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Entry: The Pope's Kitchen Cabinet Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/pope_benedicts_secret_teacher#13099 Post contents: Mr. Wheeler has done an excellent job of sounding like Pobedonostsev, the court thinker of the Black Hundred movement which led the pogroms in late Tsarist Russia. The same State-worship which led certain Orthodox thinkers to enshrine the Byzantine emperor in a quasi-liturgical position, with authority over the Church, helped assuage the niggling concerns Nicholas II might have had that his country was about to collapse--and freeze in place irrational, immoral policies. Oops, I mentioned rationality, so for the likes of Seraphim Rose that puts me in league with Lucifer. (I learned about Seraphim Rose from a band of Tsarist monks with whom I was once trapped for a weekend; they showed a quite provocative film asserting that Rasputin was in fact a holy martyr, whose good name was ruined by Jewish propaganda.) Western Christianity does not entirely suppress the incentive for social reform inspired by Gospel (and Hebrew prophetic) calls for justice. Certain popes may have overreacted to the French Revolution during the 19th century, as the Fathers of Vatican overreacted to the Nazis in Gaudium et Spes... but overall, if I had to choose between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox attitudes toward political reform, individual rights, the dignity of the individual... well, the choice isn't hard. Now Mr. Wheeler will wheel out some non-contextual Old Testament quote to confute me. To which I respond with another "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And here's another: (1 Kings, 14.10): "Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall." That has as much relevance to current concerns as anything Wheeler has had to say so far. Sent at: 2008 11 23