Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.Deaf boys???
The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal. [emphasis added.]
To be clear, this is not about Catholicism. It's about the abuse of power. It's about the hypocrisy of an institution that seeks to impose its own brand of sexual morality while covering up the rapes of deaf children for the sake of protecting itself from scandal.
Tell me again why we should treat any statement on sex from the Catholic Church with any credibility?
No really I want to know.
9 comments:
I completely understand where you are coming from, but your use of the word "any" troubles me.
Discount their views on abortion, homosexuality, birth control, premarital sex, fine, but tossing the word "any" around opens yourself open to condoning rape and other things, including the pedophilia that these evil men committed. Because the Catholic Church says those things are wrong too, even if they do not practice what they preach.
Tiffany,
It seems that the Church only condemns rape and pedophilia when others do it, so I think "any" applies perfectly. So does "hypocrisy".
Epic fail. From a person who is supposed to be "infallible." Guess that makes pedophilia OK? No?
Disgusting power-mad people who long ago "lost their way."
If Jesus was indeed the "good shepherd," then his flock needs to be culled.
I still feel like you use of "any" is dangerous, and permissive to sexual deviants that have nothing to do with the Catholic church. After all, you said yourself, this has nothing to do with the church, it is about power. There are plenty of powerful people not connected to religion at all that do these things.
So the next time a college professor rapes a student, or a boss manhandles an employee, that word "any" applies, and it is still about the power.
As a Catholic, I'm disgusted by the continuing revelations of predatory sexual abuse by Catholic priests.In a more open society, all these bums woulda been thrown out by the God fearing ,decent priests who are still active in the Church.The recidivism rate of the pedophile is highly documented.To put any offender back into his target group is a crime itself. Depraved indifference.Anyone,the Pope included, in the chain of command who failed to turn into the Police a known pedophile is as guilty as the pedophile.Surely if he was stealing from the collection box,he woulda been stopped ASAP.
The use of "any" is so much less dangerous than the willful and vile conduct of the Church and current Pope that harping on that word is incredibly myopic. The point of the original posting is not clouded or confused by "any" and did not imply that rape, cover-up, etc. is ever acceptable.
This is a very small point to make in light of the revelations.
You know, the cover-ups would not be such a big deal if the church had actually taken action. If they had moved every single accused priest away from having any contact with children, then not allowing to public to know would not have been such a crime. Conversely, their refusal to act makes their cover-up that much worse.
"If they had moved every single accused priest away from having any contact with children, then not allowing to public to know would not have been such a crime."
Those priests committed CRIMES and the higher ups not only refused to notify the police, in some cases they've given santuary to the criminals so that no most never were punished.
Whether it is the priest pedophilia, domestic violence, or the economic consequences of the bail out, depraved heart crimes affect the entire landscape and environment in which people are required to live. Rather than co-opting the depraved heart mentality and applying it strictly to murder, society should be attempting to ferret out the characteristics of depraved heart mentality to apply it to all crimes where callous indifference to the persons harmed becomes a criteria of the conduct being scrutinized. Limited only to murder is socially unwise, incorrect, and socially improper leading to all manner of injustice that becomes defensible because the logic is cut off from the reality of the situation. Madoff crimes cannot be classified as anything but depraved heart crimes that must fit into the judicial hierarchy to logically defend justice. Failure to address the Katrina situation may also reside there. Society cannot condone depraved heart crimes without becoming an enemy of itself and dysfunctional. Profits over people leads to that depraved heart defensibility but is called predatory or callous capitalism instead. But the true nature arises from acceptance of depraved heart attitudes that are condoned.
Post a Comment