http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march282012/church-corruption.php
Mar-28-2012 13:59
Not In Our Name
Salem-News.com
A Declaration of Concerned Protestant and Catholic Clergy, with a Ten Point Program to Bring the Church to Justice and Protect the Innocent
(LONDON) - We are a group of Protestant and Catholic clergy who are compelled by our faith and conscience to speak out and act against the continuing reign of corruption, lies and criminality that predominates in the so-called Christian Church today.
This is a cry to all people of faith to awaken to the evil in which we are immersed.
The Church has betrayed Christ and humanity by committing unpardonable evil against countless children and “non-believers”, denying its victims justice, and absolving itself of any accountability for its crimes. The Pope himself is implicated in protecting known child rapists in his church, and presides over a system of massive, institutionalized child abuse and trafficking.
The Church is also responsible for a long history of brutality, theft, genocide and destruction committed over centuries on non-Christians and the innocent. This slaughter began over fifteen centuries ago, at the founding of the Church of Rome, and continues today.
The killing of millions of women and dissident Christians under Inquisitions, the Crusading ethic of Indulgence – which promised spiritual cleansing to anyone who killed Jews, Muslims and other “enemies of the faith” – and the eventual genocide of untold millions of indigenous people around the world with Christian blessing: all of this arose from the Church’s belief that it has the power to kill and conquer in the name of the same Christ who said, "Put away your swords".
The Vatican is responsible for the greatest slaughter of humanity in history because of two papal bulls (Romanus Pontifex, 1455, and Inter Catera, 1493) – proclaimed and still operative under so-called Canon Law – that sanctioned and encouraged the destruction and enslavement of all non-Christian peoples: the majority of humanity. The vast wealth of the Vatican today rests upon the stolen and unreturned lands of many of those nations.
Is it surprising, then, that for just as long, the Church has sanctioned the torture, rape and even murder of innocent children in its orphanages, sweatshops, and “residential schools” around the world?
Are we surprised that such a violent and wealthy organization places its own material survival ahead of justice for the innocents it has wronged, or for the world’s starving millions? Or, that under the canon law known as Crimen Solicitationas, every Catholic priest is expected to hide the evidence of the rape of children and allow this abomination to go unpunished, or face expulsion from the Church?
We are aware that Protestant churches as well are guilty of these crimes. The Anglican Church of England, the United Church of Canada, and Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist and other churches in America and around the world also caused the torture and death of children in their schools and orphanages. These churches continue to aid and abet child rapists, and shelter such criminals in their ranks. The example may be set by Catholic Rome, but it is actively copied by others.
These facts are irrefutable, and yet Christians continue to give their attendance, money and allegiance to the church corporations with such blood on their hands and lies on their lips.
We have all, by commission and omission, given our support to the anti-Christ in our midst and allowed ourselves to be used to commit the worst of all sins: violence against the sacred holy spirit of God and the innocent.
All of these desecrations against God and humanity have been done in our name. They must be undone. And yet before we can cleanse ourselves of this enormous wrong and apostasy, we must recognize that the true body of Christ could not have committed such evil - only a false Church could.
Since Christ is manifest in every man and woman, the kingdom of heaven being within us, then churches which claim to "represent" Christ and yet violate and harm with impunity human beings, and children, are a lie and a violation of God's law and human dignity.
We therefore name the Church and its denominations responsible for such wrong as apostate, anti-Christ and servants of the world rather than of God; and we declare ourselves spiritually and actively absolved from our allegiance to such a lie, and to these church organizations.
In faith, we seek instead to re-establish a genuine Christianity not tied to these crimes and to a history of genocide and institutionalized child abuse.
The present, false Church is the offspring of the murderous legacy of Christendom, which is an empire of conquest and violence arising from the adulterous union of church and state under the later Roman emperors. Yet Christendom still operates today through wealthy, state-protected church organizations which are a law unto themselves: legal corporations in league with the state, answerable neither to God nor to their own congregations of believers.
Christendom is a heresy and a denial of the supremacy of Christ and his sacrifice. For we owe our allegiance to God, not to church bodies deriving their power and legitimacy from government and financial institutions, and worldly wealth. For the kingdom of Christ is not of this world.
For this reason, to cleanse ourselves of this enormous sin and crime, and to help reinvent and re-establish a genuine Christian faith rooted in true discipleship to the non-violent poor one Jesus Christ, we are issuing the following Ten Point Program.
We believe that these measures are required for the church to be brought under public control so that it no longer operates as a secret, criminal body preying on the innocent. There can be no "apology" or healing of the crimes of Christendom without the enacting of these concrete measures to make justice a reality for the living and the dead. (note: We are referring to all churches responsible for these crimes, Protestant and Catholic, when we use the term "The Church")
The Church must issue full reparations to all of its victims according to their wishes and needs. The Church must pay for all of the costs incurred by their damage to these victims, including all medical, counseling and retraining costs, and all loss of income caused by their disability or grief and suffering.
The Church must return all land and property taken from its victims, and restore and return all of the wealth generated by their exploitation of their victims to them, including the wealth gained through forced, unpaid or low paid labor.
The Church must surrender for a proper burial, unconditionally and at its own expense, the remains of all those who died in their institutions or under their care.
The Church must surrender to secular authorities without conditions all the evidence, and all the perpetrators and their accessories, connected to such deaths and to any other crimes against children and others under church care. The Church must participate unconditionally in any legal or human rights inquiries into their crimes and freely disclose their records to such investigations.
Those responsible for crimes against children and others in church facilities, including the Pope, must be arrested and tried in civil or international courts of law, and cannot be shielded from prosecution by any form of immunity or by so-called “canon law”.
All clergy and church employees must be licensed and monitored as public servants, and be legally compelled to swear a public, binding oath to protect the rights and sanctity of children, and disclose any harm done to them, if need be against the orders of the Church itself.
All tax exemptions, immunities, legal safeguards and special privileges enjoyed by the Church must be abolished.
Diplomatic recognition of the Vatican and its status as a so-called “state” must be annulled.
All special concordats and financial agreements with the Vatican must be annulled, and all public funds and taxes given to the Vatican and all other churches must be returned to the people in the form of a direct, public redistribution of that wealth to the poor.
The wealth and property of all church bodies larger than a single congregation must be nationalized and placed under public ownership, so that the Church may function as a servant of the community and especially of the poor.
We, the founding clergy of the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths united in our group Not in Our Name, do solemnly pledge ourselves to this program and allegiance, and call upon all Christians and clergy to do the same.
Henceforth, and until this Program is enacted and the Church is disestablished as a corporate, self-governing, criminal body, we will conduct ourselves and our pastoral duties separate from and in opposition to corporate Christendom and its existing churches.
We call upon all true believers to reclaim their spiritual sovereignty and help us re-establish the true church of Jesus Christ, by disassociating themselves from corporate Christendom and its false churches, and the Vatican. Begin this new Reformation now by not giving money and tithings to the Catholic and Protestant churches responsible for crimes against the innocent and God.
We ask and pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our one and ultimate authority.
We are twenty four clergy in Canada, the United States, Ireland, England, Australia and Italy, who are affiliated with Not in Our Name.
Duly signed and ratified this Fifteenth Day of March, 2012
(Names to follow)
Please share this with clergy and laity and sign it. You can reach us through Rev. Caoimhin Ui Niall at thecommonland@gmail.com
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