Vatican makes peace with Beatles

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: Ed T
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 08:58 PM

Oh yes...they still are the Beetles to me:)

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 09:22 PM

QUOTE
The solid moral compass of the 1940s and 50s seems far more appealing than the peace, love, 'rock and roll' philosophy of the 1960s and 70s. . It helps to explain why Catholic beliefs, values and morals are doing well among Catholics, but support of organized Catholicism (particularly in the USA) is falling apart"
UNQUOTE

If that really is the case, then many of those 'publicly professing' to be 'among the faithful' are merely social hypocrites, for they know that unless they behave this hypocritical way in the USA, they will be bullied to conform. As I posted earlier in this thread:

QUOTE
Pam Spaulding, on Pam's House Blend, makes an excellent point, which is that the fate of DMC Pharmacy is a good example of how the Catholic Church makes assumptions about what American Catholics are like:

This is what happens when the Catholic Church overreaches, putting its head in the sand, thinking American Catholics in Chantilly, Va, which has 20K parishioners in the area and four local churches teeming with 30K additional followers of Papa Ratzi: 1) don't use birth control, 2) don't smoke, and 3) don't read porn.
UNQUOTE

The kids may care less, but their current easy lifestyle would not have been possible without the 60/70s generation's activities, fighting those dictating bullies supporting wars (the CC was supporting the Vietnam war, not condemning it!), such as this writer who is espousing exactly the same bullying "do as I say" hype that was current in the 60/70s. This pathetic viewpoint attack by someone blatantly biased, deliberately smears and overlooks the real moral ethics of many of those of that generation, but that sort of selfish brainwashing nonsense is only to be expected from those "who already KNOW all the correct answers, and not only is everybody else wrong, but you must ALL do it MY way". The Buddhists talk about how people often say "Only the view from MY window is correct, everybody else is wrong, so you MUST all come over here and only look through MY window" which is the cause of much bullying and suffering, when the best idea for Man to get along with his neighbour is to accept that they all also have valid views of the world.

I like that attitude better as I get older...

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 10:28 PM

Ed T posted a very telling quote: Slowly but surely, the beatnik hippy culture is becoming the stuff of grannies and geezers...In many ways, the practicing Catholics of generation x, y and z have more in common with their grandparents than their parents. The solid moral compass of the 1940s and 50s seems far more appealing than the peace, love, 'rock and roll' philosophy of the 1960s and 70s.

I'm quite worried about the newer generation of Catholics. My generation held social justice as a primary concern - civil rights, feeding and housing the poor, working for peace, opposing capital punishment, and working for immigration reform and farmworker rights. The newer generation seek something else, the same thing they seek from the megachurches: self-affirmation and moral certitude. That's probably too cynical a view. Maybe it's better to say that in today's world, there is a loss of a sense of "rootedness," and that sense of solid ground and direction may be what the newer generations are seeking. It's probably good, if it isn't taken to an extreme - but we live in a world of extremes nowadays.

If we can only get the younger people to spend a little time working with the poor, they turn around and see that there's a real need to look outside themselves - but getting them to take that first step is really difficult. How do you get them to turn their iPods off long enough to listen?

Hey, give me the peace, love, and rock 'n' roll....The Beatles make everything feel all right to me.

-Joe Geezer-

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 12:45 AM

"My generation held social justice as a primary concern - civil rights, feeding and housing the poor, working for peace, opposing capital punishment, and working for immigration reform and farmworker rights. The newer generation seek something else, the same thing they seek from the megachurches: self-affirmation and moral certitude."

Yep Joe, so this generation is just more self centred - or to put it less politely - selfish. They want to Look Good, not Do Good. Funny, but I remember some put downs of such people in the New Testament....

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 01:48 AM

I see that " Achtung Baby" is listed as being in the Vatican Top 10 Albums..the Pope wanted it in for old times sake ( ah memories of those halcyon days )

AD

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 02:25 AM

(the CC was supporting the Vietnam war, not condemning it!)

This may be thread drift, but I guess there's already been quite a lot of drift.

My memory of this aspect of the late 60s and early 70s is now dimming but I suspect Foolestroupes' view may be coloured by his being in Brisbane, Queensland, while mine is certainly coloured by being in Melbourne, Victoria during the relevant period.

I do recall the relevant Pope issuing, at different times, a pair of documents. One was an Encyclical and the other was a Papal Bull; I have no idea of the relevant status of either, in regard to how "authoritative" they are. The earlier one dealt with contraception (De humanitas vitae?) and the local church hierarchy threatened hellfire, damnation and excommunication to any Catholic who dared even question its premises, contents, or pronouncements. There was thunder and lightning in most parishes and even the secular press.

The second document exhorted all governments who had troops in Vietnam to withdraw them (as I recall) as the Pope proclaimed they had no business being there. The Australian Catholic hierarchy's reaction to this latter document was complete and utter silence; to all extents and purposes it had not even been issued. At the time I put all the silence down to the fact that the Australian govt had introduced conscription to service its desire to send troops to the war in Vietnam and the Catholic hierarchy didn't wish to invite a public reaction to the then recent passage of State Aid to non-govt schools, whereby Catholic schools received seriously large amounts of money from the Commonwealth Govt.

Certainly, there was almost no dissension from the pulpit over the introduction and maintenance of conscription (those in the US would call it "the draft"), which would appear to support Fooles' comment I've quoted, but I suspect this was an interpretation by the Catholic hierarchy in Oz rather than a "universal view promulgated by the Universal Church", as I believe it has described itself.

Best of luck with the hierarchy's view on the Beatles.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 02:49 AM

Well Rowan, not being an RC myself, I didn't really give a sparrow's fart... :-)

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: Ed T
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 02:41 PM

"How do you get them to turn their IPods off long enough to listen"?

I suspect you have to make an impression on them before they get to the IPOD stage, or after...when they ar on to something else? Possibly this period in life is not a good "listen to what I have to say, from my experience" point?

I seem to remember having my ear to my transister radio alot during the Beatle period...I suspet many parents may have been thinking similar thoughts about that device at that point in time (?:)

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 06:36 PM

not being an RC myself, I didn't really give a sparrow's fart... :-)

At the time I saw a lot of despair around me, both from those in the church who thought the encyclical substantively dehumanised them and from those churchgoers who were in the anti-conscription movement (and against Australia's military involvement in Vietnam) who thought the church should have supported them rather than the govt.

But, neither has much to do with L'Osservatore Romano's current views on music. The editorials at the time might have been quite fulminatory.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 06:53 PM

Well, you see Rowan

- re the pill, most Catholics that I had any contact with (well, the woman, even if the Husband never 'officially' knew - and then of course the 'unattached' were certainly not abstinent either!) - were on the pill anyway. As I said, not being one of that flock, it worried me not - NMP. After all Lutherans had reached a degree of accommodation over the centuries, having given up sending in armies and burning each others churches... :-)

It would have been nice, for more fuss to have been made over the 'anti-war' proclamation, but as to be expected by the cynics, earthly greed won out about money.

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 10:13 PM

I noticed that someone said they don't understand or like the beatles,
but one day they might understand their music. I'm not particularly
fond of their music either. I know it sounds like quasi-blasphemy.
It's not because I'm young, and don't care about the 60s and the
counter-culture, as someone else mentioned. I mostly like traditional
folk music, and other styles of music I like tend to be more complex
theory wise. Like Jazz music, for example. In fact, there are a lot of young people who do like the beatles.

I don't see why the church wouldn't make peace with them. I think that
if they originally said "we might be just as popular or even more
popular than Jesus", and laughed, then there might not have been
such a big fuss over it. But, we can say "coulda, woulda, shoulda,"
all we want, it doesn't change the fact that the Vatican gave them
the cold shoulder all those years.

I don't know a lot about young people who are Catholic, but I did notice that in my hometown, a lot of the Catholics similar to my age seemed to have stopped practicing their faith on a regular basis. (It could be the new choir, because they were just awful. The beatles sound better than they do.) I say that jokingly, because that's just
my opinion. I was one of the last to go to church on a regular basis before I converted to paganism. I'm considering going back to the church. We'll see within the next few months.

Subject: RE: Vatican makes peace with Beatles
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 11:01 AM

Religious institutions should never ever write about art, other than their sacred art. Same with politicians and about science. Art and science are about freedom and "truth", institutions are about cohesion and organization.

"We are more popular than Jesus" was the scandalizing quotation in 1966. My own view is: a pop star should be popular, a religious leader should make unpopular demands. If Lennon had said "we are wiser than Jesus", Christians would have had a reason to be scandalized. (Besides, if I had to spend some time on an island with either Jesus or Lennon, I'm not sure whether I'd choose the latter, even though I would have a lot to talk about with him.)

The Vatican and other churches should have just withdrawn their criticism of the Beatles, nothing else. To top it all, the "Top 10" are anglocentric, a shame for a worldwide paper like the Osservatore.