New Pope Elected

 

After a day and a half locked inside of conclave, Cardinals have elected a new pope. Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, stepped onto the world stage Wednesday as the new pope and leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. He is the first pope ever to be elected from the America’s. He has chosen the name Pope Francis 1. : He is the first Jesuit, the first non-European in modern times and first Latin American pope. He also is the first to take the name Francis, for the saint devoted to the poor.

The new pope is going to have to work through some very serious issues during his tenure. Women’s role in the church, the exodus of Catholics in North America and Europe, priest molestation scandals, and growing Catholic populations in Africa and Asia.

Best wishes

http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm

Pope Exonerates Jews for the Death of Jesus

So on March 2, 2011 The Pope Benedict XVI  (Leader of the Catholic Church) exonerated the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. In a new book titled “Jesus of Nazareth-Part II”, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus’ death.

The Catholic Church issued its most authoritative teaching on the issue in its 1965 Second Vatican Council document “Nostra Aetate,” which revolutionized the church’s relations with Jews by saying Christ’s death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole at the time or today.

Benedict concludes, it was the “Temple aristocracy” and a few supporters of the figure Barabbas who were responsible.

“How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus’ death?” Benedict asks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110302/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_jews

 

I’m not going to spend too much time on this issue but I just want to say a few things. I didn’t even know that this was an issue. I don’t think that most people are holding Jesus’s death over the Jew’s head as a whole anyway. Yet they do deserve some of the blame. To often in any culture and society and more so of those of the past because they were closely connected. Its your own people who disown you in a way that perpetrates another event happening. From my interpretations of the bible (which I read on a weekly as an adult) it seems that the hierarchy within the temple disowned him for blasphemy and preaching a new world order and delivered him to the ones who eventual convicted him. They did try him within their own system of justice in a sense but because they didn’t have their own state he had to be tried by the Romans. I don’t read about their being too much objections to his trial or death by the Jew’s in the bible (his disciples don’t count because they weren’t Jewish).

I must say exonerating the Jews seems like a good political move by the Pope (kinda like pardoning Galileo after you had him killed). Don’t know what good comes from it for future generations since I think the Catholic church has more pressing issues like their abuse scandals and church on TV. Call me naive but I don’t think a large group of people in the world saying Fuck the Jews they killed Jesus.

None the less this story is interesting because now you can put more emphasis (by default) on the group that actually killed him the Romans. Which are now an extinct culture who people can easily mistake for either Italy or Turkey since that’s where the head of their empires once were.

Plus Jesus had to die (by murder) or it would have defeated the purpose of his legacy and that’s what people really hold onto.