There are claims that Catholicism holds the high-moral ground. We are all familiar with the rhetoric (I assume), it is a central part of their belief. They basically advocate that we are all wicked and evil, and so are destined for everlasting hell, but that can be resolved if you just embrace their beliefs and join, and yes, if you stop and think about it, it is not only archaic, but is also a truly daft idea.
Curious why I have not signed up? Well to join I need to accept that a supernatural entity gave birth to itself so that it could then kill itself as a sacrifice to itself in order to appease its own anger towards all of us because a mythological ancestor of ours was tricked by a talking snake.!! I’m no longer that gullible (I once was) … and yet millions of smart decent ordinary folks still embrace all this and more … why?
To understand how this has come about, we need to clarify what their true priorities really are, and to get there, all we need to do is to follow the money.
Lets look at a recent example – “World Youth Day” in Spain. The finance for all that ran to almost £53 millionfor what was in essence the indoctrination of young people. Dressing it up as “World Youth Day” is simply an attempt to make such religious indoctrination sound positive. Now, lets compare this with Mogadiscio, a country that has been tragically racked by famine and drought. The Vatican donated just £50,000. So that means that the 10 million people caught up in the humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa have been given the princely sum of 0.5p each. Do you begin to get the picture here … for the propagation of fanatical Catholicism millions is available, yet for the tens of millions of people in desperate need, a small token gesture.
Is this example unique? Not at all. Christopher Hitchens’s exposure of Mother Teresa within his book, “The Missionary Position”, explained that her charity was a big con job. Vast sums of money were donated from all around the world for her to help the poor, yet her hospital was a dump, a poor ill lit place where the dying were dragged in and given appalling medical care. She had more than enough to fund several teaching hospitals, yet clearly that is not where the money went. So what happened to it all? Mother Teresa spent it all founding hundreds of convents all around the world in her name and dedicated them to the propagation of fanatical Catholicism. Did the donors to her charity understand that is what they were funding? No of course not.
The key drive within Catholicism is to recruit the young. These folks think long term, and so are quite prepared to invest in resources to enable them to catch people as young as possible. They are into education in a big way and utilize it as a tool to spread and propagate their belief system.
Is this really true? You bet it is. I attended a school run by Opus Dei which was nothing more than a recruiting ground. All of us were carefully sifted and measured so that the cream of the crop could be identified. The elite were then invited to attend “study weekend’s” where they would then be recruited. It is indeed very long term thinking – find the up and coming movers and shakers, and make them yours long before they have moved into positions of influence and power.
The Jesuits have a similar practise. A well-know Jesuit maxim is, “Give me the child until he is seven and I care not who has him thereafter.” – (Baltasar Gracian, Spanish Jesuit scholar, 1601-1658). In other words, its all about brainwashing as early as possible so that the recruits stay loyal for the rest of their lives.
When faced with the claim that these folks are good, kind, and loving, and only have your best interests in mind – be skeptical – the bulk of the money is spent to promote superstitious beliefs for which there is not one jot of evidence.
[As an additional side note: There are plenty of other good reasons to condemn this belief system, namely the abuse and the cover-ups, but the point of this was to look beyond that and also beyond the quite obviously silly superstitious beliefs, and understand what their real agenda is and how they operate]