The Pope Abolishing Idols? Who is he kidding?

An email from Understanding The Times (Roger Oakland) came my way this week, with the following news item from Asia News.  The link he gave didn’t get me to the original, so any help on sourcing this would be great.

While the pope has spoken out against idolatry, he apparently does not understand what idolatry is. World wide the Catholic church displays numerous objects that are “venerated,” that by definition, are idols.

Paris (AsianNews) – With a complete overturning of the Marxist theory on religion as the “opium of the people”, and of Enlightenment rationalism, on the uselessness of God in life, Benedict XVI today claimed that Christ, the Eucharist, the Mass, help man to free himself from the “idols” that, as in ancient paganism, “constituted a powerful source of alienation and diverted man from his true destiny”. And precisely in order to free man from the prison of the idols, the pope invited the young people to follow the call to the priestly and religious vocation.
Beginning with the appeal from the apostle Paul to “Shun the worship of idols” (1 Cor. 10:14), the pontiff explained what idols are: “The word ‘idol’ comes from the Greek and means ‘image’, ‘figure’, ‘representation’, but also ‘ghost’, ‘phantom’, ‘vain appearance’. An idol is a delusion, for it turns its worshipper away from reality and places him in the kingdom of mere appearances.

“Communion with the Body of Christ”, the Eucharist, is the means by which we are helped to free ourselves from idols, because we discover the true face of God: And again: “The Mass invites us to discern what, in ourselves, is obedient to the Spirit of God and what, in ourselves, is attuned to the spirit of evil”. “He alone [Christ present in the Eucharist] teaches us to shun idols, the illusions of our minds”.

The urgency of celebrating the Eucharist as an instrument of truth for the faithful and for the world impelled the pope to make an appeal to the young people: “Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid to give your life to Christ! Nothing will ever replace the ministry of priests at the heart of the Church! Nothing will ever replace a Mass for the salvation of the world!
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Want Fries with your E-chip?

Middle-class families in Mexico are having tiny transmitters implanted under their skin so that satellites can track them if they are kidnapped.

Sales of the device have jumped by 13 per cent this year after kidnappings surged by almost 40 per cent in the country between 2004 and 2007.

The crystal-encased chip, which is the size and shape of a grain of rice, is injected into clients’ bodies with a syringe.

A transmitter in the chip sends radio signals to a device, carried by the client, with a global positioning system in it, say makers Xega. A satellite can then pinpoint the kidnap victim’s location.

Full article here

The Church of Scientology in the news (again)

A woman is suing the Church of Scientology in France for “organized fraud.” Olivier Morice, the plaintiff’s lawyer in the case, said the trial could start by the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009. If the Church loses the case, France could potentially close down the Church’s activities in the country, the BBC reports.

(HT: Finding Dulcinea)