By John Owusu

Your Holiness,


The Roman Catholic Hierarchy – A new breed of Organized Crime/Mafia Society.


The MSN Encarta/Organized Crime Control Act (U.S. , 1970) defines Organized Crime/Mafia as; 1. A close-nit or influential group of people who work together and protect one another’s interest or the interest of a particular person.
2. A secret criminal society originating in Sicily that spread to mainland Italy and the United States and is involved in international drug-dealing, racketeering, gambling, and prostitution.
3. A transnational grouping of highly disciplined centralized enterprise run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for the purpose of generating a monetary profit.

The Mafia/Organized Crime unlike the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is a loose association of criminal groups. Like the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, it is the consciousness of their own worth, the exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interest or ideas, share a common societal structure and code of conduct, and claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets.

In order to prosper, some degree of support is required from the society in which it lives. It is often necessary to corrupt some of its respected members, most commonly achieved through bribery, and the establishment of symbiotic relationships with legitimate businesses, judicial, police officers, and legislators are especially targeted for control by them via bribes, including social status.

The Mafia like the Roman Catholic Hierarchy express faith in omertà (code of silence) that forbids Mafiosi from betraying their comrades. They are almost always required to commit murder as their ultimate trial.

If we take a global rather than strictly domestic view, it becomes evident that today, crime of the organized kind has a noble or urbane, and urban heritage or, phenomenon. For most human history it was the rural world that was crime-ridden. Pirates, highwaymen, and bandits attacked trade routes and roads.

However, Organized Crime/Mafia is deeply linked to the moral problem of integrating sub-civilized energy into civilized State/Church building. St. Augustine famously defined them as what would now be called kleptocracy, State/Church founded on theft:
“If justice be disregarded, what are states/churches but large bandit bands, and what are bandit bands but small states/churches ?...... Indeed, that was an apt and true reply given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that King had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride – what you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor/bishop.”

“It is only when a man has ceased to need things/power can he truly be his own master and so really exist” – Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt.

The standard example in primitive form is that of the AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. Though the abolishing of slavery in much of the world has greatly reduced, nevertheless, the phenomenon lives on, particularly, in the Church, especially in Africa. There are millions of people throughout the continent – mainly children in conditions of virtual slavery, as well as in various forms of servitude which are in many respects similar to slavery, peonage, etc.

In primitive form some Mafiosi African Kings, and rich individuals supported the deal just for accumulation of monetary gains. Unhelpfully, some Mafiosi African Bishops with their ang mo (Western) counterpars, or skippers who knew nothing concerning religion condone and connive to operate rackets on the continent. These Bishops when they go to the sophisticated, and the wop-wops of the dioceses and the parishes the red and the green carpets are rolled out to them in the form of ang-pow (money) this they called religion and spirituality. In simpler terms they long eagerly for just two things – bread and circuses.

The Catholic Hierarchy unlike the mafia is monolithic, and is led by a boss(Bishop) or major superior usually reigning as a dictator who is aided by under boss(skipper/captain). Under his command are crews of Mafiosi clergymen, superiors, and religious knowing in the mafia world as “Made Men”. Both institutions alike make extensive use of associates or selected applicants ready to fight under the command of a Mafioso boss. These are people who aid or work for a boss but are not treated as true members, they include corrupt clergymen and religious and are prospective Mafiosi. They are considered nothing more than a tool, nothing mixed with nil. Making the universe a machine for creating gods.

Furthermore, it is also kept in the annals of the Church that from the time of antiquity to the time of the Italian Renaissance was the most hittable with high “C” in putridity, and instability. However, the great transformation began under Pope Nicholas V who launched a dramatic rebuilding effort that would eventually see much of the Church renewed.

Today, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is deeply rooted in the original mafia society, and it is very impossible to quench unless the very structure of the social institutions of the Church’s hierarchy were to undergo a fundamental and radical change or, reformed in a similar way to the renaissance mentioned above.

Of late there has been an incessant demand of Your Holiness to stand down because of authoritarian abuse of power by the Hierarchy. Unhelpfully, there has also been an incessant support from the hierarchy in defense of their own interest, and the interest of Your Holiness. However, the interest of the classless/laity is in jeopardy, the laity represents more than 90% of the Church’s population, and are completely voiceless. Remember, “the love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves”. The Times(London), 1819, “Political Essays”

In my own point of view it is good, better, and the best thing for Your Holiness to succumb to the demand and stand down, this will pave the way for the prototype to emerge. This is only a monkish advice. A yummy prospect, of course !

We have it in history that Pope Gregory XII (1406 – 1415) did so to end what was called the Western Schism. In another development, in the year 1294, Pope Celestine V also succumbed to a demand to resign and did so freely, later he was declared a saint.

Getting right to the main point, I think that the only safeguard of order and discipline in the modern Church is standardized the clergymen/hierarchy with interchangeable parts. This would solve the entire problem of the management/hierarchy, for they constitute the biggest problem of Christendom.

REFLECTIONS

“When a pope’s theoretically infallible, doctrinal opinions are treated as infallible, authoritarian abuse of power begins” (Hans Kun – Swiss-born German, Priest and Theologian)

The new breed of the hierarchy, the omertà, the pederasty, the child abuse scandals, the robbery, the slavery, the peonage, etc. These infallible ?

The propensity is that by the silence to make them subject of concern they naturally become doctrinal/dogmatic adducible and infallible. Hence; a heresy.

I salute Your Holiness,



John Kwadwo OWUSU, osb-oliv.

Cc:
The Synod of Bishops
The S.E.C.A.M - GHANA
The Apostolic Nuncio – GHANA
The Episcopate – GHANA
The Archbishop – KUMASI