Imagine the worst. Suppose that you discovered that a member of your family was actually a criminal. Not a petty criminal, mind you, but one whose crimes were truly awful, morally repugnant in every sense. What would you do?
When David Kaczynski realized that his brother Ted was the Unabomber, he made the hard choice and called the FBI. Thanks to David's moral courage, the man responsible for murdering and maiming dozens of people with homemade bombs sent through the mail was stopped before he could carry out his grander schemes of putting bombs on airliners and detonating them over cities. When Kaczynski received a million-dollar reward from the FBI, he donated most of the money to his brother's victims.
Kaczynski had no special moral training to prepare him to turn in his brother or make other wrenching decisions. Until then, his life's work had been helping his father run a foam rubber business. It is therefore instructive to contrast his actions with those of the Pope, a man supposedly chosen by God to lead the world in the path of righteousness, and of his ring of cardinals and bishops.
Faced with overwhelming evidence that the church has been harboring and actively shielding child molesters and rapists, the Vatican went into a defensive mode that would have done the Nixon White House proud. Speaking to the faithful in his Palm Sunday address, Pope Benedict said he would not be intimidated by "petty gossip."
Bear in mind that gossip means unsubstantiated rumors. Imagine how that made the thousands of victims of priest-attacks feel -- including the hundreds of deaf boys who were molested by the man in charge of their care, the Reverend Lawrence Murphy. Their stories are documented. You can read them for yourself. It's just that no one would pay much attention, because their abuser was a priest.
In fairness, I suppose the Pope may have meant that only the published reports, based on documents, implicating him in Rev. Murphy's escape from justice were "petty gossip." But less than a week later, the Pope's personal preacher stood before a mic and made the outlandish comparison of media "attacks" on the Pope to the "collective violence" suffered by Jews. Yes, criticizing the Pope's failure to bring child-molesters in his house to justice is a lot like murdering six million Jews. Anyone can see that.
Six weeks later -- and centuries too late -- the Pope has made a very different speech. He blamed sin within the church for the crisis. That turnabout is commendable. So are his efforts to convey apologies to victims.
Yet the church has not entirely changed its longstanding policy of refusing full cooperation with law enforcement and is mounting the most vigorous defense possible against the claims of victims. Now you can't -- and I don't -- blame the church for defending itself. But in its pattern of using bankruptcy and arcane canonical legalisms to dodge settlements, it has shown all the compassion of a particularly nasty coal mine company toward its victims. And there's no sign yet of a change in that. Maybe it will come. Maybe not. But until the church does what any other legal institution harboring criminals and their abettors would do, such speeches amount to empty gestures of piety.
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Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Sin Inside the Church
Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI called sexual abuse "truly terrifying." In his frank comments to reporters, he seemed to rebut Vatican curial officials who have sought to portray the crisis as somehow generated from the outside.
Sam Harris: Bringing the Vatican to Justice
I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. But now I have been awakened from my unconscionable slumber on this issue.
You can't be "sort of Protestant" . Any more than you can be sort of pregnant.
In Germany and Ireland fresh reports have been coming in. In Ireland as many as 200 additional cases have reported just since April of 2009!!!! In Germany, Pope Benedict's older brother, Canon Georg Ratzinger, has even volunteered to be a star witness in the German prosecutions now continuing full blast.
This illustrates the point that abused case victims and families must not lose heart, and should press their legal action against Church authorities with renewed vigor. Don't give the Vatican reason to think these crimes against humanity are going to subside and drift away into the mists of history. Precisely, what Pope Benedict's advisors undoubtedly are telling the old boy.
HANG TOUGH! Your flock loves you Benny!! A miracle will occur and then it will be back to business as usual.
train wreck of the Church would simply convert from the RCC (or any church) to Jesus / God?
Instead of tackling an insurmountable mountain of "faith truths", an incredible compilation of
theology, philosophy and history, not to mention an institution that is based on the
ancient emprical roman law and administration. Time and again such attempts have turned
to a total waste of time.
While on the other hand lapsing by changing over to God can be done with the victory sign
along with visiting the next public library for all the lot of history books etc..
Only the laity can save the Church now.
The old men in Rome and their stooges in the diocesan chanceries are drowning in the excrement of corruption, arrogance, and irrelevancy. Weighed down by their ermine covered cappa magnas, jewelled hats, and lace dresses.
Let the dying RCC organizational structure, heir to Neronian, Caesarian , and imperial authoritarianism die and those who labor to prop it up as the central core of the faith.
These old geezers have never been trained to think beyond the 16th century and continue to fight the last wars. They are totally clueless as to the depth of what is happening to the RCC. Therefore, they have no modern weapons to combat it.
As in the 16th century Catholic Counter-Reformation following the Protestant Revolt, they will rely upon frightening the faithful and trying to reverse the defections by calling for a renaissance in PAST art and architecture. Like all good reactionaries and crypto- fascists, the authoritarian hierarchy's return to the past failed to win back the heretics and it will fail again fail in trying to keep Peter's Barque afloat today.
The CHURCH OF THE FUTURE must be built by the laity. It will have little help from the lower clergy. The entire hierarchy from the pope on down must be abolished and reconstituted by direct elections to fixed terms of office. With all Church wealth and it's finances firmly in the hands of the people.
Perhaps one of the most significant things about the RCC that must die is its ubiquitous use of power words. Self aggrandizing titles of Father, Mother, Lord, Excellency, Holiness (god, what a joke), Papa, sheep, flock, have the effect, perhaps the design of making the average catholic feel "less than" while making the leadership feel "more than". The development of hubris and arrogance among the "more than" is self-fulfilling in such a power structured system. Words mean things and those words are clearly power mechanisms, designed to make the average members of the church feel like children who must be instructed and condescended to while making the Priests, Nuns and hierarchy feel like well, Fathers and Mothers and Masters. The hubris leads to blind self-righteousness, and the law-unto-themselves the hierarchy has become. The "simple, humble and poor....like Jesus" church that Rev Martin hopes to see cannot happen until the words are changed.
Of course, then it would no longer be the RCC. The Roman hierarchy is caught in a trap of it's own making.
Be at peace with belief in your heart and mind knowing at the same time, that they are not perfect, but that they are your spirit.
You can't be "sort of Protestant" . Any more than you can be sort of pregnant.
Enigmatic, iconic, archetypical all share in transcending the consciousness.
May Good gladden your heart, lift your spirits, and nourish you soul. Have a good life.