest and American Vigilantism.

McCain on health care criticism: 'Be respectful'

The reactionary behavior continued this week over passage of the most sweeping piece of legislation in decades, as lawmakers are getting incendiary and offensive messages and voicemails from their angry, to the point of irrational (or, perhaps, some protesters were irrational to begin with), constituents. Rep. Bart Stupak, for instance, an anti-abortion Democratic lawmaker who was key in getting the bill passed, received a voicemail with these comments:

Think about this. There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill, and all of those negative thoughts projected on you will materialize into something that is not very good for you.

Is the caller really talking about Karma here or some sort of mystical conjoining of the minds against a mutually hated individual? If so, that tells us all we need to know about the caller.

Here is content from two other calls from CNN's story:

"Stupak, you are a lowlife, baby-murdering scumbag, pile of steaming crap. You're a cowardly punk, Stupak, that's what you are. You and your family are scum," an unidentified caller said. "That's what you are, Stupak. You are a piece of crap."

"Go to hell, you piece of [expletive deleted]" another caller said.

And here's a video detailing some of the broken windows and other ugly incidents, including one disgraceful act by Rep. Steve King:




In a recent interview with CNN's John King, Sen. John McCain, while not villifying Sarah Palin's recent graphic that placed crosshairs over 20 House Democrats that "we" (McCain/Palin) carried in 2008 who voted for the health care reform bill, McCain did speak against over-the-top, and frankly, offensive and childish gestures by Steve King in front of health care protesters at the Capitol. Encouragingly, before John King even got a question out about Steve King's action, McCain said,

Uncalled for, of course that's uncalled for. Of course that's uncalled for, John. And we see, from the person who yelled, 'baby killer.' But I think that we've gotta urge everybody to be respectful.

While not agreeing with most of McCain's political stances, he has always proven to me that he has a rational and indepedent-thinking mind

Here's the interview:

Historic legislation well on its way

The most fateful piece of legislation since FDR's New Deal programs in the 1930s and the Civil Rigths Act of 1964, the Senate version of the health bill (already passed in the Senate on Dec. 24) passed the House of Representatives by a 219-212 (To correct something: I believe I said previously that it still needed to be approved by the Senate, but that body has already voted on it), and here is a map from The New York Times on how the vote broke down across the nation:




Obviously, the most progressive parts of the country are easy to pinpoint, and less progressive folks, rabble that are easily roused, were clearly on display this weekend, heckling lawmakers and making fools of themselves. After all, when mind power and logic isn't a person's strong suit, all that's left is emotion.

So, what now? Well, the House (still in session as of late Sunday) will vote on the reconciliation bill, which will then go to the Senate for approval. The one that was just approved is one and done and will now go to the president's desk.

The perceived blowback from all this is complete conjecture, no matter what the talking heads might say. As I noted in the last post, the Congressional Budget Office has already released its cost estimate for the bill, but all other theses — impending socialism, uncontrolled debt and, in the most extreme cases, the destruction of America, are the products of guesswork and attempts to inject fear into the public about the bill. Folks said the same thing after FDR's New Deal programs, and we're still here.

I, personally, am not to going to live in fear or loathing of the government, its programs or anything else. As I've noted to friends, if we have the resources to help people, in this case, 30 million, we should; damn the politicians, and damn the lobbyists who line their pockets. Calls from Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and others that we are headed toward socialism are laughable. Too many of those same politicians have a vested interest in the capitalistic status quo that they would never let us take their money.

What if the bill is flawed? If parts of the bill are not working, the parts can later then be retooled; this has been the story of decent legislation made better down through the decades. The key, after nearly a century (!) of debate on the topic, was action, and we saw historic action today, regrettably, without Republicans. Clearly, parts can be made better, and we can leave it to lawmakers to improve the bill. As Jim Wallis, author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street -- A Moral Compass for the New Economy (www.godspolitics.com) said,

... despite the very flawed health-care bill coming up for a vote this weekend, and the even more flawed processes that we will witness during its debate and vote, I believe (as does Sojourners) that something is better than nothing, and that this bill will hopefully be only the beginning of a process, and a first step toward comprehensive health-care reform. We simply cannot walk away from the 30 million people without health-care coverage who would benefit from this bill. And it is absolutely clear to us that simply doing nothing and letting the opportunity pass once again for beginning to reform the health-care system is a formula for everyone's health care getting worse -- more people being uninsured, higher premiums for those with insurance, continually diminishing benefits for us all, more family bankruptcies, and more people literally dying without proper health care.

I'm not quite as "bleeding heart" as this guy, but something clearly had to be done. When we, as a country, keep folks uneducated, poor, unhealthy and frightened, we can more easily control them. The measure of a strong government, however, is when we have a health, educated and thriving body politic, as Tony Benn said in the movie, Sicko, in this telling interview:




A 1948 leaflet issued in England, as read by Benn:

"'Your new National Health Service begins on the fifth of July. What is it, how do you get it? It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone, rich or poor, man, woman or child can use it, or in it part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers, and it will relieve your money worries in times of illness.' Now somehow, the few words some of the whole thing up."

Now somehow, the few words sums the whole thing up."

Celebrities and Scientology

Kirstey Alley's recent brouhaha with The Today Show about whether Alley's new Organic Liaison diet program was a front for Scientology again makes me wonder how desperate some folks have to be desire something to fill a perceived spiritual void that they will believe some of the craziest nonsense ever invented (I highlight some of it here), and even donate money so they can become higher ranking members of the cult. Today, for instance, in writing story about the diet, noted that Alley donated $5 million to the organization about two years ago, giving her the Diamond Meritorious Award. Tom Cruise received the award in 2005 for donating $2 million. According to Wikipedia, among the ranks of other well-known celebrity Scientology members are: John Travolta, Juliette Lewis, Kirstie Alley, Catherine Bell, Nancy Cartwright, Beck, Jason Lee, Edgar Winter, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Anne Archer, Lisa Marie Presley, and opera singer Julia Migenes.

As it turns out, money really does by happiness and peace of mind, however strewn that path may be with sci-fi silliness. Here some other celebrities who have reported donated large sums to the church, along with their "awards:"

• Nancy Cartwright, 50, Patron Laureate Award: $10 million
• Kirstie Alley, 57, Diamond Meritorious Award: $5 million
• John Travolta, 53, Gold Meritorious Award: $1 million
• Kelly Preston, 45, Gold Meritorious Award: $1 million
• Priscilla Presley, 62, Patron Award: $50,000

Lay folks, as this New Yorker story reported about celebrity Scientologist, have to pay the piper for enlightenment as well:

An initial twelve-and-a-half-hour auditing session costs between six and seven hundred dollars, Greg LaClaire, a vice-president of Celebrity Centre, says. (Aspiring Scientologists can mitigate the expense by choosing to be audited by a fellow initiate rather than by a staff member.) In the Holiday 2007 Dianetics and Scientology catalogue, a deluxe Planetary Dissemination Edition E-Meter—billed as a “tool for Golden Age of Tech certainty,” to assist in “faster progress up The Bridge”—was offered, in “Diamond Blue,” for five thousand five hundred dollars.

Some, of course, have realized the falsities and possible abuses inside the church and have cried foul. This article relates some of their painful exoduses from the organization:

Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.

They signed a contract for a billion years, in keeping with the church's belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a journey they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars for courses and counseling and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

Thus, Scientology isn't all that different than other religions in some regards: fantastical stories, claims that it produces inner peace and vanquishes internal and/or spiritual demons and driven by power and influence. Because it's human nature, celebrities can't necessarily be faulted so much for clambering after their spiritual selves in this way. But it's crushingly obvious that they, and to a lesser extent regular Joes fooled into the believing in the cult, like the family above, are purchasing their faith, similar to how fraternity and sorority members purchase their friends, both amounting to a deplorable and disingenuous business.