2009-06-11 16:52:36 - In a strange outburst, Roberto Luckert, a top Venezuelan Catholic expert on divine beings, alleges according to the major bourgeois newspaper El Universal on June 10, 2009, something like this:

VHeadline commentarist Arthur Shaw writes:

"Roberto Luckert, the Archbishop of the city of Coro, north-western Venezuela, accused the government of President Hugo Chavez of trying to corner the Catholic Church. "The government wants to restrict our activities, threaten us, drive us into a corner, but we must remember that the Catholic Church dates back to more than 2,000 years. We will have to overcome Chavez and his team," said the prelate to AP."

Evidently, by "corner," Luckert means an awkward position, especially one for which escape seems impossible. The import of Luckert's sniveling is unclear. Does he snivel primarily about (1) the awkward position in which he finds himself or (2) he snivels about the lack of an avenue of escape?

Luckert may argue that the government wants to "corner" his church, not just him.

The members of the church voted for Chavez 13 times out of the last 14 elections over a period of ten years, including the recent constitutional amendment that potentially and democratically extends Chavez' stay in power. If the believers are the church, then Luckert is in the wrong corner. This is the question.

Who are the church -- the top experts on divine beings or the people in the church who believe in divine beings?

If the people in the church are the church, then the church isn't "cornered," rather the church is in Chavez's corner. And, the top experts on divine beings are in the other corner opposed to the church. The top experts on divine beings are trying to corner their own church for its massive and consistent support for Chavez and the Government.

[Much of the middle and lower layers of the Church's hierarchy warmly support Chavez and the Government. But the top experts on divine beings have all but repressed the freedom of expression of the middle and lower clergy. Still. it is not easy for the religious elite at the pinnacle of the church to repress the freedom of expression, especially the political expressions, of the whole of the faithful.]

If Luckert [No.(1)] dislikes the awkward position in which he finds himself, he should not pass the buck like an irresponsible reactionary, even though he is one. As a top expert on divinity, he should accept the blame for the awkward position in which he finds himself, because his present position is a consequence of his own choices.

If Luckert [No.(2)] wants only an avenue of escape, then he has one and he had one and he will always have one. All he has to do ... if he has the guts ... is to walk across the ring to the corner where the believers are gathered. But fat chance of that happening, for Luckert enjoys plotting with the CIA against the church of the people [not the church of the experts], and he absolutely and positively loves to plot against the government.

According to El Universal, Luckert, speaking for himself and other experts on divinity, said " the Pope shares their concerns."

No kidding?

Do the faithful in Venezuela "share their concerns?" Do the people of Venezuela share their concerns? So, Luckert believes because he has the Pope on his side, he's right. Case closed, huh?. Thus, the faithful don't count and the people don't count. Only Luckert, the Pope, and the CIA count, because they share the same concerns. This is what Luckert seems to believe, for what other inference follows from his bragging about the Pope.

According to El Universal, Luckert came up with two other absurdities "Besides the ' very tragic' economic crisis hitting Venezuela, Luckert said that the real problem is that ' democracy is in danger.' "

As for the "very tragic economic crisis," if Venezuelan government had followed the example of the top Catholic experts on divine beings and many church-related institutions and kept government money in US banks and fraudulent US-issued mortgage-backed securities, the economic crisis in Venezuela would be 100 times more "tragic." The government spared the faithful and people of Venezuela this additional tragedy. Government took care of the money, in its hands, of the faithful and the people.

The Government now has over $28 billion of hard money in its foreign exchange reserves in the central bank and another $32 billion in hard and soft foreign exchange in a dozen funds and bilateral financial institutions under the executive power of the president.

Why, ah, the China-Venezuelan fund alone holds, under President Chavez, the equivalent of $12 billion in hard and soft currencies.

If the government holds tightly on to the $60 billion, it can carry Venezuela through at least three years of crisis without the extreme sacrifices that other countries will have to make soon. The top experts on divine beings were ... and are ... fiduciary custodians of the money, in their hands, of the faithful, so they had a duty to look after that money. But what did they do? They let the US imperialists beat them out of over $300 billion of Catholic money in this "very tragic economic crisis."

If these divines hadn't talk about Hugo Chavez, if they had shut up and listened to him, they would still have the $300 billion.

Of course, the $300 billion loss ... as a result of imperialist fraud ... was suffered by the Roman Catholic Church, not just its Venezuelan branch. But Venezuelan divines are very powerful in Rome and have been so for some time. For example, a Venezuelan divine, who only a couple years ago passed, filled with hate for Hugo Chavez, to the other side, ranked number three at the Vatican sometime before he departed and as president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, he kept his hands on all the money and the properties.]

As for "democracy is in danger," opinion poll after opinion poll conducted by an array of pollsters with diverse ideological viewpoints over the last five years have consistently found the Venezuelan people, including the faithful, more confident about the stability and the democratic nature of their government that ANY other people in Latin America and Caribbean. Why? Under Article 72 of their Constitution, the people of Venezuela [not a bourgeois court or bourgeois legislature] are the ONLY people in Latin America and the Caribbean or in the whole western hemisphere who can keep or remove any and all elected officials, including the President, respectively, if the people want him or if they get tired on him.

Under the present Venezuelan government, this power of the people to remove government leaders is not just words on a piece of paper, for this power was exercised by the people in 2004. Under Articles 341 and 74 of their Constitution, the Venezuelan people are the ONLY people in the whole western hemisphere who can begin and decide a referendum that either changes or repeals any law of the land, including provisions of the Constitution. Under the present Venezuelan government, this power of the people to change a law, a constitutional provision, was exercised in 2009.

No wonder the people of Venezuela have great confidence in the strength and democratic character of their government and no wonder top Catholic experts on divine beings have no confidence or almost no confidence in Venezuelan democracy.

Why do the top Catholic experts on divine beings believe Venezuelan democracy is in danger? These experts on divine beings don't want to lift other peoples of the region and hemisphere up to the level of power the Venezuelans possess and exercise, rather these divines want to drag the Venezuelans down to level of power that the other peoples of the region and hemisphere possess and exercise. By democracy, these Catholic gentlemen of privilege mean a form of state in which the people do nothing but periodically vote for representatives and between elections the representatives, mostly lousy bourgeois riff-raff, call all the shots.

Why do the top Catholic experts on divinity want to drag the Venezuelans down? They want to do it because it corresponds to their professional situation. Canon 331 of the Code of Canon Law alleges "The bishop of the Roman Church, in whom continues the office given by the Lord uniquely to Peter, the first of the Apostles, and to be transmitted to his successors, is the head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the pastor of the universal Church on earth. By virtue of his office he possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely."

So, the Pope is "supreme, full, immediate, and universal." Is that right? Well, that makes the Pope a King, once he's selected by a oligarchy called the college of bishops.

Hugo Chavez ain't supreme. Hugo ain't full. He ain't immediate. And, no way is Chavez universal. Watch him on his TV show. Does Chavez look like a King to you? There's nothing majestic about Hugo. But look at the Pope.

Top Catholic experts on divine beings vow to obey their King, the Pope. These divines know everything about monarchy, but they don't know nothing about democracy. And, they don't care nothing about democracy. The Venezuelan experts on divine beings went to Rome because they wanted to stir up the King and, according to the El Universal story, they did stir up the King. Then, they return to Venezuela and say the King told us this and that and we're telling you, the faithful, this and that. So, you, the faithful, know what to do.

But the faithful say we voted for Chavez and we can get rid of him whenever we want. We didn't vote for your King and we have no power to keep or remove him. So, our democracy in Venezuela isn't in danger. But your democracy in Rome, if you have one, demands attention.

Finally, the Pope is not only the "holy father" of a religious organization, he's also the Head of State and of government of a theocratic state called the Holy See, with the usual corp of ambassadors, bureaucracy, intelligence services and an army (the Swiss Guard and Saints Peter and Paul Association). The diplomatic corp is almost as large as the holy army and, of course, the bureaucracy outnumbers the troops in the army.

Clearly, the Holy See is a divine as well as a political instrumentality ... so, to talk about democracy and its application or lack thereof in relation to the political side of the Holy See is not inappropriate.

Long live the King!

Arthur Shaw
arthur.shaw@vheadline.com

www.vheadline.com/shaw

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