Call the police: what the Pope should have said

[Christa]

When I was a child, my mother took me every Wednesday evening to Benediction where, we believed, the body of Christ was revealed. On Saturdays, my family went to confession and every Sunday morning, without fail, we attended Mass. If you asked my mother who and what she was, she would say “a Catholic” before she said “Scottish” or, even less likely, “British”. She believed that the Church of Rome was God’s own glory on Earth.

When I was 11, my parents sent me to a Christian Brothers boarding school. The Brothers were not priests but, even without the significant compensations of priestly rites and privileges, they had dedicated themselves to a life of celibacy, 30 or 40 years without the comfort of touch. We boys knew which of them couldn’t handle it, and we all knew why, from time to time, one or another moved stealthily on to a different school. It wasn’t a secret to us, even if it was to their Church.

The rituals of cleansing were no more worthy. In the past, when a priest raped a young Catholic, the child could expect to be offered absolution for the sin. If this seems a little shocking, we shouldn’t be too surprised. It’s a common enough trick of authoritarian religions to blame the victims of sexual violence for participating in their own abuse, particularly if the violator occupies the pulpit rather than a pew. Surely, such a terrible sin could only occur in the face of the most devilish temptation, presented without any shame.

Often after absolution, we discover, the child would be made to swear a vow of silence. This would be done in formal style, with all the force of a dark and mighty canon law. There was, of course, no real choice here. There was no real expectation that a nine-year- old boy or girl would sit back to reflect and consider. There was no question of advisers or social workers or any sort of comfort at all. There was instead a priest or a bishop or a cardinal, and their fearsome power to burrow into souls and to dispatch what they found there to Heaven or to Hell.

Full article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7073217.ece

[trotsky]

1. Great article. n/t

[Angry Dragon]

2. It is nice

that one does not have to take responsibility for their actions. We should all use this to explain the misdeeds we do. Blame the devil and then we can all go free. Put the devil on trail, let the church produce the devil for trial.