Pope's resignation and Bohra doctrine

[accountability]

Pope Benedict has announced to step down at the end of the month. Though he cited health reasons, but it is hard to believe. None of the pope in 2000 years has ever abondoned papacy for health reason. A pope is a prepetual holding position, which goes along in the grave. There was one example in mid fifteenth century, but he resigned for political purpose. There was another contender.
So far as I have gathered, through tweets and italian newspapers, it has to do with children abuse by catholic priests, and pope's handling of the same. Pope has let go all the abusers without any real consequences. It is quiet clear that children abuse is rampant in catholic churches, but seldom, abuser is taken to task. Then pope's butler was accused of stealing secret church document, which was very disturbing for vatican.
OUr bohra doctorine and catholicism has much in common in practice. we excomminucate for petty reasons, catholics do that too, beside bohraism, it is the only religion which uses excomminucation as tool to subjugate its followers. in our case, coming back into fold is very humilating, one has to ask for forgiveness for every committed and un committed sins publicly, then he will be ridiculed by amil at every public stage, then his pardon has to be approved by Syedna Saheb, he has to take misaq again. There may be any no of conditions, which he has to abide.
Same is the case in catholicism, sinner has to go through confession upon confession, he has to renounce his previous inklings, pardon has to be approved by vatican. He has to pay dearly to break vow. Specially in case of divorce.

Here it is pertinent to mention, that there are chidren abuse in our jamias, some years back, a girl was abused by a moallim, Qasim bhai saheb, Maula's brother, who is incharge of jamia had decreed , the old teacher will marry the teen aged girl. how befitting was the punishment you can imagine, then there was a case of another moallim, who abused a boy, he was ousted from jamia, but again the punishment did fit the crime.
But here for the sake of fairness, I should say, unlike madrasas, where child abuse is rampant, and prepetrator is never to taken to task, almost always victim is punished, according to sharia, victim has to produce four eye witnesses, otherwise he or she is punished for adultry, as they have confessed. they will be lashed, or stoned to death if she is married.
It brings out one more thing about so called divinity and infallability of any human. All these spritual leaders are as or less human than any other. They have same insatiable desires, lust greed and what not. They know inside that they are decieving their followers by not telling them the truth. Yet it goes on for centuries, unless man finds a way to free himself of these iron clutches.

[think]

The only way to free one's self from the shackles of the mafia mulla is an education and common sense and unfortunately common sense is not as common.

[badrijanab]

OUr bohra doctorine and catholicism has much in common in practice. we excomminucate for petty reasons, catholics do that too, beside bohraism. it is the only religion which uses excomminucation as tool to subjugate its followers.

Fatimi Dawat uses 'baraat' only in religious context and is not effected on anything related to: social boycott, not speaking, not dealing in business, etc

Only the present Kothar has abused 'baraat' and notriously imposed it on social/business dealing. Boharaism has nothing to do with what Kothar manipulates.

in our case, coming back into fold is very humilating, one has to ask for forgiveness for every committed and un committed sins publicly, then he will be ridiculed by amil at every public stage, then his pardon has to be approved by Syedna Saheb, he has to take misaq again. There may be any no of conditions, which he has to abide.
Same is the case in catholicism, sinner has to go through confession upon confession, he has to renounce his previous inklings, pardon has to be approved by vatican. He has to pay dearly to break vow. Specially in case of divorce.

Accuse Kothar of these manipulation and not Bohra doctrine. You cannot find even one case when any rightful Imam or rightful Dai did barat for social dealing. And you will not find one case that if someone seeking their pardon and they have not pardoned them and took them back in Fatimi Dawat fold. Indeed Imam have even pardoned people like 'Abu Yazeed', should he have not revolted Fatimi saltanate would have skirted whole of Europe besides Italy and South of France - but even this 'Abu Yazeed' when he tenderd apologoes, Fatimi Imam pardoned him.

Here it is pertinent to mention, that there are chidren abuse in our jamias, some years back, a girl was abused by a moallim, Qasim bhai saheb, Maula's brother, who is incharge of jamia had decreed , the old teacher will marry the teen aged girl. how befitting was the punishment you can imagine, then there was a case of another moallim, who abused a boy, he was ousted from jamia, but again the punishment did fit the crime.
But here for the sake of fairness, I should say, unlike madrasas, where child abuse is rampant, and prepetrator is never to taken to task, almost always victim is punished, according to sharia, victim has to produce four eye witnesses, otherwise he or she is punished for adultry, as they have confessed. they will be lashed, or stoned to death if she is married.

Do you have proof for above?

It brings out one more thing about so called divinity and infallability of any human. All these spritual leaders are as or less human than any other. They have same insatiable desires, lust greed and what not. They know inside that they are decieving their followers by not telling them the truth. Yet it goes on for centuries, unless man finds a way to free himself of these iron clutches.

All leaders who are claim to be leaders but are infalliabe are not leaders indeed. Only infalliable can be guide/leaders.

[ponga bhori]

"Accuse Kothar of these manipulation and not Bohra doctrine. You cannot find even one case when any rightful Imam or rightful Dai did barat for social dealing"

Here is your one case:
Abbas Degumwala (Mumbai) a strong Abde who took razaa for all things sundry or big. He borrowed moneys. Inspite of being specifically told him not to by Moulana and Muffy himself. However he did. All this in Saifee Mahal in 1994 in my presence. When I told him that he was prohibited from doing so he replied: Moula will say we have to do what we have to do what we have to do.
He did not pay up the loan amount. He took this matter back to Muffy. I got Baraated from Toronto Masjid while attending a funeral prayer. So this would be the case of NOT a RIGHTFUL DIA who did the baraat. Right ?

[accountability]

badrijanab, The girls case is in forum pages including the name of moallim etc. Regarding boy's abuse, I know the moallim personelly, and I have the proof. That is why he was ousted from jamia and banned from teaching children.
but this is tip of the iceberg. it is happening day in and day out, not in our jamia, but every where in madrasas in India and Pakistan. even if you can get the proof what can you do, can you get back the honour and suffering of the girl, or the boy. In pakistan there is sharia law, the accuser has to provide four eye witnesses who saw it happening, and courts are not entertaining dna and circumtancial evidences. This is religion, you can not ask for common sense, and as other contributer said, common sense is not so common.
fatimid doctorine follows the same code sharia. Now find four persons who is watching some one raped and are not part of it.

there is no one infallable, it is just hoax, there never was an infallable human being, there never will be. Human is to err. Even rightful imams and dais were making tons of mistake. Imam hakim had found out his sister is having affair, but he let it linger on, and his sister caught him before he did. Imam Abdullah Mehdi, founder of fatimid dynasty never proved how did he has lineage from ismail abne jaffar. there were divisions among rightful dais, that is why we are dawoodi, and other is alavi and sulemani.

[badrijanab]

fatimid doctorine follows the same code sharia. Now find four persons who is watching some one raped and are not part of it.

Witness for any matter: 2 males or 4 females.

there is no one infallable, it is just hoax, there never was an infallable human being, there never will be. Human is to err. Even rightful imams and dais were making tons of mistake.

Prove one instance if Ameer Al Momineen Mola Ali a.s. or if Imam Hussain a.s. have ever committed even single error in any field?

Imam hakim had found out his sister is having affair, but he let it linger on, and his sister caught him before he did. Imam Abdullah Mehdi, founder of fatimid dynasty never proved how did he has lineage from ismail abne jaffar.

Don't baselessly accuse by parroting the false propoganda done by anti-Fatimi's. Give proof from authentic Fatimi books for above?

there were divisions among rightful dais, that is why we are dawoodi, and other is alavi and sulemani.

Division was in society during the time of Prophet Mohammed s.a.w.w. as well like Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc. Does that mean right has turned wrong?! No. Likewise, is the case applicable for Dai's division.

[Conscíous]

but this is tip of the iceberg. it is happening day in and day out, not in our jamia, but every where in madrasas in India and Pakistan.

Aren't you exaggerating a little with that statement?? It's not that I don't believe you, I just can't see how it's possible..

[accountability]

well I know in pakistan, madrasa has become a tool to breed hatred, malign and abuse children. Just go through the local newspaper everyday, and you will find one news in any city. as i said, most of the time it goes un reported, because parents are pressured not to say, and then children themselves feel ashamed to report such thing. leave aside india and pakistan, look at this bbc report, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15256764 it will tell you what's happening in madrasas.

[Conscíous]

Br accountability,
I thought, you only made that statement in regards to sexual abuse.. But physical abuse, I can see it happening in a lot of places where human rights are being violated & suppressed by war and corruption..

[think]

pope's statetment" this is not a lifetime job" but for kothar this is a life after life job whether they can perform or not.

[accountability]

Badrijanab, I respect your views, you sincerely believe in bohra doctorine. there is nothing wrong with it, as long as it does not hurt or humilate any other's belief. Let me retriate, I have taken misaq, i am born bohra, i still adhere to the religion i am born with. But it does not mean that i should take blindly whatever is thrown at me in the name of religion. I do think that books like majalis and daim ul islam and many others have authenticity lacking. No body has it in its original writing. A later dai after two or three hundered years compiled these books and now we take it as divine. it is same like compilation of hadith, muslim started collecting it 100 years after prophet, and then now it has become divine. Average age in 8th century AD was not more than 50 years. so a person alive at 20 when prophet died, would have been dead more than 70 years ago.
Most of the hadith compilation is from abu harira, who was a teen ager then, and from Ayesha, who had been with prophet not more than 10 years. But in all hadith books, there is almost nothing from prophet's own family and extended family. Even there are few hadiths attributed to Abu Bakar, Omar, Othman and Ali.

Now coming to your observation: you said two male witness and four female witness, where will victim find two male witnesses, who saw it happeing, so prepetrator will go scott free in absence of two male witness, why dont we apply common sense, accept dna and circumtantial witness, which every other law accepts.

I do rever Ali and Hussain, I dont know if they ever made mistakes, and i dont know what do you mean by that claim, you are saying they never forgot anything, or by mistake did not do something ordinary like any other.

In Siffin, when ali and muaviyah appointed arbitrators, Muaviyah chose Amr bin al aas, ali wanted either malik ul ashter or ibne abbass as his arbitrators, but his forces made thim choose Abu musa al ashari. later ali acknowledged that appointing abu musa al ashari was a mistake. I am just narrating the history.

Imam Al Hakim went tomountains near cairo, and did not return, later his donkey and blood stained clothes were found. His sister sittul malik became guradian of his son al zahir, she became the defacto ruler. this is also in farhad daftari's book.

[anajmi]

muslim started collecting it 100 years after prophet, and then now it has become divine.

Muslims do not consider hadith to be divine. For eg. amongst hadith, there are strong hadith and then there are weak hadith. If they were supposed to be divine, then they wouldn't be considered as weak. Besides, there is a well known rule for hadith that if a hadith is found to be against the Quran, it is to be rejected. This proves that hadith are not considered to be divine.

[Al Zulfiqar]

brother accty,

both the title of this thread and your reasoning is totally flawed. what has the pope's resignation or his status in catholicism got to do with bohra-ism and its dai??

1. the pope is not divine and cannot trace his lineage to any prophets, the dai can
2. the pope's office is not hereditary, the dai's office is
3. a pope is elected by a selective process, only the most able and spiritually qualified gets to be the pope, whereas an incumbent dai performs nass on his successor from his progeny, as guided by the hidden imam through dreams
4. a pope can be criticised and held accountable, a dai cannot
5. a pope can abdicate and resign, a dai continues until death overcomes him, in fact the present dai has been declared tulul umr ta qayamat ba sehato aafeeyat, as you can all see
6. there cannot be 2 popes at the same time, or even a sitting one and an appointed one functioning simultaneously, whereas in bohraism it exists
7. the pope does not have a hidden entity higher in stature than him guiding him through dreams, in bohra doctrine it is a must
8. the pope cannot claim to be a god on earth, that he is the talking bible, or that he is the rightful successor of jesus, or that he is a mojiza na saheb, or the rightful lord of all christians etc, but dai can
9. the pope cannot grant guaranteed paradise to anyone, dai can
10. the pope cannot claim that he can prevent you from entering heaven even if god wants, but dai can
11. the pope does not need his followers to prostrate before him, the dai does
12. the pope's family does not figure anywhere in the hirerachy, the dai's family plays a divine role in administration and collection of funds. in fact they are an intrinsic part of his divinity.

there are many more overt and covert differences, but the one's highlighted above should suffice. by making such futile and ignoble comparisons you have grievously sinned. you are no longer a faithful abdesyedna. please repent immediately and have your misaq and khatna re-taken on presentation of a ziyafat with fakhir najwa.

[accountability]

I told you i am under misaq. I am not questioning just stating. and i always repent. My wife makes me atleast twice a day.

[think]

keep doing khatna there will be nothing left to perform khatna on.
when no religious explanation exists ,hadees is quoted. Hadees is a back door explanation.

[Al Zulfiqar]

I told you i am under misaq. I am not questioning just stating. and i always repent. My wife makes me atleast twice a day.

accty,

you have broken your misaq. period. as a bohra you have no right to make any statements, forget about questioning!

repenting to your wife does not absolve you of any sins. she is not the dai's mother, in fact even if she was, she would have no standing, just as all references to syedna burhanuddin's mother have been deliberately obliterated and she has been consigned to the dustbin of bohra history.

i repeat, do a hundred sajdas and crawl on your hands and knees from mumbai to khandala, arrange a labrez zee-aafat and do salaam of 2.52 crores. only then will you be redeemed.

[JC]

52nd has already RETIRED and RESIGNED (or was 'forced' to), now the power is with a Committee of Sh**zadas headed by QJ as Chairman and Moiz as his Vice. All sons of 52nd are members of committee. Muffi is just a figure head.
How to grap power in the name of Religion and make money is the Sole Aim of Kothari Cult and for this they will take cue from anywhere.
Bohra Doctorine - there never was, is and never ever will be such a doctrine. Doctrine to Loot and Grab Power in the name of Ahle Bait, YES, there is!!

[ghulam muhammed]

It’s ‘Highly Possible’ the Next Pope Could Be a Non-European

CardinalTimothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, said on Tuesday that he believed it was “highly possible” that the next pope could come from a non-European country.

“When I was growing up, it was presumed the pope would be an Italian,” Cardinal Dolan said,He said that, when Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elected pope (he took the name John Paul II) in 1978, “that was thought to be an earthquake.”

“The pope is the earthly, universal pastor of the church. To think that there might be a pope from North America, to think that there might be a pope from Latin America, a pope from Asia, a pope from Africa, I think that’s highly possible, don’t you?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/nyreg ... /Bwmit3y8g&

[Al Zulfiqar]

It’s ‘Highly Possible’ the Next Pope Could Be a Non-European

in fact, there is every chance that the next pope could also be a non-roman-catholic by birth. i don't know if you are aware but pope benedict xvi's personal emissary - monsignor bertinelli- was in khandala recently to consult syedna re: benedict's drastic decision, because even the pope knows that our syedna is the only one with direct links to all the prophets down from nabi adam and incl. jesus of course, and that he has divine ancestry and authority from allah himself.

syedna went into a deep ilham and consulted imamuzzaman and finally benedict resigned. but there was a hidden condition as payment for this holy service; that one of syedna's zad's would be selected as the next pope. the vatican held out strongly against this, but syedna was firm and belligerent on this point. he put his foot down (from his palkhi) and very sternly demanded that "my will be done in heaven as in earth, give us this day our daily bread, amen!"

it is widely rumoured that dr. quid johnny phd (diploma in phekology) is being tipped to be the next holy father. he has already left for rome and is sequestered in the papal seminary, undergoing an intensive crash course in catholicism, catechism, theology, vatican protocol and secrecy, as well as being inducted into the history of the church of petros (st. peter). he will be baptised and circumcised, anointed with soothing balms in the ancient and hoary traditions of john the baptist. only then will he don the holy mantle and garb of the holy father. learning all this in only 30 days is child's play for quid johnny, he does not have a phd for nothing! he will be then revealed to the world at large as cardinal 'rat-zinger' the 2nd, apparently having been the cardinal of africa, based in entebbe, uganda. the closeting of the cardinal's congress in the basilica of st. paul is a mere facade, quid johnny's appointment is a done deal.

quid johnny was the obvious and most natural choice, since inspite of being the eldest, he was bypassed by syedna - oops, imamuzaman - in favor of kaderbhai mansoos. this was a sore point for him and QJ it appeared, was scheming to bring kaderbhai down or clip his wings. ergo, he manipulated affairs very successfully and will now preside over 1.8 billion bakras v/s the measly 1 million of kader. but a word of caution. johnny will be only a figurehead, the real power in the holy see will be the college of italian cardinals who will be running the day-to-day affairs and financial empire. its quite possible johnny might be compensated with a 0.5% commission of the take.

[Bohra spring]

Is Johnny suddenly interested for the money or realised he could look into child abuse issues ! ...I leave this the the art of interpretation....and by the way zadas are masters of interpretation and looking at the "big" picture

Before Abdes accuse me of mischief please read my statement very very carefully

[ghulam muhammed]

The Pope, his Bank & the Mafia

There is hullaballoo in the Vatican, since sensitive and highly embarrassing internal documents were leaked to the media. Over the past month, “Vatileaks” produced three major scandals: revelations of cronyism and corruption governing the papal state, the rumor of a murder plot against the pope, and allegations of sinister deals of the Vatican Bank.

All this comes at a significant moment: Celebrating 30 years of service in Rome, Pope Benedict alias Joseph Ratzinger (84) has just elected 22 new members to the College of Cardinals, the exclusive men’s club that will one day elect his successor from among their own ranks. But before this happens, some of the top papal candidates could be tainted and disqualified by the ongoing scandals. May be that is exactly what is intended. But there is more to it.

The scenario looks all too familiar, bringing back memories of the early eighties. Remember the scandal surrouding the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano and the mysterious death of Pope John Paul I.? Just 33 days after his investiture, the “Smiling Pope” was murdered, as evidence gathered by the investigative journalist David A Yallop proves*. What sealed JPI’s fate was not only his “blasphemic” proposal that the Christian god was rather mother than father to her believers. He also opposed the Catholic doctrine of strict prohibition of artificial birth control – later so aggressively propagated as encyclical Humanae vitae by his successor JPII. And last not least: he announced to radically clean up the Vatican’s financial empire. This would have put a stop to the laundering of mafia drug money through the Vatican Bank by its then president, the American archbishop Paul Marcinkus. JPI did not live to fulfill his pledge. Some months later, yet another man died who was out to stop Marcinkus: the journalist Mino Peccorelli.

Marcinkus’ dirty deals department did not only handle the mafia’s blood money. It also funneled covert US-funds into the coffers of the Polish Solidarity, the Contras in Nicaragua etc. These risky operations, however, were never done in the name of the “Istituto per le Opere di Religione“ (IOR), as the Vatican Bank is officially called. They were done under the banner of the Banco Ambrosiano, Italy’s second largest private bank, whose main share holder the IOR was. The Holy See’s confident and accomplice in the BA was its chairman Roberto Calvi, a man protected by his excellent connections. Calvi was a member of the illegal Masonic Lodge of the “Blackfriars”, the powerful “Propaganda Due”, short: “P2”. Running a shadow government in Italy, P2 had among its members prominent journalists, members of parliament, industrialists, top army generals and political leaders. They included the later Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and Victor Emmanuel, the heir to the Italian throne, as well as the heads of all three Italian intelligence services.

With the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in June 1982, the Vatican’s halo threatened to slip. Robert Calvi, publicly mocked as “God’s Banker”, was convicted of illegally exporting 27 million Dollar, but remained in office. Before the news of the bank scandal broke, he warned then Pope JPII in a secret letter and fled Rome. Days later, he was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge. Despite such provoking symbolism, his murderers were never brought to book. If he was actually executed by the P2 or the Vatican’s mafia hands, may never be known. Calvi’s family maintains till today that he was made a scapegoat in the bank scandal. Archbishop Marcinkus remained the honorable president of the Vatican Bank till 1989. Meantime, he died in the USA in 2006.

Thirty years later, the Vatileaks suggest that things did not change much in the papal state. In December 2011, archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (who could be called the Vatican’s Prime Minister) reported to archbishop Tarcisio Bertone (Foreign Minister) and to the Pope about massive corruption and abuse of power in the Holy See’s highest echelons. He was abruptly transferred as ambassador (nuntius) to Washington. Some of his explosive letters to Bertone, leaked to the Italian paper Il Fatta Quottidiano, unleashed the current storm. They allow a glimpse on a raging power struggle of sorts. In the centre of the controversy: Bertone, the second man in the Vatican. Since December 2010, he heads the Holy See’s new internal economic control office, created by papal decree. Benedict seems to be determined to clean up – like once JPI. He is trying hard to get the Vatican into the European Union’s “White List” of countries that comply with EU standards in the fight against money laundering, organized crime and drug trade. An ambitious goal, indeed. Given the historical backdrop, the murder plot against him does not seem to be as absurd as official Vatican speakers try to tell us.

[ghulam muhammed]

Pope speaks of "rough seas" of papacy at emotional farewell

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict bid an emotional farewell at his last general audience on Wednesday, acknowledging the "rough seas" that marked his papacy "when it seemed that the Lord was sleeping."

In an unusually public outpouring for such a private man, he alluded to some of the most difficult times of his papacy, which was dogged by sex abuse scandals, leaks of his private papers and reports of infighting among his closest aides.

"Thank you, I am very moved," Benedict told a cheering crowd of more than 150,000 people in St Peter's Square a day before he becomes the first pope to step down in some six centuries.

He said he had great trust in the Church's future, that his abdication was for the good of the Church and asked for prayers for cardinals choosing his successor at a time of crisis.

The Vatican said the address, repeatedly interrupted by applause and cries of "Benedict, Benedict" - was the last by the pope, who as of Thursday evening will have the title "pope emeritus."

"There were moments of joy and light but also moments that were not easy ... there were moments, as there were throughout the history of the Church, when the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping," he said.

When he finished the crowd, which spilled over into surrounding streets and included many of the red-hatted cardinals who will elect his successor in a closed doors conclave next month, stood to applaud.

"I took this step in the full knowledge of its gravity and rarity but with a profound serenity of spirit," he said, as people in the crowd wave supportive banners and national flags.

Loving the Church meant, "having the courage to take difficult and anguished choices, always having in mind the good of the church and not oneself," he said.

The pope says he is too old and weak to continue leading a Church beset by crises over child abuse by priests and a leak of confidential Vatican documents showing corruption and rivalry among Vatican officials.

He said he was not "coming down from the cross" but would serve the Church through prayer.

Some of those who have faulted Benedict for resigning have pointed to the late Pope John Paul, who said he would "not come down from the cross" despite his bad health because he believed his suffering could inspire others.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/emotional-pope ... 55641.html

[Al Zulfiqar]

atleast pope benedict had the faculty of 'mind' to take this decision of stepping down, whereas in our dai's case, he has no mind left. he has become a vegetable whose mind is shot and faculties completely impaired. he is dressed up everyday like a marionette and paraded in front of a 'brain-dead' community.

now the question is: who is more 'mindless'? the dai or his community? or both?

[ghulam muhammed]

A Vatican Spring?

THE Arab Spring has shaken a whole series of autocratic regimes. With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, might not something like that be possible in the Roman Catholic Church as well — a Vatican Spring?

Of course, the system of the Catholic Church doesn’t resemble Tunisia or Egypt so much as an absolute monarchy like Saudi Arabia. In both places there are no genuine reforms, just minor concessions. In both, tradition is invoked to oppose reform. In Saudi Arabia tradition goes back only two centuries; in the case of the papacy, 20 centuries.

It was not until the 11th century that a “revolution from above,” the “Gregorian Reform” started by Pope Gregory VII, left us with the three enduring features of the Roman system: a centralist-absolutist papacy, compulsory clericalism and the obligation of celibacy for priests and other secular clergy.

For 22 years, thanks to the revocation of my ecclesiastical teaching license for having criticized papal infallibility, we hadn’t had the slightest private contact. For me, and indeed for the whole Catholic world, the meeting was a sign of hope. But sadly Benedict’s pontificate was marked by breakdowns and bad decisions. He irritated the Protestant churches, Jews, Muslims, the Indians of Latin America, women, reform-minded theologians and all pro-reform Catholics.

This first papal resignation in nearly 600 years makes clear the fundamental crisis that has long been looming over a coldly ossified church. And now the whole world is asking: might the next pope, despite everything, inaugurate a new spring for the Catholic Church?

There’s no way to ignore the church’s desperate needs. There is a catastrophic shortage of priests, in Europe and in Latin America and Africa. Huge numbers of people have left the church or gone into “internal emigration,” especially in the industrialized countries. There has been an unmistakable loss of respect for bishops and priests, alienation, particularly on the part of younger women, and a failure to integrate young people into the church.

One shouldn’t be misled by the media hype of grandly staged papal mass events or by the wild applause of conservative Catholic youth groups. Behind the facade, the whole house is crumbling.

In this dramatic situation the church needs a pope who’s not living intellectually in the Middle Ages, who doesn’t champion any kind of medieval theology, liturgy or church constitution. It needs a pope who is open to the concerns of the Reformation, to modernity. A pope who stands up for the freedom of the church in the world not just by giving sermons but by fighting with words and deeds for freedom and human rights within the church, for theologians, for women, for all Catholics who want to speak the truth openly. A pope who no longer forces the bishops to toe a reactionary party line, who puts into practice an appropriate democracy in the church, one shaped on the model of primitive Christianity. A pope who doesn’t let himself be influenced by a Vatican-based “shadow pope” like Benedict and his loyal followers.

Yet the Catholic hierarchy has been warned of the gap between itself and lay people on important reform questions. A recent poll in Germany shows 85 percent of Catholics in favor of letting priests marry, 79 percent in favor of letting divorced persons remarry in church and 75 percent in favor of ordaining women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opini ... wanted=all&

[Al Zulfiqar]

A Vatican Spring?

A recent poll in Germany shows 85 percent of Catholics in favor of letting priests marry, 79 percent in favor of letting divorced persons remarry in church and 75 percent in favor of ordaining women.

bro gm,

can we also arrange such a secret poll to gauge the opinions of our community on all burning issues:

1. how many bohras are unhappy with the yearly increase in taxes?
2. which taxes are jaayez and which naajayez?
3. how do bohras feel on the question of accountability of funds collected from the community and lack of transparency therein
4. on the independence and democratisation of individual jamaats
5. on the behaviour and conduct of the syedna and his family
6. on the lies, fraudulent mojizas and crap dished out to the community
7. on the issue of solemn maatam e hussain being misused to emotionally blackmail and manipulate the followers
8. on the internal strife within saifee mahal and the syedna's family
9. on the blatant distortion of islam and our faith carried out by the last 2 syednas
10. on the terror spread by the dreaded tools of raza and baraat

if we can tackle the above questions first, it will be easy sorting out the rest. now the main question is whether any ordinary abde will even dare to participate and answer the above questions honestly and fairly to an outside, neutral polling company? the tarkunde and tewatia commissions had done precisely this, but their reports languish in govt archives due to inaction.

[Bohra spring]

4. on the independence and democratisation of individual jamaats

What about who do you want your next diai to be , Mansoos, Qutbudin & company, or a new comer ?

[Bohra spring]

Fruits of selection , yes we can too

Hereditary leadership will never bring out the best iand most capable leader...

The humble pope: new pontiff took bus to work and denied himself luxuries


Pope Francis is the first ever from the Americas, an austere Jesuit intellectual who modernised Argentina's conservative Catholic church.

Known until Wednesday as Jorge Bergoglio, the 76-year-old is known as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed. He came close to becoming Pope last time, reportedly gaining the second-highest vote total in several rounds of voting before he bowed out of the running in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.

Groups of supporters waved Argentine flags in St Peter's Square as Francis, wearing simple white robes, made his first public appearance as pope.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening," he said before making a reference to his roots in Latin America, which accounts for about 40 per cent of the world's Roman Catholics .

Bergoglio often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina's capital. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

He accused fellow church leaders of hypocrisy and forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

"Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit," Bergoglio told Argentina's priests last year.

Bergoglio's legacy as cardinal includes his efforts to repair the reputation of a church that lost many followers by failing to openly challenge Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship. He also worked to recover the church's traditional political influence in society, but his outspoken criticism of President Cristina Kirchner couldn't stop her from imposing socially liberal measures that are anathema to the church, from gay marriage and adoption to free contraceptives for all.

"In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptise the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in the sanctity of marriage," Bergoglio told his priests. "These are today's hypocrites. Those who clericalise the Church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation. And this poor girl who, rather than returning the child to sender, had the courage to carry it into the world, must wander from parish to parish so that it's baptised!"

Bergoglio compared this concept of Catholicism, "this Church of 'come inside so we make decisions and announcements between ourselves and those who don't come in, don't belong," to the Pharisees of Christ's time — people who congratulate themselves while condemning all others.

This sort of pastoral work, aimed at capturing more souls and building the flock, was an essential skill for any religious leader in the modern era, said Bergoglio's authorised biographer, Sergio Rubin.

But Bergoglio himself felt most comfortable taking a very low profile, and his personal style was the antithesis of Vatican splendour. "It's a very curious thing: When bishops meet, he always wants to sit in the back rows. This sense of humility is very well seen in Rome," Rubin said before the 2013 conclave to choose Benedict's successor.

Bergoglio's influence seemed to stop at the presidential palace door after Nestor Kirchner and then his wife, Cristina Fernandez, took over the Argentina's government. His outspoken criticism couldn't prevent Argentina from becoming the Latin American country to legalise gay marriage, or stop Fernandez from promoting free contraception and artificial insemination.

His church had no say when the Argentine Supreme Court expanded access to legal abortions in rape cases, and when Bergoglio argued that gay adoptions discriminate against children, Fernandez compared his tone to "medieval times and the Inquisition."

This kind of demonisation is unfair, says Rubin, who obtained an extremely rare interview of Bergoglio for his biography, the "The Jesuit."

"Is Bergoglio a progressive — a liberation theologist even? No. He's no third-world priest. Does he criticise the International Monetary Fund, and neoliberalism? Yes. Does he spend a great deal of time in the slums? Yes," Rubin said.

Bergoglio has stood out for his austerity. Even after he became Argentina's top church official in 2001, he never lived in the ornate church mansion where Pope John Paul II stayed when visiting the country, preferring a simple bed in a downtown building, heated by a small stove on frigid weekends. For years, he took public transportation around the city, and cooked his own meals.

Bergoglio almost never granted media interviews, limiting himself to speeches from the pulpit, and was reluctant to contradict his critics, even when he knew their allegations against him were false, said Rubin.

That attitude was burnished as human rights activists tried to force him to answer uncomfortable questions about what church officials knew and did about the dictatorship's abuses after the 1976 coup.

Many Argentines remain angry over the church's acknowledged failure to openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and killing thousands of people as it sought to eliminate "subversive elements" in society. It's one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10 percent regularly attend mass.

Under Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures to protect its flock. But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal measure on both the junta and its enemies.

"Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights violations during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticised the leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget that side," Rubin said.

The bishops also said "we exhort those who have information about the location of stolen babies, or who know where bodies were secretly buried, that they realise they are morally obligated to inform the pertinent authorities."

That statement came far too late for some activists, who accused Bergoglio of being more concerned about the church's image than about aiding the many human rights investigations of the Kirchners' era.

Bergoglio twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court, and when he eventually did testify in 2010, his answers were evasive, human rights attorney Myriam Bregman said.

At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.

Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them — including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader's home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010 biography.

Bergoglio — who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship — told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features, enabling him to escape across the border. But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.

Rubin said failing to challenge the dictators was simply pragmatic at a time when so many people were getting killed, and attributed Bergoglio's later reluctance to share his side of the story as a reflection of his humility.

But Bregman said Bergoglio's own statements proved church officials knew from early on that the junta was torturing and killing its citizens, and yet publicly endorsed the dictators. "The dictatorship could not have operated this way without this key support," she said.

Bergoglio also was accused of turning his back on a family that lost five relatives to state terror, including a young woman who was 5-months' pregnant before she was kidnapped and killed in 1977. The De la Cuadra family appealed to the leader of the Jesuits in Rome, who urged Bergoglio to help them; Bergoglio then assigned a monsignor to the case. Months passed before the monsignor came back with a written note from a colonel: It revealed that the woman had given birth in captivity to a girl who was given to a family "too important" for the adoption to be reversed.

Despite this written evidence in a case he was personally involved with, Bergoglio testified in 2010 that he didn't know about any stolen babies until well after the dictatorship was over.

"Bergoglio has a very cowardly attitude when it comes to something so terrible as the theft of babies. He says he didn't know anything about it until 1985," said the baby's aunt, Estela de la Cuadra, whose mother Alicia co-founded the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in 1977 in hopes of identifying these babies. "He doesn't face this reality and it doesn't bother him. The question is how to save his name, save himself. But he can't keep these allegations from reaching the public. The people know how he is."

Initially trained as a chemist, Bergoglio taught literature, psychology, philosophy and theology before taking over as Buenos Aires archbishop in 1998. He became cardinal in 2001, when the economy was collapsing, and won respect for blaming unrestrained capitalism for impoverishing millions of Argentines.

Later, there was little love lost between Bergoglio and Fernandez. Their relations became so frigid that the president stopped attending his annual "Te Deum" address, when church leaders traditionally tell political leaders what's wrong with society.

During the dictatorship era, other church leaders only feebly mentioned a need to respect human rights. When Bergoglio spoke to the powerful, he was much more forceful. In his 2012 address, he said Argentina was being harmed by demagoguery, totalitarianism, corruption and efforts to secure unlimited power. The message resonated in a country whose president was ruling by decree, where political scandals rarely were punished and where top ministers openly lobbied for Fernandez to rule indefinitely.

[ghulam muhammed]

New pope's simple style shifts tone from Benedict's papacy

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - With every day Pope Francis reigns, his style reveals more contrasts with his predecessor Benedict in ways that amount to an unspoken criticism of how the retired pontiff conducted his papacy.

The enthusiasm former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio has sparked among Catholics by approaching the job like a parish priest rather than a papal monarch points to a yearning for a leader the Church has not seen since the charismatic Pope John Paul II.

He showed his humbler style at his inaugural Mass on Tuesday, wearing simple white vestments, black lace-up shoes and a low modern mitre, or bishop's hat. The vestments of the cardinals attending the Mass were more decorated than his.

By contrast, Benedict donned a shimmering golden chasuble, his voluminous outer robe, as well as red slip-on shoes and an old-fashioned ornate golden mitre for his first public liturgy on April 24, 2005.

Italians frequently note with approval that he reminds them of the popular Pope John XXIII (1958-1963).

"This is a call to humility and service to others that will mark his papacy," he said after the inaugural Mass.

"Bergoglio represents the road not taken eight years ago.I think history will see him as a pope who showed a particular side of what Catholicism is today, not as a pope speaking for the whole Church."

A pope's style is not a superficial issue. "The very way the pope presents himself sends a powerful message to local bishops,"

IGNORING THE POMP

In his first few days in office, Francis has put out this message repeatedly by ignoring Vatican pomp as much as he can, stressing his role as bishop of Rome working with other bishops and reaching out to people when he can. He did this on Sunday when he took on the role of a simple parish priest to say Mass for Vatican workers and then greeted supporters outside.

Average Catholics have clearly heard it.

"He is a simple, humble person, he is not like the untouchable popes, he seems like someone normal people can reach out to," said Argentine electrician Cirigliano Valetin, who works in southern Italy and came to attend the inaugural Mass.

Shops near the Vatican, a rough guide to what pilgrims might like, now stock "I love Papa Francesco" (his name in Italian) T-shirts next to pictures and statues of Pope John Paul. Never big sellers, Benedict souvenirs are increasingly hard to find.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/popes-simple-s ... 12785.html

[Conscíous]

GM saab,
I have even read somewhere, after he's inauguration, he went back to the hotel to pick his luggage himself and he took the bus on his first day to work..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... y-job.html

http://www.thejournal.ie/pope-francis-h ... 9-Mar2013/

[Bohra spring]

GM saab,
I have even read somewhere, after he's inauguration, he went back to the hotel to pick his luggage himself and he took the bus on his first day to work..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... y-job.html

http://www.thejournal.ie/pope-francis-h ... 9-Mar2013/

Conscious ...who, what ..Mansoos after nass went to collected his own stuff on a tuk tuk and paid for his own fare ! Really ?

Wow I will definetely make sure my local jamaat ( as established by PDB) Amil voted for him during the recent Diai elections ( BS 's silly idea) where he trounced Qutbi with a landslide.