Catholicism is in BIG trouble.

posted by The Vidiot @ 7:59 AM Permalink

You know, until Dr. Vidiot started studying Pentecostals, I never really appreciated my Roman Catholic upbringing. Once you sit through a few 3+ hour Pentecostal services, with all the loud music, dancing, tongue speaking, spiritual warfare and preaching, you'll begin to realize just how comfortable the Roman Catholic service is, with it's structure and solemnity.

Now, I'm not a religious person. The existence of God is not something I worry about too much. And how the priests and the nuns comported themselves 'off-stage' never really concerned me too much. They always stayed out of my hair, and the hair of everyone I've ever known.

But, apparently, over the years, they weren't staying out everyone's hair.

Here's how I see it. Everyone KNOWS that priests (and nuns) are human. Everyone KNOWS that humans have needs. And as long as those needs are met between consenting adults, then I have no problems with priest shacking up with nuns, parishioners or deacons for that matter. (That probably makes me an Episcopalian.) Please, if Father So-and-So wants to diddle Mother Superior and she's totally into it, who am I to care?

In fact, the church SHOULD take a blind eye to that sort of behavior (except for any sexual predators) because, like I said, as long as it's between consenting adults, whateverrr. But what the church should have done from the get-go is had a zero tolerance for pedophilia. The minute a priest was revealed to be a pedophile, he should've been hung out to dry, his name blasted through the media, hell, I'd even be up for a scarlet letter P tattooed on the idiot's forehead. I don't think pedophiles are attracted to the church. I don't think there are more pedophiles, percentage-wise, in the priesthood than there are in the general population. It's just that priest have access to A LOT of kids and behind closed doors. Additionally, it didn't help that the same few bad priests were shuffled around from parish to parish. It just made it look like there were a lot of parishes with pedophile priests because of that particular tactic.

But because they did that shuffle around thing, because they squelched investigations and lawsuits, because the tried to hide it, they're in way bigger trouble then they would've been had they just clamped down on the behavior from the beginning. I mean, this is worse than what the Borgias did. At least the Borgias were out in the open, wielding their power with all their might and perversions. Man!

So, of course, the Pope is in trouble. Not just his history with hiding pedophile priests:

Hans Kueng, the dissident Catholic theologian from Switzerland, has accused Pope Benedict XVI of playing a role since 2001 in keeping sex-abuse claims against priests out of the public eye.

but now his administration has been caught in a cover-up:

Revelations that the Vatican halted the investigation of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys have eerie echoes in Italy, where 67 deaf men and women accused two dozen priests of raping and molesting children for years.

The odds on Ratzinger abdicating are getting better.

New Pope or not though, they've definitely lost their moral authority.

But that's OK. The church was in dire need of a make-over anyway. I mean, of course, they should become vehemently anti-pedophilia and institute a zero-tolerance policy for that crap. But, wouldn't it be great if the church did more? Way more? Wouldn't it be great if it actually took on the role that the world's governments have disregarded? What if the church took on the role as the voice of the impoverished, under-represented, and oppressed? What if the church took a stand against capitalism and all its ravages? Wouldn't that be interesting?

The church is BIG. As big as any government sans a standing army of course. They have access to the halls of power, they have access to the media, they still have a huge following, they have the power to wield, what if they wielded it for the people?

Now THAT would be cool.

Labels: catholicism, Religion, roman catholic