Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away today, St. Sylvester’s Day. His legacy is not a good one. Through the latter years of the Reign of John Paul II when the Polish Pope was suffering from dementia Benedict effectively ruled the Catholic Church. He presided over a regime undergoing multiple international revelations of child sexual abuse. His, and the official church position, was to deny, delay and deflect. Pay off the victims but get them to sign non-disclosure declarations. Instead of bringing sexual abusers to book the approach was to move them from the site of their crimes, where they were known, to pastures new, where they could re-offend. The Catholic Church were not the shepherds, they were the wolves.
In my series on lies the practice of Deny, Delay, Deflect is classified as Telling Lies #18. Popes are not supposed to tell lies, in fact they are held in the church to be infallible. That’s a joke.
Pope Sylvester was made a saint supposedly because he converted Constantine The Great to Christianity. To me this appears to be another lie perpetrated by the Christian Church and unsubstantiated by Imperial Records. It is true that Constantine was tolerant of Christianity, the religion of his mother St. Helena. He permitted Christians freedom of worship, but he permitted freedom of worship to all imperial religions including Pagan Roman, Greek and Egyptian Sects. He permitted the Jews their worship.
On the eve of the battle of Milvian bridge he had his troops daub the Chi-Rho symbol on their shields. The Christian Church claimed he had a vision from God. I claim he realized that between the Christians in his army and those in the army of his rival, Maxentius, a symbol of his tolerance was a powerful promise. And so it proved to be.
Constantine supported the construction of Christian Churches, most notably St Peter’s Old Basilica and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. But his triumphal arch in Rome is a votive to the pagan Gods. As Christianity grew Constantine replaced pagan symbols with Christian ones. But the issue of his conversion remains controversial.
Pope Sylvester died in 335CE, two years before Constantine. So the Church claims his conversion within his lifetime. Most sources quote a “Deathbed” conversion which was a common trope of the era. It supposedly allowed pagan kings to take actions that were traditional to their tribe, but sinful under Christianity. With a deathbed conversion your sins were absolved. It’s remarkable how many kings converted on their deathbed. Christian Bishops must have lurked on bed heads like vultures circling over a kill.
If Constantine converted before he died why is there no court record? If he converted on his deathbed Sylvester was two years dead. Did he rise from the dead to convert Constantine. It is a tale like many in the Bible and Christian Dogma and Hagiography which falls apart at the smallest rational enquiry.
But the Church will tell you that if you BELIEVE Sylvester is a Saint then he is. If you BELIEVE that Benedict was not an apologist for child sexual abuse you may want to canonize him. I would not support a church that makes saints of pedophiles. Such a church should never exist.
The Lamb; by William Blake
Little lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed
by the stream & o’er the mead;
gave thee clothing of delight,
softest clothing wooly bright;
gave thee such a tender voice,
making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little lamb I’ll tell thee,
little lamb I’ll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
for he calls himself a Lamb:
he is meek & he is mild,
he became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
we are called by his name.
Little lamb God bless thee.
Little lamb God bless thee.
-=o0o=-
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Mindship 