BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac

Subject: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 09:26 PM

Is it not alarming, as we see not-infrequent reports of child abuse by religious fanatics of other sects who believe that they can beat a child out of being a witch (!), that the Education Minister (although perhaps not for much longer) is a member of an extreme religious sect. Opus Dei, that still practices the "mortification of the flesh".

Why should that extremism not automatically have made her unfit for that office?

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 09:33 PM

Burn her!

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:15 PM

Yes...or try the old medieval drowning routine. You tie her up and toss her in a deep pond. If she sinks, she's innocent. If she floats, she's a witch. THEN you burn her!

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:41 PM

Any chance of squeezing a little stoning in there too? Just to keep everyone happy you understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:43 PM

Uhhmmm, did she mortify anyone's flesh besides her own? I don't go in for it, personally--but it sounds a wee bit different from the child abuse you also mentioned in your post.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:59 PM

Sermons on my local TV regularly make reference to the "biblical command" that women are inferior, and are obligated to obey their husbands.

From conversation with more than a half-dozen casual acquaintances, it apparently is common for "pastors" of several local church denominations to advise that "it is the right and obligation of a husband to beat a wife who disobeys him."

At least two rather bruised women, one known well to me over a period of years, have affirmed to me that their pastors, in marital counselling, informed them that "they deserved to be beaten because they didn't obey their husbands."

The one I knew well said that her husband took her home from counselling and beat her again "so she'd remember what the pastor said."

Her original disobedience was answering the telephone when he wasn't at home.

I guess it's in the bible, but not in mine.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:15 PM

Most people who are interested in spirituality don't believe one word of that stuff, John. After all, it does derive from an extremely primitive tribal era in a very ancient time...and it was written by those people. They had different ideas back then about a lot of things. To transport it all, literally, into the modern era is to engage in a very peculiar form of mental gymnastics indeed.

It amazes me that anyone can do it. But....when they were young they were told that the Bible is the one and only and perfect "Word of God". That was someone's arbitrary opinion, based on the fact that someone else told THEM the same thing at an earlier time...

Thus are the sins of the fathers passed on to the sons, yea, even unto the 777th generation! ;-)

How anyone can reconcile the entire Old Testament with the New...or either one of them (literally) with the modern era, is beyond me.

At the same time, there is much spiritual truth in both of them...if you can sift it out from the bizarre ancient cultural stuff it is mixed up with. That takes a bit of thinking...something that people in fundamentalist churches are not much encouraged to do, I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:25 PM

I wonder how far I would get if I started stoning the local GAP shopkeepers for working on Sunday????

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:27 PM

Try it and see, I guess. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:31 PM

John:

Any bets on who these beaters and abuse-mongers voted for?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:52 AM

Of the three "Fundamentalist" ministers most prominent in politicizing th "Gay Marriage Amendment" in my area, I'm pretty sure one was named as the counsellor by a couple of the guys. It has been a few years ago, and I didn't make notes, so I can't be positive of the identification. There is no question that it's the same interpretation of scripture within the three churches.

That this advice was given by one "minister" in the region some years ago is documented in police records cited in an "unathorized biography" and independently confirmed. He paid the bail when the beater was arrested. There's no indication he, or (most of) his kids, have changed their philosophy.

I'm afraid it is a much more widespread "teaching" than most people realize, and it's being taught among those currently most politically active.

Then we have the (female) State Senator who says "women shouldn't need to be able to vote if their men took care of them as they should."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: alanabit
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 04:18 AM

I think you will find that another member of the Opul Dei sect is a certain former Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. Much as I sympathise with Richard Bridge's viewpoint, I fear it is going to take a long time to persuade the populace that religious mania makes a man or woman unfit for office. In America these days, it appears to be a necessary qualification.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 05:59 AM

Apparantly Kelly couldn't work in the foreign aid dept because she does not believe in giving condoms to Africans as an Aids preventative, nor could she be given Health as she is opposed to abortion.
Onwards to the past comrades!

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: mooman
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 06:14 AM

Hi Alan,

I seem to remember reading that Josef Ratzinger was not a member of Opus Dei but is sympathetic to the organization... but I might be wrong.

I was educated by Jesuits (psychological torture as opposed to the physical torture of the Christian Brothers) and, after leaving school and at university, a former classmate who was in Opus Dei tried to recruit me into it. Naturally I gave him a polite "no thank you".

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 07:25 AM

Entirely agree with Richard Bridge: people with religious beliefs different from my own should automatically be unfit for public office. trouble is, I am having a lot of difficulty getting this very obviously sensible idea implemented universally.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:00 AM

No Greg, the point is how harmful the religious beliefs are. We recognise and permit a reasonable range. Nutters are nutters, whatever God or the voice of a dead dog tells them.

Opus Dei believe in the mortification of the flesh. This will out in their entire attitude to discipline. As Moo parallels above.

We prosecute (and rightly so) those who torture children for example by putting chillis in their eyes to punish them for being witches, or mutilate women in the name of religion.

Why put the same mentality in charge of an entire education system (even temporarily). We bar (or might be about to expel) Abu Hamza, why not Ruth Kelly?

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:04 AM

I don't think I want to put myself into the position of defending Opus Dei because they are annoyingly conservative, but to class somebody a "religious maniac" merely because of membership in Opus Dei seems to be somewhat of an exaggeration.

It appeared that Pope Paul VI was on the verge of suppressing Opus Dei at the time of his death in 1978. John Paul II recognized the organization as a "personal prelature," about the equivalent of mix of a diocese and a religious order. Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive article about Opus Dei. It also has an article on mortification of the flesh, which can range from fasting to self-flagellation (which is supposed to be symbolic, not masochistic).

Opus Dei does seem to be extremely conservative and extremely religious, but I can't bring myself to see it as a threat in any way - just an annoyance, maybe like Catholic Jehovah's Witnesses or something like that.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:30 AM

Bumper sticker recently seen:

God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts!

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Pied Piper
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:58 AM

If ever there was a baby in the religious bathwater it drowned a long time ago.
We need to oppose these people with direct action; men who beat their wives should be prosecuted, or is it legal in the land of the free?

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:25 PM

How would you know whether there's a baby in there if you have never even "taken a bath", Pied? ;-)

What I mean is...it is entirely cavalier and foolish of anyone to assert that nothing good is happening (or ever can happen) in the field of organized religion, just because of the activities of various religious fundamentalists here and there.

It would be analagous to saying that nothing good is happening (or ever can happen) in the entire USA because of the existence of the Crips, the Ku Klux Klan, Howard Stern, and people who kick dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:27 PM

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/11/uk.blair.smacking/

The following from the above.

Blair was asked: "Do you smack your kids? Did you?" When he failed to reply immediately, Wark asked him: "Did it cause a problem?"

Blair said: "No, I think actually, funnily enough, I'm probably different with my youngest than I was with my older ones."

Misunderstanding his reply, Wark asked him: "What, you do smack the younger one?"
Blair, whose children range in age from five to 22, replied: "No-no, no-no. It was actually the other way round but ... I think, look, this smacking ... I mean, I agree with what you just said, I think everybody actually knows the difference between smacking a kid and abusing a child.
"But I, if I can honestly say this to you -- I think the problem is when you get these really, really difficult families, it's moved a bit beyond that."
ENDS

The problem is that in this judgement of really really difficuly families (unlike his own) our Prime Minister has undermined the whole of the Government's training of those who work in child protection. Which teaches them that everybody does not know the difference between smacking a kid and abusing a child. There would be little point in our Government employing these people if everybody did know this.

Can I honestly suggest that this statement is dangerous and simply not true? As rather like falling over - the difference in the outcome of exactly the same action, is only pure luck. Which is why the focus is on preventing tripping hazards rather than trying to just patch-up the damage caused by falls. When this is possible and often it is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:27 PM

Kat: God doesn't want anything. ;-) It's people who want things. They like imagining that God is like them (only bigger)...and then browbeating everyone else about it. In this respect I believe they are off on a useless tangent.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:28 PM

Yes God - rather like our Little Hawk - knows all the answers.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:38 PM

I don't think I want to put myself into the position of defending Opus Dei because they are annoyingly conservative, but to class somebody a "religious maniac" merely because of membership in Opus Dei seems to be somewhat of an exaggeration.

It possibly is but why do I get the impression that if it were the Spanish Inquisition that was being critisised here - that you would post something to the effect that it was just down to a bit of over enthusiasm or youthful high-jinks?

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:45 PM

God IS all the answers. And the questions. God is Life. You're God, Shambles, you silly little man, you just don't realize it yet. Everyone is God. If you realized that everyone and everything was God, you wouldn't pester people here so much as you habitually do.

I clearly do not know all the answers, because I am not ALL of Life. I'm part of it. Like you. For instance, I don't know how to get you to abandon your chosen obsessions...nor do I know where you got them. I don't even know where I got all mine!

Does one cell in your body know all the answers about you? Nope. But is IS you, isn't it? It's part of you. That's what you are in terms of God. You're part of God, in manifestation. You're one of the infinite number of ways that "God" expresses itself in this reality.

As for damning all organized religion because of the actions of a few of its less wise proponents, well, that's just plain silly. There's good and bad in every general field of human activity.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:50 PM

Yes, LH, I know. I just liked the bumper sticker.

Folks have a really hard time thinking of "God" or the "Cosmic" or whathaveyou as being impersonal; leaving it up to our free wills to make of our lives what we will, literally. Most cannot fathom an impersonal, unbiased higher being.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:56 PM

Yeah, Kat. That's because they themselves are very personal, very biased lower beings! (so to speak) They figure the "Big Guy" must be just like them....jealous, insecure, judgemental, angry, demanding, conditional, vengeful...ARGGGH!

Talk about a recipe for a nightmare. I'm glad I don't live in a Universe run by such a Being. It would be frightful.

Like you said, it's up to us to make of our lives whatever we will. That's freedom.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 01:35 PM

God IS all the answers. And the questions. God is Life. You're God, Shambles, you silly little man, you just don't realize it yet.

If you say that I am God - perhaps I am. But why then would I be God only if I accept your word for and realise this?

If I were God would I not be as aware of this fact as you expect me to be aware of being a "silly little man"? LH if you were God you should perhaps already be aware that I was six foot two and 15 stone! Unlike you I may not realise I am God but - I do well realise this fact.   

Everyone is God. If you realized that everyone and everything was God, you wouldn't pester people here so much as you habitually do.

If like you - I were God - I would see doing this as part of my job description and if as you say I am God - that is exactly what I am doing now.

I would certainly continue to object to followers of organised religions crashing planes into crowded buildings or toturing other human beings in my name. Something I suggest that you would not be too keen on. Or would you say that these victims, planes, buidings and instruments of torture are also God? They may well be but it is t something that would not be of much comfort - were you to suggest this to the families of these victims.

I may not accept your perception of me as God but I have discovered from you that you don't have to be a follower of any organised religion in order to talk a whole lot of testicles. You are welcome to whatever faith you choose - so perhaps am I and everyone else?

May your God go with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Wesley S
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 02:03 PM

Jesus gives me the answers personally. Really. Here's how :

Have you ever seen those magic 8 balls ? You ask it a yes or no question and then turn it over ? The answer then appears in a little glass window. Well - for Christmas I received a big pink plastic Jesus. And when you turn him over the answers appear on the bottom. Answers like "Let me ask my Dad" and "Not a chance in Hell" and "Pray about it".

Now if I have a question I can get the answers from Jesus directly. No more middlemen like Pat Robertson.

So if anyone has a question and wants an answer from my big pink plastic Jesus send me a PM and I'll get you an answer. Love offerings are not neccessary but appreciated.

Offer good for a limited time and to Mudcat members only. If I like you. Sorry - no guests.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 02:15 PM

Ohmygawd, Wesley, I want one!!! OM, oops, I mean PM (that realy IS a typo!) on the way! LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Morticia
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 02:48 PM

Answers appear on Jesus' bottom? How cool is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 02:51 PM

"If she floats, she's a witch. THEN you burn her!"

But dry her first.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 03:44 PM

Err, Ruth Kelly? I'd rather decently argued atheism from Dick Bridge than whatever it is that Shambles is spewing.

Missing a couple of meals doesn't sound tantamount to resigning ministerial office. You should try it, Richard:)

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 05:01 PM

Fair enough, Roger. I also am a silly little man. ;-) Seriously, I am. I do think that we all are God, but we haven't actualized it consciously (with a very few exceptions). Some of those few exceptions have founded major religions. The fact that their naive followers fail to understand and apply their teachings is sad, but predictable, is it not?

God is the energy of life in us and the power that we have to think, act, speak, and decide. How we use that energy is entirely up to our personality. Our personality is that which thinks it's separate from God (if we believe in God at all) and from others. It is not truly separate, but it thinks it is, and it acts accordingly. (It's fooled by the fact that it has a separate physical body.) It's like a cancer cell that has no idea its activities are harmful to the whole body that IT is part of.

From that perception of separation comes all harmful action perpetrated by some on others. That separation is what is referred to in some religions as "the fall of man" (from unitive consciousness).

I mean, if I thought you were the same as my own hand or my own eye, I wouldn't attack you, would I? If the suicide bombers realized that they are one in Being with the people around them, they wouldn't blow up the bomb. They would see themselves in the other people. They would have mercy.

It's a great shame that organized religions have often encouraged people to kill one another and be merciless.

I do not claim that either you or I are God realized yet on the conscious level. I say that we are God implicitly...potentially...in our inmost nature....and that whatever goodness comes out of us is a result of that. Whatever negativity comes out of us is a result or our believing we are separate from others and from the rest of creation, just because we happen to be housed in clearly separate physical bodies at this time. Each cell in a body is housed separately too...but they are all one part of a single unity. A cancer cell just doesn't act in accordance with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 06:31 PM

My personal spiritual view is perhaps not too different from yours but I would not expect anyone else to accept my faith. And I certainly would not ask anyone to attempt to convince others or do anything like "mortification of the flesh" in its name.

But I would question if what we are talking about has much to with the general concept of what God may be or have very much to do with organised religions or the sects that spring off from these.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 07:03 PM

Gosh, LH, you always seemed so reasonable until now.

And BTW Dick was my father.

I am not an atheist. I'm sort of vaguely theist. But extreme religious belief (I gather there are maybe 500 UK members of Opus Dei, which makes them pretty rare) is so scary becuase rational argument becomes impossible. Everything is a matter of faith.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 08:35 PM

He is reasonable. He ain't thrown me out yet. Not even after I went "ape" other day and blasted the TV with the tommy gun because it showed a show that was demeaning to chimps.

That's reasonable!

Either that or he's just scared stiff...

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 08:40 PM

Dona eis requiem....thunk! When I read this thread for some reason or other Monty Python sprang to mind......thunk! Is there a new boom in the hair shirt market too?.....thunk!

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 08:52 PM

I'm tolerant, Chongo, tolerant. Besides, I think we're better off without the TV. Also, I realize that as an ape in a human-dominated society you've had to put up with a lot, so I make allowances.

Richard, what I was expounding on there was a set of ideas quite common in many Asian religions and philosophies. I don't belong to any particular one of them, but they all interest me, as does Christianity.

When Jesus said "Seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven which is within", what do you think he meant?

He clearly meant that heaven is an inner state of mind. It's not "out there" somewhere. Or...he meant that God is within each human being. That's another way of saying the same thing, I think.

Could it not be that religion is simply a search for the best that lies within each one of us, and it gets compromised time and again by people's ego-driven need to build worldly power structures? Could it be that science could harmonize with that search for the best within us? I think so.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:55 PM

Exegesis! Exegesis! Yayyyyyyy!! Little Hawk rides again.

How about "Greater things than I have done, ye shall do", LH?? What's the word?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:08 AM

Opus Dei although not quite a secret soceity is bordering on fanaticism and anyone who has a deep belief in this should not be allowed to have influence over children.

The main thing that strikes me about Ruth Kelly [ and it may be the Opus Dei connection ] is her total arrogance, in that she is the only one who is right.

Blair should have realised by now that she has become a liability and dumped her.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:13 AM

Yes, that is one of Jesus' most powerful and profound statements, and one that a lot of Christians don't seem to focus on much.

Jesus is clearly saying that every human is potentially capable of doing exactly what he did...and even greater miracles than that. If he is divine, if he is divinity incarnate, then we all are...but we just have not demonstrated it yet. It sleeps hidden within us. In him it was awakened. In Krishna, it was awakened. In Buddha it was awakened.

That's why you must go within to find it.

If people really took to heart what Jesus said and did, they wouldn't worship him as one apart from them, they would see their own humanity brought to its full expression in him, and they would seek within themselves to find what he found and do what he did.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 02:18 AM

Yes, that is one of Jesus' most powerful and profound statements, and one that a lot of Christians don't seem to focus on much.

But do we know that he said or did any of the things that have been attributed to him - no matter how sensible some of them may sound to us as individuals? For I know less about other organised religions than I do this one but this one seems to have used the reported and selected sayings or deeds of a historical figure to paint on a blank canvas rather the picture they wish us to see.

Monty Python's - The Life of Brian does rather sum this up and remains the best 'funny' film ever made. Not because it pokes fun at Jesus but that is so accurate in poking fun at our need to follow and the things those followers will do. Rather the point that LH was making here.

Could it not be that religion is simply a search for the best that lies within each one of us, and it gets compromised time and again by people's ego-driven need to build worldly power structures?

But I think the possibilty must be there - given the politial climate in that occupied country - that the historical figure of Jesus was always involved in that worldly power sruggle and that his elevation to that of a purely spritual leader was a later graft.

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Pied Piper
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 05:50 AM

Blessed are the Cheese-makers

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 06:29 AM

DID YOU KNOW that running right through the middle of Jerusalem is (or at least was) a valley called the Valley of the Cheesemakers
?

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: JennyO
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 06:53 AM

Monty Python's - The Life of Brian does rather sum this up and remains the best 'funny' film ever made. Not because it pokes fun at Jesus but that is so accurate in poking fun at our need to follow and the things those followers will do.

Here ya go, Roger:

"BRIAN:
    Look. You've got it all wrong.
    You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!
FOLLOWERS:
    Yes, we're all individuals!
BRIAN:
    You're all different!
FOLLOWERS:
    Yes, we are all different!
DENNIS:
    I'm not.
ARTHUR:
    Shhhh.
FOLLOWERS:
    Shh. Shhhh. Shhh.
BRIAN:
    You've all got to work it out for yourselves!
FOLLOWERS:
    Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves!
BRIAN:
    Exactly!"

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 08:43 AM

OK Little Hawk, I am the Messiah,   now fuck off.


love Brian

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 09:47 AM

The REAL MEssiah would never talk like that, eric.


I don't believe you!!

:>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:08 AM

Some weeks back there was a very interesting conversation about Opus Dei on Terry Gross' Fresh Air. You can hear the program at this link. Click on the red "listen" button near the top left side of the page.

Opus Dei is an international lay Catholic group whose core ideal is the sanctification of work. But critics and some former members have accused the group of having cult-like practices and promoting a right-wing agenda.

Opus Dei was founded in Spain in 1928; today, it has 84,000 members in 80 countries. For many, the group first gained wide attention when it was portrayed in Dan Brown's best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code. The thriller depicted the group as a repository for arcane knowledge and fervent -- even dangerous -- belief.

Two other real-life events also helped to raise Opus Dei's profile: FBI agent Robert Hanssen, a member of the group, was arrested for spying in 2001; and Pope John Paul II canonized founder Josemaria Escriva as a saint in 2002.

Vatican reporter John Allen's new book is Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church. The book is being billed as the first serious journalistic investigation of the highly secretive organization. Allen writes for the National Catholic Reporter; he is also a Vatican analyst for CNN and NPR.

When I was searching for this program that I'd heard I came across two other results in the search on "Opus Dei."

They were these:
Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Why I Am a Catholic (Houghton Mifflin) by Pulitzer prize-winning author Garry Wills.

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist David Vise is a staff writer for The Washington Post. Hes the author of the new book, The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History (Atlantic Monthly Press). Vise tells the story of how a seemingly all-American boy became a traitor. Vise had access to files about Hanssen, and the opportunity to talk with Hanssens family and friends.

I don't know why this second one is listed, except perhaps somewhere in the transcript they discuss this group. I haven't listened to it to find out.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ruth Kelly, religious maniac
From: Peace
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:11 AM

"But do we know that he said or did any of the things that have been attributed to him"

No, we don't. We also don't really know anything about anything we haven't personally experienced. History repeats itself because historians repeat each other.