Organized religions bewilder me, all of 'em. Or maybe the ones I’m exposed to most seem howlingly off kilter in what they concentrate on. The obsession with sexual affairs seems blown bizzarely waaayyy out of proportion. C’mon, where are the thundering, front-page screeds against spiritual arrogance, murder, stealing thy neighbor’s ox and/or car, etc.
Maybe sex sells even religion but if they must concentrate on fluff you’d think they’d be a little more acute about the marketing aspects. What’s all OVER every media outlet? Diets, that’s what. They’ve overplayed Lust already; why not go with Sloth and Gluttony for a while? Every lame-o quack and opportunist is jumping on the get-thin bandwagon. (‘Gravy train’ doesn’t sound right, somehow.) Why demote Sloth and Gluttony when they’re such a lucrative secular trend?
On second thought, those wouldn’t work nearly as well for scapegoating. They would require paying more attention to one’s own behavior rather than prying into salacious details of the lives of others. Much more satisfying to think, “Well, at least I don’t bugger” as a diversion from one’s own shortcomings.
Though I still think Choir and Ab-Crunch Practice holds some real potential.
Ah, so the Bishop is speaking his mind again.
This is nothing new - Fred Henry has an opinion on pretty much everything.
Most often the comments provoke a “WTF?” reaction as you try to figure out which planet the man is on.
That just makes me sad. It really does. People in such situations never really had a choice. I don’t call that “hearts and minds following”, I call it what it is: insincerity.
If God exists, then he’s not stupid, is he? Surely God would know the difference between those who sincerely believe and those who just want to avoid prison or worse, right?
Well, not really surprised. But I am mildly torqued that he is presuming, in Canada, to say that homosexuality ought to be banned. Our most right-wing party drummed an MP out of their ranks the other year for much the same thing, so you can see that that’s not the sort of thing we cotton to much in these here parts. Especially from an elderly bachelor in such a pretty, pretty dress.
Not at all. I’m well aware of the current abuse scandal. I don’t see how that relates, though, to the Catholic Church “arranging and perpetrating” the abuse of “young children.”
Really? I could have sworn that at no point did the Church condone the abuse, much less arrange it, but rather dealt with individual perpetrators in a way that in retrospect was highly ineffective. I also thought that the victims were overwhelmingly adolescents, not “young children.”
For the most part, individual priests were the perpetrators. However, the hierarchy engaged in a cover-up intended to protect and in some cases rehabilitate the priests, at the risk of further molestation, and often effectively stonewalled any investigations that would have dealt with the molestations criminally and provided psychiatric help or counseling to the children. It was for his role in this cover-up, not for any accusations of abuse, that Cardinal Law was forced to resign.
There were some willing adolescents, some adolescents coerced into sexual relationships, and some out-and-out abuse of prepubertal children. My impression was that there were somewhat more adolescents than children involved, but that the numbers were not “overwhelming,” when all the instances were dealt with.
Also intriguing, and seldom brought to light, was a prevailing code of turning a blind eye to gay sex among seminarians at, and priests graduating from, certain seminaries. Tom~ did a very interesting post on this back when the scandal was “hot,” indicating that it was a matter of “seminary culture” (à la “corporate culture”) where some seminaries had absolutely no problem and up to half of those at other seminaries were involved in it.
Agreed, and again, in hindsight, their approach was stunningly ineffective and counterproductive. There’s still a big difference between that and “arranging” for the abuse to happen, though.
What word would you prefer to “arranging”? The church routinely sent child-rapists into situations where they would have incredible authority over children. They knew it was happening and facilitated its continuation, setting up unknowable numbers of children to be victims.
The church also wants their money back - paid to a victim - if a priest molests
a youngsix year old child. They’ll call it an ‘industrial accident’. That’s not only condoning, that’s getting a profit out of it.
