Pope Benedict XVI is making his first visit to America next week, so parent's: lock up your alter boys. I'm just kidding Catholics, there's no evidence that the pope ever molested children. Of course, in his previous Vatican job as John Paul II's right hand man he did write a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out but hey, it made good business sense, right?
As anyone who reads this blog regularly might guess, I couldn't really give two shits about his visit here. Except for this one hilariously fun fact: the Bush administration is holding a dinner in honor of his visit to the U.S. and guess who has declined to attend? That's right: Benny Sixteen. Apparently there are no competing events listed on his schedule and the White House can't give a reason for his absence. There is a certain amount of speculation that it's because he plans to have some frank discussions with W at an Oval Office meeting before the dinner, specifically about "the false notion that might makes right" and "the culture of fear" in the United States.
While I have many bones to pick with the Catholic Church besides their institutional practice of child molestation (their policy of noninterference during the Holocaust and their silent consent to the slave trade are two that come to mind), I love the audacity and St. Peter's Cathedral-sized balls it takes to completely and publicly diss the President of the United States. I suppose the pontiff's dissing abilities shouldn't surprise me though; I haven't seen crucifix bling like that since I worked in downtown Oakland. And have you checked the Prada kicks? Tight.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
And Ladies: He's Single!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I don't think institutional has the proper connotation here. I also think that a lot more than the Catholics gave consent, silent or spoken, to the slave trade.
I disagree; this is a large, top-down managed organization that had full knowledge of wrong doing running rampant within their ranks for years and their official response within the organization was to cover up the immoral acts and relocate the perpetrators to protect them from prosecution, and in so doing enabled those same perpetrators to be able to have access to fresh victims.
Perhaps you disagree with the connotation because your idea of a practice being "institutional" means that it must be publicly sanctioned and specifically spelled out in the organization's charter but I don't think that has to be the case. I refer you to the use of "code reds" in the Marine Corps and our nation's recent adoption of torture as part of our security apparatus. These practices are not written out in handbooks and are even publicly vilified by those in charge yet they continue to go on because of approval and sanctioning within the organizations themselves.
Besides, do you really believe that the Catholic church just figured out that if you deny a human being sex and masturbation that he will still seek out some sort of physical release regardless of whether the victim consents to the activity or not? We're talking about the denial and suppression of biological urges responsible for the propagation of our entire species.
On the other topic, I do indeed agree that many other people and institutions were complicit in allowing the slave trade to prosper as it did but when you hold yourself up as a supposed moral authority headed by an infallible figurehead commanding the loyalty of over a billion of the planet's population, your obligation and responsibility to take action against one of the greatest human rights violations in history is many orders of magnitude larger than most others.
We totally agree on the Catholic church's marriage policies. I understand the spirit of what they're trying to achieve, but it's an idea that just doesn't work when you try to make it a hard & fast rule.
I suppose that you could call their practice of molestation "institutional" under the terms you set forth. It just sounds so much worse than this article makes it sound. 4% is a staggering number, but "institutional" brings to mind an even larger number for me. It's terrible either way, though.
I hope he does say something to W though. I don't like all this war-declaring and terrorist-hunting going on in the name of my Savior. Last I checked, Jesus was a sweet, brown man who liked to give everybody wine, work some miracles and tell the religious leaders they were all mistaken about things.
Agreed; that's why despite my severe dislike of Christianity as an institution I've always liked El Jesus, even if he was a smelly hippie.
Post a Comment