Pope's Preacher Compares Criticism of Vatican to Holocaust

GlobeTracker| In a speech that leaves me without a dignified response, the Pope’s personal preacher Rev Raniero Cantalamessa has liked people’s criticisms of Pope Benedict and the entire Catholic Church patriarchy in the handling of sex abuse cases to anti-Semitism and the collective slaughter of six million Jews, one of the most despicable acts in human history.

These statements only confirm that the Catholic hierarchy is living in an ivory tower world, where they rule and answer to no one but God himself.

If the Catholic Church is asking writers and bloggers for a global history lesson, then we will take on the history of the Crusades, waged by the Catholic Church primarily against Islam but including many other people who fell in their paths. And then we will write about the near-total destruction of Mayan culture in Latin America and the burning of every book in sight.

These stories are well-documented on the History Channel, Discovery Channel and Ovation. I can probably find 10 TV channels that tell the history of bloodshed, caused by religion in the world. It’s our intention to post it all: Catholic, Jewish (pales by comparison), Islam — the whole darn shooting match, because that’s the real history of the world in the name of God.

I am a spiritual person, and I embrace the concept of religion in our lives, but I will not tolerate Pope Benedict’s private pastor equating global criticism of the Catholic Church’s abuse problems with the Holocaust.

On Good Friday, when Jesus is preaching a message of forgiveness — even to his killers — Pope Benedict and the Vatican should be sending a message that we hang our heads in shame about the violence men have perpetrated in the name of religion. These comments are an affront to intelligent minds of every country in the world. Anne