I was writing in a closed journal system in high school, or was it Freshman year of college - how quickly things run together these days - when the priest pedophile scandal broke. I was horrified, and outraged then. I wrote about it, made a few enemies, and was obviously not hurt enough by the nastiness which ensued, because still, to this day, I feel a sense of what the fuck, and must question and complain when Pope and Circumstance brings itself to the forefront. .
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais))
Today, as I was grabbing a sandwich, I briefly watched the end of the much lauded Mass given by Pope Benedict XVI at Nationals Park. As I watched the news commentators hailing this (with tears in their eyes no less) as some wondrous event, I tried to understand what drives people to look at this man, who from what I understand was very helpful if not instigative in planning the cover up, and subsequent placing of pedophile priests (including
Bernard Law) in “other positions”, cushy clerical positions, none of which included a residence with bars on the windows or doors, because you know… not being able to actively serve is punishment enough.
I remember an email from someone three years ago in which the author called me an irreverent little bitch, this for jokingly calling Pope John Paul II a “party animal”. I was joking about his request, to depart from centuries-old tradition by ringing bells in addition to sending up white smoke to signal the election of his successor. This, a year after the whole pedophile scandal when irreverent, not to mention immoral, to me anyway, was priests molesting little boys while The Vatican worked quickly to hide, mitigate, and dismiss.
So, for those who “got chills” during the viewing of or attendance at this ceremony, please explain it to me - not the religion, I was brought up Roman Catholic, though now do not partake in organized religiousness, I know the doctrine. No, explain to me how this man, purportedly the Vicar of Christ, is anything but a man in a tribal costume, riding around in state of the art vehicles, living in luxury, and pulling the wool - taken most likely off the backs of his sheep - over the eyes of those who revere him?
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, I wasn’t too impressed, from the little I watch. I too, was once a catholic. (Though I was baptized at 10, confirmed at 14ish.)
I can see a little of both sides - such as they are - in this fight. If your the Holy Catholic Church, once the most powerful entity on the face of this Earth - shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire and lasting roughly 1,000 years - you still have some inherent arrogance in dealing with any scandal, particularly given the ways in which you operated during your “glory days.”
Cover ups are modus operandi of any powerful org. It keeps people stupid, out of touch and focused on the things they want us to concentrate on. Like prayer and tithings.
The victim’s side has been both very good to hear (in getting these priests out and into some “new clothes”) and very bad. There were many that took “hush money” years and years ago - as is the practice of keeping it quiet - instead of pronouncing loud and clear what has been going on. They were conflicted, unable to take on THE CHURCH, because they were afraid of community repercussions. Valid as it might have been, it likely caused more long-term damage to others who didn’t get that choice.
I did time around a few jailbirds of this ilk. What did they do? Turn to religion, fervently I might add, in order to feel worthy of forgiveness.
What does a priest do? I could say something terrible, but I won’t. Not for me to judge - that’s what we got people wearing surly robes to do - even if, it seems hypocritical given a practice by the law to give out light sentences for defrocked priests.
Da Pope was given a charge to uphold the highest ideals, yet they are miserably human, political and deceitful. I think out of touch barely scratches the surface of what goes on in his world. Adoration for nothing is another problem. Inflexible and incapable of change the final nail in the cross.
I love the way you take the gloves off.
yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah
I think you did it again
interrupted a dream
made this fantasy end
oh baby, baby
oops - you did it again
stated the truth
questioned the game
oh baby baby
oops - I think you’re quite sane
you’re one of the few
who comes in out of the rain
They kicked me out of first grade pre Cathecism class one day, because I asked too many questions.
I personally think the guys’ just a little frightening. I have no thoughts on Catholicism but I love your quote from Thomas Jefferson. I’m an atheist, but having been raised in a cult-like sect I’m much more drawn to the story in Texas. What’s interesting is the logic between the government response to Texas and the response to the Catholic church. Using the Texas logic, perhaps every cardinal and bishop should have been arrested. But I’m rambling and this is your blog. Great post.
As a semi-dissaffected Catholic, I made few friends in defending MA prosecutor Martha Coakley - herself a Catholic - when she prosecuted a priest who supporters claimed only engaged in harmless activity by allowing pre-pubescent boys to sit on his lap. He was not convicted at that time.
But when Geoghan was convicted, people realized that Martha was correct in her analysis of what was going on in some parishes in Eastern MA.
I just had a similar conversation with a fairly hardcore Republican last night. It included interjections of barbed comments about Obama’s pastor and how members of organized so often let us down. It also included a good bit about my personal observations of Cardinal Law during his years in Boston. A good man who simply did not pay attention to some very important details.
I reminded him that come next Tuesday, April 22, that I would not let him down by voting for Clinton. It was a good chat. He left laughing.
JasonP: Of course it is for us to judge, you me and everyone, judge using logic.
Mimi: Those gloves are stifling.
Irish: I pay people to ramble in my comments.
It is interesting, though there were reaction to the pedophile scandal people seem much more likely to…forgive and forget. How sick is that?
SK: Cardinal Law, from what I determined, was more like a good man gone bad, full of aspirations for himself and church and his position, he did a morally reprehensible non-action.
I am from a country with little Catholic presence. Religious diversity yes, but not a lot of Catholics. So I have little reference. It is at places like this were I learn.
Thank you for the teaching. Again. We learn more when people like you speak from the heart, than when we read the text books.
I didn’t see it, and I’m afraid I can’t explain but I wish you well in your search for answers, my child.
I had 12 years of Catholic education, but it didn’t stick. I’m officially lapsed now and have no particular veneration for the papal office nor this man. (I in fact wrote a pretty negative post about him last year too, but my blog was little trafficked back then, so no response).
I can’t see being moved to tears by anything he says or does. The operative emotion for me is usually more related to anger or disappointment at his conservative ideology. How he can make nice with the war monger I have no clue.
What I find particularly interesting is that a lot of these same people who like to slander Obama with the term terrorist because of flimsy associations from years past, are either blissfully ignorant or willfully hypocritical in overlooking the long history of abuses committed by the papal office.
My wife is Catholic too - but she stopped going to confession after the priest told her she should be nicer to me ;-)
Brav - frikkin’ - O, Coop!!
Hey, I’ll say it here…the hell with that damn ol’ pope. Or as my Nana used to say, “FFFFTTT!”
I didn’t watch it. I’m sure my grandmother got tears in her eyes. You can’t discuss/critique Catholicism with my dad’s side, they are hardcore Latin American Roman Catholics.
I was confirmed in this church and went to a catholic college and on, and on, and on. I think some aspects of this religion give people a community they wouldn’t have otherwise. At least that is the way I look at it.
As someone who thinks all religions are collective superstitions, I don’t see what all the hoopla is either.
I think what you believe in and how you believe is a personal choice and to throw your spiritual maturity in with the lot of people who don’t share your exact beliefs is asking for trouble. You start making concessions to dogma and doctrine. You start getting away from what makes sense to you. In short, you give up your understanding of how everything works just to fit in with everybody else thinks.
Religion isn’t just the opiate of the masses; it’s the goddamn worst thing mankind has ever invented.
really, I meant that as a way to recuse myself on that crime (my feelings are much more complex than that) and figure, how well it hasn’t worked to uncover all the scandals, and, the small percentage of spiteful allegations (yes, I think a few had other motives, not always pure.)
If in this case, 40-50 years ago, things would have been done to stop it, possibly, our feelings would be less demonizing of the current Papalcy.
But I don’t care about them. They aren’t my faith anymore, for other reasons, I might add.
I was told a lot of things today about the pope that’s supposed to explain why he hasn’t taken a big anti-pedophile stance. I won’t repeat the things here as I don’t know if they’re true or not
It does crack me up that he came to NY today–and the city was a traffic mess–even foot traffic on the west side in midtown to cement Catholic/Jewish relations.
I don’t think he understands this was always a Catholic/Jewish town, and our relations here don’t need cementing.
He should apologize for stating in 87 that Jews should come to Christianity
And from what I was I told but won’t repeat he can’t touch the pedophile mess not because he was one but because of his own sexual preferences might come into play. Not that I said that.
Despite the surname, and growing up in the Boston area, I am not Catholic. I reconstruct from family history and vitriol that Grandad married outside the faith, and got bell, book, and candle for his trouble.
I also remember the recruiting crisis that the Catholic Church in America faced during the sixties, when just about everyone thought it plain nuts to excuse oneself from the sexual revolution. I thought then that lowering the Church’s recruiting standards to ensure that there were bodies behind pulpits could have no good result. And so it has proven.
Ambrose Bierce’s definition of PALACE succinctly sums up the problem with all mega-Christian churches:
The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.
Despite the surname, and growing up in the Boston area, I am not Catholic. I reconstruct from family history and vitriol that Grandad married outside the faith, and got bell, book, and candle for his trouble.
I also remember the recruiting crisis that the Catholic Church in America faced during the sixties, when just about everyone thought it plain nuts to excuse oneself from the sexual revolution. I thought then that lowering the Church’s recruiting standards to ensure that there were bodies behind pulpits could have no good result. And so it has proven.
Ambrose Bierce’s definition of PALACE succinctly sums up the problem with all mega-Christian churches:
The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.
The desire to feel like one is a part of something is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the human condition. It strangles our better judgment and can smother everything redeemable about our nature.
That’s why when I was at a Catholic high school in Boston during the height of the scandal, my teacher insisted that I still refer to Law by his honorific. He also defended the Church for not immediately adopting a zero tolerance policy for child molesters, citing a difference in methods for coming to such decisions (theirs being methods based on reflection, etc).
And he’s a good, wise, smart man. But to stake so much on any institution; any at all, is to be prone to rationalization.
To quote Orwell
“This business of making people conscious of what is happening outside their own small circle is one of the major problems of our time. … As time goes on and the horrors pile up, the mind seems to secrete a sort of self-protecting ignorance which needs a harder and harder shock to pierce it, just as the body will become immunised to a drug and require bigger and bigger doses”
Simply put, there are enough Catholics in this country that are incapable of being convinced that their utmost religious and moral figure was complicit in the trafficking of abusive priests to fill stadiums, just as there are still people who cheer when George Bush takes the stage.
Like says…
Coming from a family of priests I can’t begin to comment. As you know I’m an atheist. This makes for rough family gatherings.
Makes me queasy to see all this late confrontation of the sex abuse scandals.
I like you when you give the frank edge without fear of it stomping on your chances at a higher end diplomatic mission. ;)
You’re absolutely correct. He is but a mere man - nothing more. No better or worse than the rest of us.
Well… maybe worse than me - I’ve never partaken in the cover-up (and therefore justification of) pedophilia. Nor would I ever. It’s a disgusting disgrace.
I remember when Benedict became the pope. I sent my mother an email with this subject:
“New pope is just like New Coke, they both suck.”
…Mom never emailed me back ;-)
I just realized I never responded to most of these comments. I think you all know by now that your comments are worth reading on their own so much of the time, so often when I read them, unless I want to pose an argument ( most often in which I come up short - OC, EW Doug - you know what I mean) I often find it more rewarding just to read the responses.