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Some time ago a friend in Rome told me that she believed the U.S. government had been spying on all employees of the Vatican and all operations in the Vatican. I thought it sounded like the stuff of a Dan Brown novel and paid no attention to it. I suppose now that I should have paid more attention: click here.Unfortunately, the U.S. federal government seems to be interested in spying on everyone everywhere (including you and me), and that prurient, paranoid interest apparently extends to spying on the Holy Father, the Conclave, and the Vatican in general. See this Reuters article by clicking here.
The Snowden revelations have shown us an out-of-control U.S. government pressing its listening ear to the lives of each one of us like a Hoover vaccum cleaner sucking up everything it comes across.
I suspect that it is not just the Catholic Church being spied upon — though the U.S. government under President Obama seems to take a particular interest in thumbing its nose at the Catholic Church. Rather I imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Palace have been sifted through by the NSA all the way down to each local parish church. Methodists, Lutherans, Orthodox, Reformed, Evangelicals, and Baptists have likely fallen under the same scrutiny.
Even those who worship in non-denominational churches should realise that they are being watched by the U.S. government as well. It seems that the operational directive of the U.S. federal government is that each person and each organisation is a potential enemy or a potential asset (provided one has the right blackmail).
The bottom line is that we believers in Jesus must wake from our slumber and arise without regard for the man-made separations between us. We must remind the NSA and the U.S. federal government of that much loved Democratic dogma "the separation of the Church and State". In other words, 'Get you and your government and your spies out of our churches, and stop spying on us NOW.'
If you are a citizen of the U.S., you could call your Senators and your Member of the House of Representatives... but, of course, they have been spied on by the NSA and the Obama Government as well... should one expect them to do anything to stop the surveillance state when the intelligence agencies could bring out every skeleton from every closet and aim that information at each elected official? ...
The mind boggles at the scale of this, but there must be someone willing to stand and demand an end to the spying upon the Church ... someone in that venerable Congress of the land of the 'free' and the home of the 'brave' ...
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