Commentary By Ron Beasley
If you have been reading me for any length of time you probably know I'm no fan of organized religion. The only thing that surprises me about the current problems in the Catholic Church is that anyone is surprised. There was very little spiritual about the Catholic Church from the beginning. It was founded to be the state church of the Roman empire. Throughout most of it's history it has been a corrupt political organization and like all state religions used the fear of a deity to control the masses, especially women. Controlling women is what birth control and the anti abortion position are all about. Current abuses are mild compared to what happened in the past.
Pope Sixtus V issued a papal
Bull in 1589 which
approved the recruitment of castrati for the choir of St. Peter's
Basilica in Rome.
In the late 60s I was a college student and in love with Emma Peel, star of the Avengers. Well Emma is still around, is a Catholic, has a blog and some thoughts on the Catholic Church.
I�ve never expected much from the institutional church. It�s run by men
who are as power hungry as they come. As an institution they do
everything to protect their status quo, and since they deal in life and
death�-literally from baptisms to funerals---they feel above the law,
both secular and moral. Of course there are many individual priests who
are decent and holy, but the institution suffers from terrible
corruption of all kinds. It always has........
The arrogance of these men is staggering. Jesus entrusted the most
precious thing in the world---his followers---to them, then inch by
inch, step by step, they let the dark side of human nature encroach into
their work until they could no longer see how much damage they are
doing to their flock.It�s not a media conspiracy. It�s that
these men have cut themselves off from most of reality. How else could
you ever characterize substantiated charges of abuse as �petty gossip.�
As anyone who watched the show knows, you don't want to get on the wrong side of Mrs Peel. Those old guys in the Vatican should be worried.
Good catch. I have been interested in how this time around the laity is speaking out in opposition to the church leadership. I saw a link to Peggy Noonan's column and since she is Catholic prepared myself for a carefully-worded soft defense in her customary evocative prose. Instead she was very clear in her criticism.
ReplyDeleteIt is damage that will last at least a generation. It is an actual catastrophe, a rolling catastrophe that became public first in the United States, now in Europe. It has lowered the standing, reputation and authority of the church. This will have implications down the road.
In both the U.S. and Europe, the scandal was dug up and made famous by the press. This has aroused resentment among church leaders, who this week accused journalists of spreading "gossip," of going into "attack mode" and showing "bias."
But this is not true, or to the degree it is true, it is irrelevant. All sorts of people have all sorts of motives, but the fact is that the press�the journalistic establishment in the U.S. and Europe�has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on this issue. Let me repeat that: The press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on the scandals because it exposed the story and made the church face it. The press forced the church to admit, confront and attempt to redress what had happened. The press forced them to confess. The press forced the church to change the old regime and begin to come to terms with the abusers. The church shouldn't be saying j'accuse but thank you.
And with no hesitation she lays out this...
...An irony within the irony: Some journalists didn't think to go after the story because they really didn't much like the Catholic Church. Because of this bias, they didn't see the story as a story. They thought this was how the church always operated. It didn't register with them that it was a scandal. They didn't know it was news.
It was the Boston Globe that broke the dam, winning a justly deserved Pulitzer Prize for public service.
There is almost a political parallel between the clergy-laity divide in the Roman Catholic Church and the partisan divide in American politics.
The GOP keeps churning along, season after season, with stonewalling indifference and Democrats (rag-tag, juvenile,ungovernable renegades they) keep politics in an uproar like a bunch of drunken college kids on spring break.