Category Archive

The RCC is corrupt.  Let’s acknowledge this, and then move to right the situation.  Neil MacDonald over at the CBC take a swipe at the papacy, but for all his erudite comments and justifications – one has to ask the question – ‘are they really necessary?’  As in, there is almost no moral ambiguity here, this is an ethical slam dunk.  The RCC ruling structure is rotten and needs to be jettisoned into space, the sooner, the better.

It is an unreal situation like Americans and their tragically farcical gun control debate.  One would reasonably think that the wholesale slaughter of innocents that is happening at a fairly regular interval in the US would lead to the sanction one of the primary tools that people use to enact mass murder.  Not rocket science.

In the same way, child buggery, has been a very catholic thing for decades if not centuries.  No ethical pining needed here folks – the catholic church’s superstructure needs to go away.  Not rocket science.

What these examples are a grim testimony to are the resilience of codified hierarchical structures/beliefs in society.  There is no tame liberal way of dealing with these problems, they must be torn from society root and branch, and that requires that people stand up and demand justice in society and be willing to raise hell until their demands are met.

But hey, talk of revolutionary action aside, Neil does a great job and poking the evil with a stick (enjoy?):

“The same goes elsewhere. Revelations of horrors in all the above-mentioned Western countries (here in Canada, there was documented abuse in Quebec, British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, where the church’s Mount Cashel orphanage was operated as sort of a prison for child sex slaves) resulted in dismissals of some church officials, some lawsuits and a handful of criminal convictions, but not much more than that.

Each time, the Pope or one of his high subalterns would lament human frailty, and drone on about the sacred duty to protect the most vulnerable, while privately fighting to thwart civil suits or conspiring to keep facts from investigating authorities.

Pope Francis, who enjoys the most saintly reputation of any recent pope (except for John Paul II, who was actually made a saint, despite all the ugly revelations on his watch) released an open letter to the world’s Catholics after the Pennsylvania revelations, basically repeating the company line: gosh, sorry, that was terrible, we must do better, God bless you all, go in peace.

Noting first that “most of these cases belong to the past,” (don’t all cases belong to the past?) the Pope banged on for 2,000 words about feeling the pain of the vulnerable, and the necessity of ensuring it doesn’t happen again (and again and again and again), but his central theme was expressed right off the top in a line from Corinthians: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.”

Yes. Of course. Let’s compare the spiritual suffering the Pope claims the revelations have caused him to that of a child being sodomized by an adult stalker in a clerical collar, a monster the boy probably doesn’t think he’s even allowed to complain about.

The right thing for the Pope to do would be to waive his sovereign privilege (he is a sitting head of state), and invite criminal authorities to freely and fully access church records worldwide, and drain the holy swamp. He might also consider at this stage ordaining women, because women are God’s creatures too, perfectly able to spiritually guide the faithful, and, umm, don’t tend to rape children.

But the privileged old men who run the church aren’t going to allow any of that. They’re a bit like gun control opponents, opposing an obvious solution on doctrinaire grounds.

There actually have been a few attempts to use the RICO statute against priests, notably in Cleveland, but jurors did not convict.

When former Oklahoma governor and former federal prosecutor Frank Keating, a practicing Catholic, compared the church’s obsession with secrecy to the Mafia’s, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles demanded his ouster from a church board examining clerical abuse. Keating resigned from the panel.

Mahony, who covered up sexual abuse by priests in California, according to church records, retired peacefully at age 75. Only after a court order compelled the Los Angeles archdiocese to open its files on abuse was Mahony gently rebuked by the church

Pope Francis condemned priestly sexual abuse and its cover-up by the Catholic Church, in a public letter. In addition to demanding accountability, Francis begged forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims and said Catholics must be involved in any effort to root out abuse. 2:11

By any secular standard, the Catholic Church is a corrupt organization. It in fact sets the standard for impunity.

Cardinal Bernard Law, who presided over the coverup of the church’s famous Boston sex abuse scandals, was plucked and brought to Rome by Pope John Paul II, where he resided until he died at the Vatican, beyond the reach of American prosecutors.

Earlier this year, after Bishop Juan Barros of Chile was accused of covering up clerical abuse, Pope Francis denounced the accusers’ “calumny.” When it turned out that there was merit to the accusations, and that the Vatican had been informed of the problem, Francis claimed he’d been misinformed. A few weeks later, all 34 of Chile’s bishops tendered their resignations. Francis eventually accepted three of them.

And now, Catholic activist Susan Reynolds has gathered thousands of signatures on a letter demanding the resignation of all American bishops. It would be the right thing to do, but at a guess, the very notion amuses America’s bishopry, comfortable in their armour of piety.”