On The Dignity Of The Family

From the NY Daily News:

Pope Benedict XVI denounced gay marriage in his annual “State of the World” address Monday, going so far as to say the same-sex nuptials threaten the future of humanity.

In the speech, the pope, 84, unleashed what some consider being his strongest tirade against gay marriage, saying it is among conventions that “undermine the family” and “threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself,” Reuters reported.

“Pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and woman,” the pontiff said.

“This is not a simple convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society,” he continued. “Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”

You can read the entire document here.

It's curious to me how he can, on the one hand, defend the "pride of place" for "the family" and condemn "policies which undermine the family" while at the same time undermine the criminal investigations into the rape and torture of children.

For background on that, I turn to Christopher Hitchens:

In 2002, I happened to be on Hardball With Chris Matthews, discussing what the then attorney general of Massachusetts, Thomas Reilly, had termed a massive cover-up by the church of crimes against children by more than a thousand priests. I asked, why is the man who is prima facie responsible, Cardinal Bernard Law, not being questioned by the forces of law and order? Why is the church allowed to be judge in its own case and enabled in effect to run private courts where gross and evil offenders end up being "forgiven"? This point must have hung in the air a bit, and perhaps lodged in Cardinal Law's own mind, because in December of that year he left Boston just hours before state troopers arrived with a subpoena seeking his grand-jury testimony. Where did he go? To Rome, where he later voted in the election of Pope Benedict XVI and now presides over the beautiful church of Santa Maria Maggiore, as well as several Vatican subcommittees.

In my submission, the current scandal passed the point of no return when the Vatican officially became a hideout for a man who was little better than a fugitive from justice. By sheltering such a salient offender at its very heart, the Vatican had invited the metastasis of the horror into its bosom and thence to its very head. It is obvious that Cardinal Law could not have made his escape or been given asylum without the approval of the then pontiff and of his most trusted deputy in the matter of child-rape damage control, then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Developments since that time have appalled even the most diehard papal apologists by their rapidity and scale. Not only do we have the letter that Cardinal Ratzinger sent to all Catholic bishops, enjoining them sternly to refer rape and molestation cases exclusively to his office. That would be bad enough in itself, since any person having knowledge of such a crime is legally obliged to report it to the police.

I will say it again.  Given the atrocious behavior over the past few decades of the Vatican regarding its own sexually abusive priests, why should anyone treat any statement of sexual morality coming out of the Vatican with any credibility whatsoever?

I would think not raping the young boys and not sheltering those who looked the other way should be a bigger concern for the self appointed guardians of the family.