That Old Time Religion
My biggest problem with religion is that people use it as an excuse to stop thinking for themselves, and the consequences of that can be disastrous. Religious leaders are HUMAN BEINGS - pretending they have God-like qualities enormously magnifies their power to do evil if they so choose.
The leaders of the Los Angeles diocese of the Catholic Church did everything within their power to cover up the fact that for decades they transferred known pedophile priests from one parish to the other, never giving any warning to the parishoners whose children were in danger. When the scandal finally broke and people started coming forward, those same leaders did everything they possibly could to discredit and demean those people - the same people who childhood abuse they had engineered.
The torrent of testimony finally became too overwhelming for the diocese to resist (there's an excellent documentary film out on the subject - its name escapes me). The diocese has agreed to pay $660 Million to its victims; Cardinal Mahoney, who tried to cover this up and drug out the court case for many years, now says he's sorry. I reckon the only thing he's actually sorry about is the $660 million going out the door.
What's really amazing to me is the other big news story of the week involving the Catholic Church. Jolly old Pope Benedict issued a decree stating that Catholics are the ONLY true Christians. I guess the unspoken corollary is that Benny wants the world to know that Protestants are all going straight to hell. It's not that surprising to be that a Pope would spew this nonsense, but it is a little shocking that there hasn't been a stronger reaction among Protestants. If an extremely prominent atheist were to attack them in such a nakedly aggressive, vicious way, I imagine that the reaction would be vastly different. For some obscure reason, the Pope's office as a religious leader renders him relatively immune from criticism even when he's directly attacking Protestants' faith.
Taken together, these two stories paint a very dark, ugly picture of the Catholic Church. But that's hardly anything new - these are in fact the lovely folks who brought the world numerous Crusades and Inquisitions, killing millions in the name of God. What's scary and deeply troubling to me is that people seem willing to give them a pass no matter HOW awful their current misdeeds. Even to this day, people continue to leave their kids in the clutches of pedophile priests without a second thought, the justification being "he's a priest". Such egregious, willful ignorance makes them co-conspirators as far as I'm concerned. For crying out loud, get a frigging clue. NO man or woman is exempt from human frailty. That doesn't mean we should never trust anyone - only that we must always be vigilant and willing to SEE any signs of wrongdoing.
My biggest problem with religion is that people use it as an excuse to stop thinking for themselves, and the consequences of that can be disastrous. Religious leaders are HUMAN BEINGS - pretending they have God-like qualities enormously magnifies their power to do evil if they so choose.
The leaders of the Los Angeles diocese of the Catholic Church did everything within their power to cover up the fact that for decades they transferred known pedophile priests from one parish to the other, never giving any warning to the parishoners whose children were in danger. When the scandal finally broke and people started coming forward, those same leaders did everything they possibly could to discredit and demean those people - the same people who childhood abuse they had engineered.
The torrent of testimony finally became too overwhelming for the diocese to resist (there's an excellent documentary film out on the subject - its name escapes me). The diocese has agreed to pay $660 Million to its victims; Cardinal Mahoney, who tried to cover this up and drug out the court case for many years, now says he's sorry. I reckon the only thing he's actually sorry about is the $660 million going out the door.
What's really amazing to me is the other big news story of the week involving the Catholic Church. Jolly old Pope Benedict issued a decree stating that Catholics are the ONLY true Christians. I guess the unspoken corollary is that Benny wants the world to know that Protestants are all going straight to hell. It's not that surprising to be that a Pope would spew this nonsense, but it is a little shocking that there hasn't been a stronger reaction among Protestants. If an extremely prominent atheist were to attack them in such a nakedly aggressive, vicious way, I imagine that the reaction would be vastly different. For some obscure reason, the Pope's office as a religious leader renders him relatively immune from criticism even when he's directly attacking Protestants' faith.
Taken together, these two stories paint a very dark, ugly picture of the Catholic Church. But that's hardly anything new - these are in fact the lovely folks who brought the world numerous Crusades and Inquisitions, killing millions in the name of God. What's scary and deeply troubling to me is that people seem willing to give them a pass no matter HOW awful their current misdeeds. Even to this day, people continue to leave their kids in the clutches of pedophile priests without a second thought, the justification being "he's a priest". Such egregious, willful ignorance makes them co-conspirators as far as I'm concerned. For crying out loud, get a frigging clue. NO man or woman is exempt from human frailty. That doesn't mean we should never trust anyone - only that we must always be vigilant and willing to SEE any signs of wrongdoing.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
arielle:
Oh thanks 
claudette:
You would have been a baby.