The words ‘Catholic Church’ are now, to many, synonymous with ‘scandal’, ‘whitewash’, ‘cover up’ and ‘immoral’. This week’s letter from the Pope to the Irish church highlights his continued short sightedness.
Catholics are among some of the most intolerant of all religious groups. Their stance on issues like homosexuality, abortion and contraception has always been steadfast. Behave in such a licentious way as to be attracted to someone of the same sex and you’re heading for an eternity in hell. Have sex for any reason other than to procreate and God, apparently, frowns upon you. Suffer a horrible rape and bear a child and to abort the pregnancy is abominable.
When compared with the unquestioning forgiveness granted to paedophile priests the church’s unwavering position on the above issues is nothing short of hypocritical.
At the heart of this issue of abuse is the very structure of the Catholic Church. The church is like a powerful nation, a nation which is governed by a dictator. The dictator answers to nobody on this planet, he is the ultimate authority and believes he is only accountable to god. As god exists only in his mind, the dictator has absolute control. Underneath the dictator are a host of officials granted the job of running local affairs. They are forced to abstain from normal sexual relations, suppress their natural sexual desires, and then allowed unlimited contact with children. This nation has a set of laws which were drafted up thousands of years ago at a time when everyone thought the Earth was the centre of everything and the most important place in existence. These laws are not subject to any form of social evolution. They are the same as they were when they were written, they cannot, and will not be changed. It matters not what we learn about the workings of the planet; it matters not that we now understand quite well how homo sapiens work and think; it matters not that the world has recognised it’s need to relegate certain things to history. None of these things matter, the law is what it is and it will remain so.
At the heart of this dictatorship is a small group of powerful people who consider their job to be the absolute protection of the international community’s opinion of their nation. They will stop at nothing to ensure they don’t get bad press and to ensure they are viewed as a friendly nation. Their agents operate secretly and swiftly to silence those who may damage their reputation.
Is it any wonder then, that a group as powerful as the Catholic Church continues to be involved in such horrific scandals? How can they possibly keep up with the rest of the world when they continue to live in the dark ages? Are they completely blind to the consequences of suppressing sexuality, making it a taboo subject, and forcing their officials to pretend they don’t have desires? And how can they route out the problem causers when they believe that merely offering a word of regret and repentance up to the sky fairy will fix their perverted desires?
We know all too well how those that are capable of abusing children are very rarely ‘rehabilitated’. Left freely they often go on to re-abuse. They have a serious malfunction in their conscience that either enables them to ignore it, or worse, leads them to believe they’re doing nothing wrong in the first place. The enlightened among us know that a priest is no different from the rest of the human race. We know that such perverts need more than sending on a ‘retreat’ by their Bishop.
In normal civilised society most of us could not readily forgive a child abuser. Not so the church. They repeatedly allowed the sick bastards back into service because they’d been ‘fixed’ by god.
What is needed here is a mass cull of clergy. Every single person who has been implicated in this scandal needs to be totally stripped of all their duties. Every person who has aided and abetted these criminals should be shown the door. This included those bishops who helped cover it all up; “I did it because my boss told me to” is not a valid defence. My moral compass would stop me from being able to do it, so the church who, after all, think they are the pillar of morality, should have known better.
The Pope’s pitiful letter to the church this week shows us he is no better than those in Ireland. We’ve already found out he himself failed to report sexual abuse when it was brought to his attention. He helped cover up the same sort of crimes whilst in Germany. The church may be trying their hardest to distance Benedict from responsibility but it does not watch.
For the Pope to stand any chance of fixing this issue his letter should have clearly pointed out the need to sack the guilty. It should have outlined a procedure for instantly suspending anybody suspected, whilst being investigated. Sure, people are ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but when kids are involved it should be a case of ‘not allowed near children until proven innocent’. This concept is one the church appear to have a problem with. Benedict outlined in the letter his ideas for fixing this crisis. His solution: to use Lent as an opportunity to do lots of praying, and to use Fridays for the next year to do more praying. Oh, and to do a tour of Ireland. This, apparently will:
“…lead to a rebirth of the Church in Ireland in the fullness of God’s own truth, for it is the truth that sets us free.”
The Pope is completely blind to the fact that he himself is part of the very problem.
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