My niece: What is Opus Dei? My answer: An excuse for S&M and bondage

[blm]

freaks who are too ashamed of it to go to a dominatrix or do it with their wives or girlfriends, so they linked the "physical penance" to their sins and get punished in church surroundings.

Sounds like a Jess Franco film, eh?

And who can forget the flagellations of Lance Henriksen in Pit and the Pendulum?

Opus Dei - Bondage for those too cheap to pay for it and too ashamed to call it sexual stimulation.

On edit: Opus Dei is a rich, Republican white man's fraternity. The same men who plot to work against the working man and poor in this country and around the world. Their practice should not be confused with the truly spiritual acts of penance practiced by other cultures and faiths.

[NMDemDist2]

1. what is it with religion and self flagellation?

i always think of the Muslim holiday and those men walking down the street beating themselves till they bleed

i just don't get it :shrug: I thought the "one God" was a loving and compassionate God. If He can forgive us our "sins" how arrogant is it of man not to forgive him/her/themselves?

whatever.....

[blm]

5. They LIKE it, AZ. Why do you think guys pay up to $500hr for a dominatrix?

It's SEX to them. Or, at least, foreplay.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. It's something outside of our culture but found in many others.

It's not something many American Catholics practice but is practiced a lot by people of color, particularly poor people, with very great faith. You mention the Muslims, but physical mortifications are also practiced by some Hindus, Native Americans, etc.

I don't know why DUers think they have the right to look down their nose at the religion of other people, especially the religion of poor people of color. A great place to see Catholics practicing physical mortifications is the Philippines, where people are voluntarily crucified each Holy Week, but removed from the cross still alive. It's a suffering taken on by choice and offered to God as atonement and adoration -- and has nothing to do with Opus Dei.

[NMDemDist2]

11. don't get me wrong, as far as I'm concerned they can do anything

they want as long as it doesn't involve me

my point was I just don't get it :shrug:

loving God ...... compassionate..... ya know?

But hell, I don't know. I don't claim to be a Christian (or any other religion you can label) so back to my original statement

whatever.....

[DemBones DemBones]

23. That's how I feel about it -- let people do what they want as long as

it doesn't hurt others.

BTW, I was talking about other DUers criticizing religion, not you. I think you just mentioned that the Muslim practice was analogous, without making a judgement.

[blm]

12. My THREAD IS ONLY ABOUT OPUS DEI. That's it.

Please don't confuse Opus Dei with real spiritual traditions of the poor community.

Please point out where I mention ANY other religion or practice so I can correct it.

[DemBones DemBones]

28. YES -- YOU ONLY WANT TO BASH A CATHOLIC GROUP.

Go to the Philippines, Mexico, any Catholic country, really, but especially the poorer ones, and you'll see a lot of people involved in self-flagellation and undergoing various hardships for spiritual reasons. And they're not in Opus Dei.

I believe they have a right to do that. I believe snake handling Pentecostals have a right to their practices -- only adults are allowed to handle snakes and everyone isn't required to or even supposed to; I know because I've taught kids who belonged to snake handling churches. I believe the people in Asia (Hindus, I think) who pierce their skin with large hooks and are hung up by those hooks, have a right to do that.
Self-mortification, like fasting, is an old, old spiritual practice.

[blm]

31. The people you are talking about are NOT Opus Dei. Opus Dei aren't REAL

Catholics.

I know Catholicism as well as anyone here, DB. I was raised Catholic in a fairly liberal catholic church. My aunt was the head nun at Parmadale Children's home and took in a homeless Dennis Kucinich and his siblings. I did charity work from the time I was 9 years old, even though we were as poor as those who we worked for.

My mother turned fundie Catholic when I was in high school and those people are crazy. They didn't follow the Pope who they considered communist. They followed Marcel Lefevbre, the arch-conservative with a political agenda. She even was given David Duke material to read. We watched her lose every semblance of her charitable catholic self with these people and their idea of faith. Lefevbre is the same faux bishop that Mel Gibson's father and David Brock's father followed.

It's a perverted version of catholicism.

Opus Dei is much the same except it was crafted for rich, white Republicans.

You want to call it a spiritual religion, go ahead. I call it evil, perverted and fascist.

[da_chimperor]

16. The Holiday is called Ashura, it's only in Shi'ite Islam.

My understanding is the self-flagellation is a way for some to express their pain over the death of Imam Hussein something like 1000 years ago. I think it's done voluntarily, it's not something mandatory . . . or at least I'm fairly sure it isn't. I credit this particular bit of knowledge to the BBC.

[Warpy]

2. Bondage isn't the worst of it.

I read an approving article about them a few years ago that mentioned that while the sexes live separately, the males have to decamp for a few hours each week so the girls can come in and clean their living quarters.

Using half of their memebership as unpaid domestic servants for the half that is considered too precious to have to bother with their own shitwork told me all I need to know about that bunch.

They're evil.

[blm]

4. No. For them, bondage is the DRAW.

Bondage is the BEST of it.

[BrotherBuzz]

3. My answer: A prolonged effort to render fascism fashionable.

[blm]

7. well, it just so happens that most religio-bondage perverts are fascists

in the Republican party. But, I am quite certain that it's the sexual aspect of the beatings that bring them to Opus Dei.

Ilsa, Nazis, and all that.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. As a Catholic who is NOT into physical mortification,

I must say that this is offensive to Catholics and others who practice mortification as part of their religion, such as Hindus, Native Americans. I don't think mortification for spiritual purposes is actually related to S & M but perhaps you know more about S & M than I do.

Most Catholics who do practice physical mortification, like whipping themselves or walking on their knees for long distances, are from third world countries and are people of color so you are mocking people that liberals supposedly care about.

[blm]

8. I am speaking SPECIFICALLY about the Opus Dei faction in the United States

that just so happens to claim many wealthy Republicans as part of their group.

Those men are not poor OR religious and are lily white bastards who haven't a shred of spirituality between the lot of them. Rich, white Republicans who shape policies AGAINST the poor and choose to get whipped are NOT doing it out of spirituality.

You couldn't possibly believe there is any thread of similarity between what those fascists do and those poor who do it through their own spiritual tradition?

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Why would there NOT be a similarity between what

members of Opus Dei practice and the mortifications others choose to do for religious reasons? They're all doing it to prove their faith, to strengthen their resolve, to offer up their suffering to God as atonement or in gratitude.

ALL members of Opus Dei can't possible be wealthy white Republicans -- it's a worldwide prelature -- and who are you to say they "haven't a shred of spirituality betwen the lot of them"?

Are you personally acquainted with every member of Opus Dei? Aren't you just engaging in stereotyping because Antonin Scalia is alleged to belong to Opus Dei and you assume all other members must be like him?

You're suggesting the poor have "their own spiritual tradition" but, by implication, the rich don't. So John Kerry isn't really a sincere Catholic? (And do you know for a fact that Kerry doesn't belong to Opus Dei? He is Catholic and he does have a history of membership in secretive and influential groups, doesn't he?)

[blm]

15. The American Opus Dei are EVIL just like the Moonies are evil.

EVERY one of them? No...maybe just 95% of them....like at the Republican convention. Not ALL, but, damn near all.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. Didn't answer my question about John Kerry, I note.

And I question how you KNOW that 95% of Opus Dei are evil people. Do you personally know any members of Opus Dei? How many?

[blm]

25. Kerry is NOT Opus Dei. Opus Dei worked to get Kerry excommunicated

from the Catholic Church, DB. I am surprised you didn't know that.

Why are you taking this so personally AND attacking Kerry for no reason?

When did I become the bad guy because I hold that rich, white, Republican men who have an agenda to exploit the poor and working class only use Opus Dei for their own perverted reasons?

[karynnj]

30. Jesuits are usually listed as the opposite of Opus Dei

Kerry is still a good friend of Father Drinan, a liberal Jesuit priest. Kerry also went to Boston College, a Jesuit law school. From his comments on his religion -that he was pushed to make- he is clearly a liberal Catholic who believes in a liberal social agenda. Not exactly a prime candidate for Opus Dei.

[DemBones DemBones]

34. My objection is that you're making absurd blanket statements about

members of Opus Dei, which in my view is just another form of Catholic-bashing.

If you're going to mock self-mortification allegedly practiced by Opus Dei, shouldn't you also be mocking it when it's practiced by Muslims? (Or Hindus, Native Americans, etc.)

Or maybe you could just not mock religious groups at all and save your anger for individuals who deserve it?

[blm]

36. NO WAY. Rich, powerful, Republicans who get whipped are PERVERTS hiding

behind the IDEA of Opus Dei, their exclusive RICH MAN CLUB that only allows men of power.

Rich Republicans looking to squeeze the poor are NOT being whipped in atonement for their sins or feeling remorse. If they felt remorse or charity they wouldn't BE fascists would they?


YOU believe these men are spiritual men....go ahead. I think they are LIARS, PERVERTS, and REPUBLICAN FASCISTS.

[The Magistrate]

10. As A Matter Of Curiousity, Ma'am

Why should you feel "mortification for spiritual purposes" deffers signifigantly from sado-masochism? Certainly the physical acts and sensations are the same, and whatever brain and body chemistries are engaged would operate in the same manner, to produce similar states of perception. Literature of sado-masochism, particularly that oriented towards masochism, is full of descriptions of feelings that could properly be classed as spiritual.

Further, why should you consider viewing something as related to sado-masochism mockery? Are people who have that sexual orientation objects of mockery, in your view? What difference is there between that, and any other sexual orientation?

[Hardrada]

17. Calling Dr. Freud!!

Don't sublimate. Flagellate!!

[DemBones DemBones]

18. Sir, I wish I knew what on earth you are talking about.

I in no way suggested that those who practice S & M should be mocked.

I said that people who practice mortification for spiritual purposes should NOT be mocked.

That second group includes many people, the majority of them poor and people of color. I have seen these practices as a child in the Philippines. I have no experience with S & M but I've read the Marquis de Sade and I've read a number of Christian mystics (some of whom practiced some mortification) and there was no similarity that I saw. I'm not arguing spirituality is better than sexuality, or that they are unrelated, but saying that it is false to say that mortification for spiritual purposes IS S&M.

[blm]

22. I didn't make that as a general statement. And THAT is the difference.

I can't believe that Bill Bennett and Robert Novak and Rick Santorum are being credited with a spiritual journey no different than the suffering poor in this world.

[lastliberalintexas]

26. And Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas

:crazy:

[The Magistrate]

29. To Me, Ma'am

The identity between the practices is at the very least instructive, and in my view the overlap is so considerable as to make it safest to view the things as merely differinmg forms of the same general phenomenon in human behavior.

It seems to me that, if stating an identity between some practice and sado-masochism is to be viewed as constituting mocking that practice, then the latter would have to be viewed as an object of mockery in itself, for otherwise, it is hard to see any sense in which the comparison could be called mockery. A devotee of sado-masochism, for example, might see the comparison as praise, or an indication of fellowship, just as a person interested in human foible might see it as an instructive insight into the behavior of both classes of persons investing considerable portions of their psychic energy into experiencing pain. Certainly the experience of sexual gratification is hardly unknown in the human impulse towards religiousity and religious practice; many religions have, and some still do, incorporate it: it is also a subject that humans are notoriously dishonest, with both others and themselves, concerning.

[blm]

32. EXACTLY!!! "... a person interested in human foible..."

Observer of life's realities. Without the sugar coating. That's me.

[papau]

27. "corporal mortification"--to emulate the suffering of Jesus - is not a

concept that I understand.

But I have never heard of anyone getting "sex" this way, in the manner that S&M provides "sex".

And in any case, emulating the suffering of Jesus is not a focus of the group.

Glory of work - with some work and the folks that do such work at a higher rung of good person per God than other folks - as in priests being better than lay folks - seems the key thought - along with facists right wing points of view that fit the views of those in Italy that lost in WW2.

Interesting that our worst traitor/spy - Hansen - was into Opus Dei. And that USSC Judge Scalia may well be one of the couple hundred thousand worldwide that claim membership.

[blm]

33. Hanssen was Robert Novak's "source" and Novak AND Louis Freeh are

both Opus Dei and worked together to try to bring down Clinton. It was Hanssen who made the Chinese dealmaking charges against Clinton that were proved to be false. Freeh HAD to know that Hanssen was a spy back then.

[Cleita]

14. I've got a nice patch of Poison Oak in my pasture.

Any penitent Opus Dei is welcome to roll around in to save the cost of a hair shirt. Hey, there is even a lady horse trainer on the adjoining ranch that might be persuaded to accommodate him with a couple of hits from her horse whip.

[blm]

19. I heard Bill Bennett will be right over. Don't worry, he has your address.

Porter Goss gave it to him.

[Cleita]

21. LOL

:rofl:

Thanks, but no thanks.

[NNadir]

24. You're talking about the next Chief Priest of the United States.

Did I say "chief priest?" I meant the next Chief "Justice."

That'd be "Fat Tony" Scalia.

[Solly Mack]

35. I'd smack them around for free and call it penance

Hey, I'm here to help...