Ishmael Reed - Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media - The Return of the Nigger Breakers

They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to “be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.”

[…] bishops are instructed to pursue these cases “in the most secretive way… restrained by a perpetual silence… and everyone… is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office… under the penalty of excommunication.”

Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.

What we do know from his letter is that as recently as 2001, he supported and encouraged the drawing of a curtain of secrecy over widespread sexual abuse by clergy.

During the media’s all-pope-week, former altar boy Chris Matthews compared the values of Rev. Wright, the subject of a relentless vicious smear and media inquisition, unfavorably with those of Pope Benedict.

Apparently a minister saying “God Damn America” in a speech that the media quoted out of context — like an adolescent reading Hustler , they’re only interested in the meaty parts — is more offensive than a pope, who, when cardinal, tried to cover up a scandal, which has resulted in thousands of victims suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Moreover, since the media slapped the killer label anti-Semite on some of Rev. Wright’s comments, why, during a week in which Fox TV’s Brit Hume described the Pope as a man of “beatific sweetness,” was there no reference to Pope Benedict’s drawing a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League for his revival of the Latin Mass, which calls for the conversion of the Jews. The Anti-Defamation League said the Pope’s decision was “a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations.” The Observer quoted Abraham Foxman the national director in Rome.

We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly forty years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted. It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation.

After the election of the president, Benedict was criticized by Jewish groups for un-excommunicating a bishop who had denied the Holocaust, and for proposing sainthood for Pope Pius XII. On December 21, 2009, AFP reported that the Wiesenthal Center was “shocked at Pius sainthood moves.”

The founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center voiced dismay and disappointment Monday at weekend Vatican moves to raise controversial wartime pope Pius XII to sainthood.

The Vatican sparked anger in Jewish communities worldwide with moves to nudge Pius — whose beatification process was launched in 1967—closer to sainthood, its ultimate honor.

The Catholic Church argues that Pius saved many Jews who were hidden away in religious institutions, and that his silence during the Holocaust — when millions of Jews were exterminated by Germany’s Nazi regime — was born out of a wish to avoid aggravating their situation.

But others believe Pius’s inaction when it mattered to the lives of so many was appallingly wrong.

“I’m sort of amazed,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a prominent Jewish human rights group, told AFP.

“It has become our business, because in my opinion, there would be a great distortion of history” were Pius XII to be elevated to sainthood, he said.

“Pius XII sat in stony silence” as the most egregious crimes against Jews took place. In 1941, when massacres began, “you’d expect to see a thick file” of cases in which he sought to intervene.

“But you do not,” Hier noted. In addition, Pius’s predecessor, Pius XI, wrote an encyclical about anti-Semitism. Yet instead of publishing it or drawing attention to it, Pius XII buried it, Hier noted.

“These were turbulent times. You had people who stood up to dictators. Pius (XII) did not,” Hier stressed.

During this campaign, comedy shows like Saturday Night Live and Bill Maher and shows like The View did the job that the corporate media and its hirelings were too intimidated to do. The right’s coming down hard on Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann for their comments about the Republicans prompted NBC heads to travel to Minneapolis hat in hand and beg forgiveness from these Republican bullies. For going along to get along, Imus defender David Gregory was given the plum job as host of Meet The Press . Of Pope Benedict, the former Cardinal Ratzinger, Bill Maher said, “Whenever a cult leader sets himself up as God’s infallible wing man here on Earth, lock away the kids,” he laughed. “I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult,” Maher said. “Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats.” By contrast, MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell and CNN’s Kyra Phillips tee-heed all over themselves as they anticipated the Pope’s plane landing in Washington. This is the Kyra Phillips who said that she was “outraged” by the way Michael Vick treated those pit bulls (and asked a black guest whether dog fighting was “cultural.”) She cares more about the fate of pit bulls than the victims of child abuse. Jonathan Capehart, who like Juan Williams was brought on by the white men who run the media to diss Rev. Wright, said that he was “nervous” about what to call the Pope. “Your highness?” “Your holiness?”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, one of those who worked the Wright story to death, could have questioned the pope about the pedophilia cover-up and the revival of the Latin Mass, but he said that he was so much in “awe” of the Pope that he was rendered speechless when he and other journalists were invited to question the Pope.

ABC’s Cokie Roberts hitched a ride with the Bushes who were on the way to greeting the Pope. Mrs. Roberts complained during one session of ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos about Barack Obama’s audacity to run for president during a year when it was possible for a woman to be elected. She was clearly annoyed.

While Barack Obama and Rev. Wright were twinned (ads also appeared linking him to O.J. Simpson and Kwame Kilpatrick), the associations of John McCain, who once called the media his base, were underplayed.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote about McCain’s appearance before the Associated Press: “The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist.” (An AP questioner that day mistakenly referred to the Al Qaeda mastermind as “Obama bin Laden.” At one point, Stephanopoulos asked McCain about his soliciting the support of Rev. Hagee who has made anti-Catholic statements. McCain said that Rev. Hagee was good for Israel even though his position is similar to that of the Latin Mass, that Jews must be converted in order for the Rapture to occur. George Stephanopoulos doesn’t know this apparently and asked no follow-up question. Unlike Obama, who distanced himself from the comments of Rev. Wright, McCain said that he disagreed with Hagee’s position, but still welcomed his endorsement, which he solicited. Predictably, there was no ratings-driven outrage resulting from McCain’s reaffirming his embrace of Rev. Hagee.