Pope Benedict Writes A Children Book and All Hell Breaks Loose - Gli amici di Gesù

There is wonderful blog by an Anglican Priest from New Zealand I shall be linking too. His blog is called Liturgy. In fact I have already linked a post of his today. See that entry of his Dominicans

Later today I hope to offer some comments on a very good post he did at worship or entertainment?

In other words this is a blog I am looking forward to exploring a great deal.

That being said I am about to take the good Father to the woodshed on a rather silly post he did at the other friends of Jesus.

Now the Pope has written a book for kids , and one would imagine there would be no controversy over that.

However this is the Catholic Church where if the Pope blows his nose you know there must be a controversial angle somewhere that involves some injustice that is visited upon the oppressed.

The book is “Gli amici di Gesù or in English -The friends of Jesus” that has just been released.

Now I find it highly unlikely the Pope himself wrote every word of this (Well maybe he did I have no idea) . This book is based on the Wednesday audiences he gave on the Apostles.

Except this is for kids.

What could be the controversy? Oh well it is there!!

At this time I think this book that is just Italian. However no doubt when it is released in English Maureen Dowd at the New York Times will have a few words to say along with the pinheads at the National Catholic Reporter(Distorter). Let's just pray the only good reporter they have at that rag , John Allen, does a review to balance the nonsense we shall see.

No doubt they will be taking their que from people like the good Father. At the very least his blog entry will come up when googled and and secular commentators will plagiarize it and pass it off as their own (SORRY ABOUT THAT "COPYRIGHT" LIST YOU PROVIDED FATHER. That's the Breaks)

On a side note if this is the silliness one must endure on a regular basis if one has females priest (ests) then I am glad we don't have them.

Anyway as you can see the good Father is shocked that the Pope failed to mention the female friends of Jesus.

Benedict XVI is, apparently, the first pope to ever publish a children’s book. His is called “Gli amici di Gesù -The friends of Jesus”. Here is the Pope’s list of Jesus’ 14 friends: Peter, Andrew, James the older, John, Thomas, Matthew, Philip, Bartholomew, James the younger, Simon, Judas Thaddeus, Judas Iscariot, Matthias, and Paul.

Yep! You got it… they are all males! No explanation. No apology!.

The outrage!! Well it is pretty clear from the book cover to the introduction that this is not an exhaustive study of all the "Friends" of Jesus. It is a book on the BIG TWELVE plus Paul and Matthias. Though Father is concerned about "no explanation", I am pretty sure even a child gets this. The Pope references them as Friends (as Jesus did at times).

Now I suppose it is of some inconvenience that Jesus did not have a Female Apostle(with a big A) but oh well that is just the history.

Now to be honest I think Father in his defense wrote this post in haste and did not realize what exactly this book was about.

However what is something to see is the COMMENTS. Almost every cartoon version of the Church and her views on women is shown there.

Here are JUST a couple of gems which all have in common people who no doubt have not read much Benedict.

The pope doesn’t think of women as the Gospels portray Jesus did because his whole life has been informed and conditioned by a religious system that places the authority of interpreters, starting with the church fathers, on par with exegesis of Scripture. Unlike Jesus, the post apostolic fathers, reformers and most male church leaders since have developed philosophies and control mechanisms that reflect the cultural expediencies of the time. What is unique is that the current Pope seems to have lost touch with both the Gospels and current Western thinking.

Oh Dear

Well said! These guys are afraid of women! How dare he perpetuate the “boys club” conspiracy on little children!? Jesus is, as usual being portrayed as something he was Not: a woman hater.
Who was there when he was on the cross? Who were the first to know that he had risen? Where were gli cowardly amici? Same place they are today! Shut up behind walls, fearful of the truth!!!.

Sigh

Well we go through a quite a few comments like this till one comment person tries to gently interject some sanity here.

We have to go a few more comments before someone has to bring the hammer down and tries to restore some reality in this very long and linked comment . Thank you Mr Randal Fry where ever you are.

Finally some one else emerges to to try to quiet the mob with their pitchforks to show indeed Benedict does talk about women on occasion believe it or not. Of course just using the google doodad and putting in "Pope Benedict" and "Women" brings up right off the bat a wonderful talk that he gave on women and Female Medieval theology.

Now it is 5 a.m. in my neck of the woods so I don't feel like giving an exhaustive list of what Bishop/ Archbishop/ Cardinal/ Ratzinger, and finally Pope Benedict has written and spoke on as to women in the Church and the females around Jesus.

But if anyone wants me to be do that leave a comment and I will TRY to put together no doubt what would be huge list.

Now I think at this point the good Father realizes perhaps he has jumped the gun at tad. Well at least he is , as we say in Louisiana, craw fishing a bit.

He says in a a couple of comments:

Your lengthy response avoids the issue of the use of the definite article, “The friends of Jesus”. No one is denying that the apostles were friends of Jesus. Just as no one is denying that dogs and cats are animals. However, if I am a world authority on animals and have a billion people constantly interested in my teachings on them, there may be appropriate surprise if I write a book for children and teens titled “The animals on planet Earth” and this book only has dogs and cats in it.

If it’s a book about the apostles as your fine print has it, why not call the book, “The apostles of Jesus”?

and

Thanks for your comment, Fr Michael. Imagine girls reading a book about fire fighters, and every single one of them is a man; imagine her reading a book about doctors, and every single one of them is a man; imagine her reading a book about police, and every single one of them is a man – I’m not as convinced as you that she will easily come to understand that she can be a fire fighter, doctor, police also. Imagine a boy reading a book about teachers, and every single one of them is a woman, or a book about nurses, and every single one of them is a woman, or a book about …

I have to say as a former child Protestant I was very familiar we the hymn What A Friend We Have In Jesus . I am pretty darn well certain sure even at that young age I could grasp what the Pope is getting at.

I also have no doubt in the Catholic Church of all places where there is immense celebration of Women to the Virgin Mary, to those that were around him, to Catholic Queens, to Catholic Female Doctors of the Church, to Female Martyrs, that young Catholic girls know Jesus is their friend too.

It is evident that the Pope decided to hit the BIG Apostles in this age of religious illiteracy. The fact that certain other big male FRIENDS of Jesus such as John the Baptist or Lazarus were left out shows there was no slight to women intended.

Again I think Children can get the point. In fact Children are often not as "Dumb" as adults are in the very matters we are discussing here. For instance I am pretty sure they are worried that Pope Benedict has not seen fit to impose an affirmative action policy on a book regarding the Apostles.

However this is no doubt a preview of what we shall see when the book is released in English. These same objections will be used to have another FAUX CONTROVERSY in the pages of NCR and the Washington Post's On Faith page.

Plus if we can make a Benedict look like an out of touch ole relic that lived in the ancient times before World War II and not in our age of total enlightenment then all the better.

Now I am not saying Father is a Pope hater at all. I suspect he has more common sense than most of those comments. He also seems very charitable. Though I wished he would have poured a little water on the mob there in his comment section.

That being said read Father's blog because on the whole it appears to be very rewarding. I mean that. It is pretty cool.