MarijuanaNews.com : Roman Reefer Madness The Vatican Commits a Mortal Sin, But Spain Just Says, “No!” Forgive Them Father, For They Know Not What They Do. (But They Should!)

Posted March 11, 2008
Analysis by Richard Cowan

From National Review Magazine / March 24, 1997 page 6 – “CORRECTION: In “For the Record” (Feb. 24) NR reported that Pope John Paul II wanted the Italian government to ban tobacco as a hard drug. In fact he was talking about marijuana. So the Pope is right about tobacco, though wrong about pot.”

See
Is the War On Drugs A “Just War”? Should It Be Easier To Justify Violence Against A Foreign Dictatorship Than Against Peaceful Citizens Of One’s Own Country?
and

Organization That Recently Apologized To Galileo

Blames Marijuana For Shooting By Man With Brain Cyst

I have always insisted that the cannabis legalization movement should never cede the moral high ground to the prohibitionists, and we should always denounce the lies and violence of the Drug War.

In the US, the state violence promoted by “compassionate conservatism” and supported by the hustlers in the “family values” racketeers is generally associated with Protestant commercial Christianity, although most of them are ready to get in bed with Roman Catholics, right after denouncing the Church as the Whore of Babylon. (John McCain just learned that the hard way after embracing the odious televangelist James Hagee.)

See
Family Research Council Issues A (Misleading) Correction, But No Apology.

Although, as a Quaker, I am about as Protestant as one can get, I have always had great respect for the intellectual quality of Catholic theology, even when I disagree with it. Moreover, liberal (in the 19th Century sense) Catholics like Lord Acton and Bill Buckley, have made major contributions to the cause of freedom. Consequently, this little essay is not motivated by any anti-Catholic animus.

See
William F. Buckley, Jr. Requiescat In Pace. Without Bill Buckley, There Would Never Have Been A MarijuanaNews.com Or Whoever Richard Cowan May Ultimately Be.

However, while everyone is entitled to his own theology, when they politicize it, there is a Commandment that says that they are not entitled to lie. Because Rome has for over a millennium (ever since it gained power), involved itself in politics, beyond its capacity for knowledge, it has often become an instrument of evil. Sadly, it is still doing so today.

To appear more modern, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has asked Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, to list seven new “mortal sins.”

The New Mortal Sins

1.) genetic modification

2.) carrying out experiments on humans (like locking them up to see if that “cures” them?)

See
Canadian Quacks (A Few Anyway) Would Allow Medical Use of Cannabis “When all other conventional treatments have failed.” Is Torture A Medical Procedure?
and

Prophylactic State Violence: The Arrogance and Ignorance of Psychiatric Quackery. Bad Science, Worse Ethics — Analysis by Richard Cowan

3.) polluting the environment

4.) causing social injustice

See
Prohibition Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Invisible Victims of the Invisible Drug War. The Paradox of State Terrorism As Deterrent.
and
What Is the Real Strategy Behind the Czar’s “Strategy ”? 40,000 SWAT Raids Per Year. One In Nine Young Black Males (20 To 34) Are Locked Up.

5.) causing poverty

See
Feds Seek to Forfeit California Family’s Home for Growing Medical Marijuana

6.) becoming obscenely wealthy

See
The Drug War Is Politics By Other Means: Blackwater Gets Billions to Fight “Narco-Terorism”. Buying Constituencies for the Drug War. Analysis by Richard Cowan

7.) taking drugs that “weaken the mind and cloud intelligence”

See
The Strategy of Comparing Risks of Cannabis and Alcohol. When an Old Argument Catches On. Analysis by Richard Cowan

As the 1997 quote from National Review at the top of the page indicates, this is not a new revelation. Moreover, “The Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry addressed the question of drugs in a pastoral handbook titled “Church: Drugs and Drug Addiction,” published in 2001. From a moral point of view the Church cannot approve drug use, the text explained, because it involves an unjustified renunciation of thinking, willing and acting as free persons (No. 43).

The council said individuals have no “right” to abdicate their personal dignity or to harm themselves. Liberalization of drug laws, the council warned, runs the risk of bringing into existence an inferior class of underdeveloped human beings, who depend on drugs to live. This would be a dereliction of the state’s duty to promote the common good (No. 51).”
From http://www.zenit.org/article-19775?l=english by Father John Flynn. Zenit.org calls itself “The World Seen from Rome”, but it is not quite an official Vatican publication.

Certainly, there are drugs like alcohol and other substances, the misuse of which can involve “an unjustified renunciation of thinking, willing and acting as free persons.” However, simply calling something a “drug” and making it illegal does not mean that it actually does what Council says it does, anymore than not calling alcohol a drug, and making it legal means that it does not.

One reason that alcohol prohibition was politically successful in the US was that it was associated with Catholicism. (“Rum, Romanism and Rebellion”).

Father Flynn’s article, titled, “Light Drugs, Heavy Consequences, New Evidence on the Dangers of Marijuana” cites as authoritative various UK sources, including the Independent On Sunday newspaper that reversed its support for decrim.

“The Independent explained that the cannabis sold today is far more potent than a decade or so ago. There has been up to a 25-fold increase in the amount of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol (THC), compared with the early 1990s.”

Of course, that is utter nonsense, but if it were true, it would be the natural consequence of prohibition, the economics of contraband.

For an analysis of the Independent’s claims on potency and more, see
The Iron Law of Prohibition: Potent Pot, New Data and the Old Prohibitionist Party Line and Another Lie.

Sadly, most of the UK media cannot be taken as a reliable source on cannabis.

See
500 UK Cannabis Smokers A Week Seek Medical Help In Hospitals Since Downgrading? Or 2 Major UK Papers Lie to Their Readers. Guess Which.

Deconstructing the rest of Father Flynn’s opus would involve more work than I am willing to give it, because my point is simply to demonstrate that both he and the Vatican may have committed what they themselves call a “mortal sin.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines a mortal sin as follows:

(edited for brevity)

“Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law…. Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us - that is, charity -…

For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must exist at the same time.

1. It must be of a grave matter;

2. It must be committed with full knowledge that it is a mortal sin;

3. It must be committed with full consent.

Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: ‘Do not kill,

See
The Invisible Context: The Drug War Is the Context for Marijuana Prohibition, But It Is Also The Context for Everything Else.
and
The Murder of Robin Prosser. An Indictment of Karen Tandy and Motorola – By Their Own Words and Standards.

Do not commit adultery,

See
Another One We Could Not Make Up: Washington State Police Use HIV Infected Prostitute to Lure Men Into Marijuana Deals. How Marijuana Prohibition Really Works.

Do not steal

See
Family Of Malibu Millionaire Murdered In 1992 By Narks Trying to Steal His Ranch Will Be Given $5 Million Because Officials “feared jurors would not believe government agents.” ,

Do not bear false witness….”

See

Lies Have Consequences: Police Targeted Anti-Prohibitionist Reporter Because They Believed Lies Told By Their Superiors – Who Are Shocked, Of Course.
and
Lies and Hatred From Former US Attorney In Alaska. As Bad As It Gets.
and
The Czar’s Lies Courtesy the Washington Post and the Facts Courtesy National Review

and
College Football Player Frames Teammate With “False Evidence” How Is He Different from The Prohibitionists?

In short, the

Vatican and its spokespersons are violating the Commandment against bearing false witness, and the Drug War they support involves violating most of the other nine. (By the way, in the Catholic version, that is the 8th Commandment, but the 9th in the Protestant versions.)

Of course, they are hardly alone in being careless with the truth.

See
Mormon Church Newspaper Violates The Ninth Commandment. Gives False Evidence Against Marijuana Users and Anti-Prohibitionists.
and
Tacoma News Tribune Editorial Lies About American College of Physicians Report on Medical Marijuana. Or Did They Actually Read It?
and

Marijuana Prohibition, Media Criticism, Copyrights and the 8th and 9th Commandments.

But now for the good news from Spain. On Sunday Spanish voters gave a new mandate to the Socialist Party (which is not really socialist, but is very socially liberal), despite the massive involvement of the Church in politics. The conservative Popular Party, which the Church supported, has been very prohibitionist and was threatening to crack down on cannabis before it lost power four years ago.

If the Church would concentrate on saving souls instead of trying to micromanage peoples lives it would become what Jesus intended it to be.

See
Religious Leaders Finally Beginning To Organize Opposition To The Drug War, “A Mutiny for Mercy,” But For Christians There May Be A More Compelling Reason Than They Realize.