I freely admit that's an ugly, sensationalistic title, but what an interesting coincidence that two reports on child molestation by Catholic priests were released today, just two days after Mel Gibson's deeply "Catholic" bloodbath of a film about the last 12 hours of Christ's life was set loose upon the land.
I wonder if there is any connection whatsoever between the conservative Catholic theological elevation of the Passion (the bloody torture and execution of Jesus) over the Resurrection (wherein His divinity was made manifest and believers' salvation confirmed) and the statistics released today revealing that AT LEAST (with 14% of precincts not reporting) 4% of Catholic priests have been accused of molesting children since 1950 - not that I have any idea what that connecton might be.
And then there's that whole celibacy, anti-marriage thing, which, logic would seem to dictate, would tend to attract more than its share of men who don't like women ANYWAY, and a goodly number who don't even like adults.
While I am repelled by an obsessive emphasis on the bloody death of Christ over His teachings of love, forgiveness, and redemption (and the Church seems to have no problem with that), I am also gratified and encouraged that the Church finally had the courage and fortitude to make its dirty laundry public, and to at least appear to be willing to genuinely address the monumental problem of spiritual leaders - conduits between God and man in the Catholic tradition - taking advantage of their station to ruin the lives of their most vulnerable charges.
You can be sure these particular fishers of men are glad I am not God, as I would condemn the fuckers straight to hell - do not pass Go - along with the bishops who enabled their crime sprees with full knowledge that the lives of innocents were at stake.
- More than 10,600 children said they were molested by priests since 1950 in an epidemic of child sexual abuse involving at least 4 percent of U.S. Roman Catholic clergy, two studies reported on Friday.
The reports' release brought an apology from Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and complaints from victims that the reports focus on the actual abusers but not on the bishops who failed to stop them.
Article comments
1 - Dawn
While we will all be reminded that the crimes of the few cannot be held against the many, it would seem that a religion that holds itself as the superior standard of Christianty could use a little humility,rather than fall on the cross of its own hubris.
2 - Jeff Brokaw
Read "Goodbye Good Men" by Michael Rose - it'll curl your hair.
Rose says that the priesthood had no trouble attracting candidates before the 60s, celibacy or not. Not so coincidentally, that is when many of the seminaries started to fall into the hands of radical homosexual activist types. They have the power to kick out anybody who doesn't toe the company line, and the company line is whatever those who run the seminary say it is. So for the last 40 years, many thousands of perfectly worthy priesthood candidates have been kicked out because they refused to buy into the gay thing, and now we have shortages.
The seminaries are the root of the problem, but we don't hear anything about that in the media, do we?
Read the book. Knowledge = power.
3 - bhw
I wrote a little screed about this myself, last night.
I was raised Catholic and I have a hard time understanding why people stay with the church, including my own family members. It's just been plain WRONG and hypocritical so many times.
4 - CW Fisher
Eric, outstanding essay. You nailed it, so to speak. Being Catholic I won't deny it hurts, but neither will I deny I'm Catholic. I urge you and Dawn and everyone else to have at it -- open season -- and I'm not being sarcastic. I'm sincere. We're just other Christians who need your help.
Anger, outrage, ridicule will be part of the process of healing far beyond our lives. What we are addressing here is centuries old and cloaked in many layers of secrets. Expecting the church to heal itself in the absence of God is like asking a tooth to bite a tooth, or a Congress to review its own pay scale. The healing will begin in the form of scourging from the whips of you and Dawn, but it won't hang dead on the cross until the last pedophile is off this earth.
I was baptized in a Congregational church, raised Methodist, later Presbyterian, became Lutheran as an adult, came to my senses, came to again and became Catholic -- and when story about pedophile priests broke I was enraged. I still am. They betrayed our trust, irreversibly damaged the lives of thousands of God's children, which to me is the rape of God Himself. And yes, it was the church that did it by creating and harboring these murderers of spirit.
Forgive them I do and am, as I'll try again tomorrow. I want them in jail and I want them studied. I want them to devote the remainder of their lives to fixing the problem they made. They can't. But I want them to try anyway. And I don't want them to try to pray their way out of it. In fact, I'd take away their crucifix and rosaries and even their Bible. Because they tried that once and it didn't work.
Thanks for writing this. I still wish you'd stop trying to pin this on Mel, or even worse Jesus. Believe me, the Catholic church hasn't forgotten the resurrection. You are in error about that. Christ died for all of us and it hurt. The movie is about his death. There will be others about his life and afterlife. Not this one. Say whatever you feel necessary about the Catholic church, its bishops and priests, and its members, lapsed like me, or like the millions who return to their faith many times a day without a thought to the sins of the fathers, but the sins of their own doing.
But I ask not to spit on our bloody Christ. Mock what you don't understand, but don't kill him again. Outrage is, in the end, rage. And rage.... well, maybe you should see that movie again....
5 - Eric Olsen
CW, thanks for all that on several levels. I am not mocking anyone, least of all Jesus, nor do I minimize His sacrifice, nor do I question for one second the faith of tens of millions of good Catholics, but the structure they cling to is perhaps in need of another Reformation.
6 - CW Fisher
Agreed. Thanks.
7 - CW Fisher
By the way, I've been meaning to ask. The BC banner was gray on Ash Wednesday as I recall. Coincidence?
8 - Benjamin C.
Eric:
I don't you'll have to worry about sending those child molesting f*****s to hell. I'm quite sure God will take care of that himself.
9 - Eric Olsen
CW, Actually, we were grey on Tuesday for the Grey Album protest.
Benjamin C, in His infinite wisdom he appears to be much more forgiving than I.