Although I usually can’t take too much Frank Bruni, this is good:
And it distilled the church’s profound defensiveness toward the secular world, a longstanding posture and a prominent theme in abuse cases that have recently attracted attention.
The church’s fundamental and deliberate separation from secular society — in terms of how it sees its mission, protects itself and interprets human misbehavior — explains much of its leaders’ response, or lack thereof, to the child sexual abuse crisis. Time and again they have sought to police their own ranks in their own ways, due largely to fears of persecution that are embedded in the very genesis of the Church, supported by much if its history and evoked by its signal symbol: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
[…..]David J. O’Brien, a professor at the University of Dayton who specializes in Catholic history, said that the church had so often perceived itself to be at odds with, and under siege by, the world around it that when it seemingly let down a few defenses with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, “There was a funny column by someone that asked: what will we do if we have no enemies? We won’t know who we are because we’ve always defined ourselves as over and against others.”
Conservatives have long resisted integration into the modern world, especially as regards legal matters. Vigilantism, opposition to Civil Rights legislation, and what might be called “Catholic justice” are all of a piece. There’s a notion that the modern world, with its man-made (as opposed to natural) laws and aggressive district attorneys, just doesn’t understand.
Now the Church is hunkering down for a final Holy War against the rest of the world, as Wolverines always have, from the Michigan Militia to Glenn Beck’s America.
freelancer
Kid fucking = “petty gossip”, got it.
kid bitzer
yeah, the current nyt headline is:
“pope, in sermon, says he won’t be intimidated”.
this bastard still thinks it is all about him.
he still does not realize that most of us are thinking about the thousands of children–tens of thousands of children.
the church’s attitude is so unbelievably self-centered. so selfish. so callous. so arrogant.
mcc
Guys, really!
The Roman Empire is gone now! They’re not going to come for you!
You don’t have to worry anymore!
Cat Lady
If Ratz or the cardinals won’t submit to secular authority, how to get at them? The Vatican is a sovereign state – can Italian authorities arrest them outside the Vatican? What’s the end game here?
JGabriel
You know, I get that even a lifetime might not be long enough for some people to come to terms with the traumas of their early years, so it’s something I’m typically more sympathetic than judgemental about — but two millenia?
As a cultural Catholic (albeit religiously agnostic), I can only say, “Sorry, Vatican, it’s time to grow up.”
.
Linda Featheringill
The Catholic church has a history of being persecuted by the world? Not nearly as much persecution as the Catholic church has handed out – to anyone they disagreed with.
Fear that some of us might want to get even for the evil visited upon our ancestors? Maybe.
Don’t give me that “poor little Catholic” crap. It is not even close to the truth.
Redshirt
I like this analysis. I’d have to give it more thought, but it broadly describes many different groups – for example, the same critiques could be applied to several Islamic movements; they are essentially rejecting modernity and any integration/compromise with it. A reactive, conservative viewpoint.
And it’s not new, of course. For as long as there has been progress, there have been those afraid of this progress, or unwilling to go along, whatever the reason.
I wonder if this explains the recent conversion of several prominent Wingnuts to Catholicism; for example, I’ve tried and failed to understand what Newt is getting out of switching to RC. Please note I’ve completely ruled out any sincere conversion, but rather, it was done for some political purpose. But I could not fathom what that purpose is.
Maybe this helps.
geg6
This fucker of a pope is going to war against the rape victims? And he thinks this is a good tactic? Unbelievable. But yes, Doug, it really is one and the same thing we are witnessing among the conservative movement. They simply can’t accept that we don’t live in the 14th century any more.
Nellcote
I want to see protestors in St Peter’s Square when the pope gives his easter speech.
btw why is Glen Beck on Armed Forces Radio/TV?
MikeJ
So Steve Jobs doesn’t want flash on the ipad because he’s a paedophile?
DougJ
@Redshirt:
I agree. Fundamentalist Islam has many of these same impulses: Sharia Law!
Emma
mcc: Tell that to people like him, or them.
The saddest thing about all this is that those old bastards and flushing everything good ever done by the Church down the toilet in their fear and arrogance.
robertdsc
Fixed.
Martin
@MikeJ: I think you have that backward. Flash is the current state, HTML5 is the progress. That makes everyone but Apple the pedophiles…
The Grand Panjandrum
Speaking of wolverines, that crazy bastard who urged teabaggers to break windows is now threatening civil war if the FBI harms any of the militia crazies they arrested over the last twenty four hours in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. This shit is so stupid I can’t even think of anything snarky to write.
beltane
The world owes Henry II a big apology. His battle with Thomas a Becket was largely over the issue over whether or not clerics were subject to civil law. This is not a new issue.
dan robinson
Is this right, that the Catholic Church didn’t police molesters because Christ was crucified?
.
Hmm, couldn’t you use that excuse for any felony committed by a church official?
Louis CK has it figured out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k
MBunge
Eh, there’s really no defense that can be made of the Church as an institution in this mess.
However, I seem to recall some really horrible cases of pedophilia in Europe in the last decade or so where, for example, the behavior by secular authorities in Belgium was pretty damn questionable. I’m not sure that the Church trying to stand apart from modernity really has much to do with this particular problem.
Mike
MikeJ
@Martin: When they get a pedometer (not pedophile) that doesn’t distort music on the ipod give me a call.
morzer
@The Grand Panjandrum:
It’s pretty much a classic closed loop of sel-reinforcing paranoia. Nobody wants to harm the sad sacks who are gearing up for Armageddon. Therefore, they survive the crisis they create – and convince themselves that they have defended liberty, when no-one wants them to do anything except behave like rational adults in a modern, democratic society, and realize that there was no crisis to begin with.
beltane
@Linda Featheringill: I agree with you totally. After Constantine, the Roman Catholic Church was invested with the full weight, authority and trapping of the Roman Empire. Benedict is as much, if not more, an heir of Caesar Augustus as he is of St. Peter.
The entire history of medieval Europe consists of the Church bullying and undercutting secular authority. From the fraudulent “Donation of Constantine” to Henry IV at Canossa to the Catholic jihad against Elizabeth II, the RC Church has been steadfast in asserting its privileges against any and all earthly governments.
Nutella
And like all of the wingers who like to think of themselves as poor persecuted victims, they are the bullies. Particularly so in Ratzinger’s case. He’s from Bavaria where the civil authorities and the Catholic authorities are all the same people. Catholicism has been synonymous with the establishment in Bavaria for a very long time.
kay
@kid bitzer:
He doesn’t have to be intimidated. He can just be honest. He can clear this whole thing up, through consent. Always an option for free human beings who actually want to make amends. Nothing stopping him from releasing information.
The reliance on law by the Church’s defenders makes me laugh. The Church uses the law as a shield, but objects when the state or its victims use it as a sword. It only applies when it protects them. When it goes the other way, they’re being persecuted. The lowest level criminal defendants understand it works both ways. Not religious. No sir.
Where are the individual moral leaders in all this? They have no capacity to act without the state or a court calling them to account? Bullshit. They stand on their own rules, their own version of “accountability”, which none of us are allowed to question without an elaborate sympathetic analysis, and then rely on limitations expiring to protect assets and asses. Nice. That works out well for them.
Ruckus
@kid bitzer:
the church’s attitude is so unbelievably self-centered. so selfish. so callous. so arrogant.
You’re not implying that this is new are you? I think this has been going on since at least year 2 for them.
Redshift
@MikeJ: I can understand Apple’s position on this; it’s all about the CPU (and its effect on battery life.) Firefox is coming to be perceived as bloated and slow, and it’s almost entirely because of Flash and Java, neither of which they have any control over.
DFS
@The Grand Panjandrum: Jesus, I never read that dude’s site before now. It reads like a MAD Magazine parody of weekend-warrior jackoffery.
I’m not even gonna touch all the shit about “wiping our rifles down.”
morzer
@beltane:
Not really true. Theodosius I was the emperor was refused to tolerate any other religion than Christianity.
freelancer
@kay:
The only thing worse than raping a child is the criminal prosecution of the child rapist.
Mark S.
What I don’t understand is how they were completely oblivious to the seriousness of the crimes. It wasn’t like a priest with a drinking problem or a priest who had a mistress or a bishop who was embezzling money. Those would be embarrassing scandals. This was about sexually abusing children, for Christ’s sake.
This leads me to think this isn’t some phenomena that just started 50 or 60 years ago. I think they were just better at covering it up. They saw no reason to change a practice that was working just fine.
El Cid
Secrecy In Defense Of Child Rape Is No Vice!
Redshift
@The Grand Panjandrum: Just as the neocons are always desperately hoping for an enemy to have a new Cold War with so they can regain their relevance instead of looking like crazy uncles talking about commies under the bed, right wing “patriots” are always desperately hoping for a new Waco or Ruby Ridge, ever since the Oklahoma City bombing destroyed any mainstream support they got from the first one.
beltane
@morzer: You’re correct. But we’re still going back quite a ways.
beltane
@Mark S.: Had it been serial killers or shoplifters in their midst the outcome would have been the same. The seriousness of the crime is not the issue from the perspective of the Church. The issue is the Chruch’s steadfast (1600+ years is pretty steadfast) refusal to accept the legitimacy of temporal authority. Kings were anointed by bishops, the clear implication being that the Church was superior to the state.
K. Grant
@DougJ:
All fundamentalist groups reject modernity, and are essentially cut from the same cloth, regardless of their particular religious identity. What all of them need is their own particular Reformation and Enlightenment – Catholicism essentially rejected these when they happened in the 16th-18th centuries, and have been fighting against them every since (Vatican II was an aberration – something seen in the fact that Benny 16 has been furiously trying to undo it as fast as he can). Islam likewise needs their moment of Reformation and Enlightenment, it simply hasn’t even happened in a full scale movement yet. And fundamentalist Christians, theoretically children of the Reformation, are actually anything but Reformed bodies. They too rejected the main impulses of the Reformation and the Enlightenment (in fact, the Great Awakenings are clear examples of reaction against such progressive movements) and have also tried to overturn their advances.
The goal then of all religious people is to help trigger a Reformational or Enlightenment event for them, or to slowly move beyond the dead-enders demographically. Which is what I think is happening, which is why all fundamentalist groups have panicking.
Mark S.
@kay:
Well put. I said in another one of these pope threads that if they were really sorry, they’d be releasing a lot of correspondence between Ratzinger’s old office and the bishops dealing with this stuff. Right now they only release it when a court tells them they have to.
aimai
I really disliked the Bruni article because it didn’t talk about the central issue which is that “some sins are more equal than others.” You simply can’t talk about “the church” and its attitude towards sin, repentance, crime and punishment without acknowledging that some members of the Catholic body are more likely to be accused of “sin” and punished for it than others–yes, even when that punishment becomes either a civil or a criminal penalty.
When the church had the power–as soon as they converted Constantine, and anywhere they had the power throughout the middle ages, the Church never hesitated to treat crimes as sins, and sins as crimes. When they lost that right and were forced to (more or less) submit to secular authority they still punished some sinners much more heavily than others: excommunication, refusing to bury someone in sanctified ground, refusal to marry people, refusal to share church monies and charity with outcasts. In Brazil (?) recently they tried to excommunicate the mother of a 9 year old who got an abortion but refused to excommunicate the rapist. That’s not because Catholic ideas of sin don’t track well with modern ideas of crime but because modern Catholic ideas of who gets punished for transgressions are utterly focused on the importance of keeping men connected to god, and women connected to subservience.
The Catholic church is a hierarchical body with greater punishments accorded to the lesser ranks and decreased punishments as you go up the ladder. Under the heading of “fear of scandal” you can see how this works out in practice: the higher the social standing of the offender within the church, the more likely a coverup. The lower the social standing (children/women/non catholics) the more likely a punitive or exclusionary response.
aimai
Redshift
@Mark S.: Absolutely. We have no way of knowing if this was happening back when the Church was more powerful relative to national governments. There was an article out a few years ago when the uproar in the U.S. was in its heyday, talking about how the exact same thing had happened in Ireland, and the Church was able to completely suppress it because Ireland was a Catholic country. (I don’t know if this is the same scandal that’s coming out in Ireland now, or a different one.)
Frankly, in the absence of any evidence of changes that enabled this crap to happen in the past century, a much more reasonable assumption is that it has been going on forever, and we only know about it now because of the development of more open societies, less deference to church authority, and greater mass communication.
Better reporting of cases, not an increase in the disease.
kay
@freelancer:
I don’t think it’s about criminal prosecution. I think it’s about damages, and a fear of the discovery process that goes along with civil litigation.
You know, the Church could have addressed this, in an honest and straight-forward manner, even after the damage was done.
They didn’t. They stonewalled and transferred assets and had vulnerable people sign “agreements”. I’m no moral authority, but I would suggest if they’re worried about their soul they might just stop. Looks to me like they’re racking up sin after sin here. They’re still causing harm. They should probably stop beating the shit out of their victims, as a predicate to forgiveness.
Martin
@Redshift: Actually, it’s simpler than that. Apple has been fucked over time and time again by developers that refused to support products on their platform. When early online music efforts started, it was all secure Windows Media – except that Microsoft claimed that they couldn’t port the security bits to the Mac, so Apple users were left out. That kind of thing has happened constantly over the last 25 years.
Simply put, Apple will no longer tie their fate to the goodwill of outside agents. From Apple’s perspective, open source is fine, open standards are fine, and closed platforms are only fine if they are Apple’s closed platforms.
Sure, there’s some CPU effect there with Flash, but the real issue is that it’s a CPU effect *that Apple is powerless to fix or even to plan for*.
Josie
I question the use of the phrase “police their own ranks.” This implies that people were caught and punished in some way. I’m not sure being moved to a new parish with fresh victims qualifies as being policed.
beltane
@Redshift: Any civil authorities who complained about things like this in the past would have been threatened with excommunication. Going back further, those who spoke out could easily have been charged with heresy, incurring some rather nasty penalties.
Ratzinger is probably taken aback that this is being made into such a big deal.
Corpsicle
“fears of persecution that are embedded in the very genesis of the Church”
These dumb fucks haven’t been persecuted in centuries, but thanks to their own disgusting behavior they will be now. For at least the next few decades “Catholic Priest” will mean “pedophile”, and the every-day Catholics will be seen as supporting the rape and torture of children.
Even now the situation can be fixed. The Vatican would have to completely and publicly accept that the cover ups were just as bad as the original crimes, dismiss from positions of authority any individual who participated in the cover ups, agree to always notify civil authorities if it came to their attention that a priest broke the law, and start to allow priests to marry. But they won’t, of course. They have been driven for two millennia by arrogance, avarice and lust for power, and don’t seem to have any interest in changing.
kay
@Mark S.:
I only bring it up because they continue to rely on their own rules. Okay. I’ll play. Let’s look at all the rules.
They have one or another rule or directive pertaining to honesty, I would assume.
We’re not using that one? Omissions are A-OK? How so?
They want a religious-based analysis, but only selectively. They want the protections of civil authority, but none of the downside. This is a racket. It’s a sweet deal.
Svensker
Donohue was on FOX this afternoon (now THAT’S a shocker) saying that this vilification of the Church was just a Liberal Plot. Why? Because You Know How Liberals Are!
Has the world always been filled with people who are this crazy?
beltane
@Josie: They could very easily have transferred the offending priests to monasteries and sentenced them to a life of bitter austerity far, far away from any children. This option never seems to have been undertaken.
dan robinson
WWJF
Who Would Jesus Fuck?
I have Jason Berry’s “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” on my bookshelf. One of the cases he covered was one in Chicago where well connected lawyers were retained by the church and they basically stonewalled and leaned on the victims to not damage the church. The lawyers were all Catholics and from some of the largest law firms in Chicago.
Yes, bring on discovery. Get it out there, let people see what has been going on for so long.
Redshift
@Corpsicle: And of course, the other point that makes this argument BS is that nearly all religious sects were persecuted in their early years, and even if they had the impulse, the reason they don’t fought off secular prosecution of criminals in their ranks is that they don’t have the power to. The distinction is about power, not about persecution.
On a related note, we find out once again what a good idea separation of church and state is, eh? And as usual, it’s good for both, not just good for the state.
PTirebiter
@Redshirt:
I wondered about that too. His new wife is Catholic, so It could be as simple as Newt succumbing to the conditional demands of a trick snapper, but I imagine it’s a little more complex. I think the Church is probably especially attractive to authoritarians with a romantic streak. My guess is, it would more personal neediness than political calculation on Newt’s part.
Uloborus
This IS interesting. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to explain anything. How do you compare ‘being embarassed’ to ‘semi-institutionalized rape of children’?
But after reading this, I realized who we’re talking about. These are Roman Catholic priests. They have supposedly forsworn the entire world and all of its pleasures to serve God through the Church. The Church is, to these people, the absolute greatest good in the world. Given Paul’s influence on Catholicism and Christianity in general, maybe the only source of good.
So, you know, the lives of individuals, even thousands of them, are definitely secondary. Plus, I think we discount how important his explanation of their concept of repentance is. They know, know in their hearts, that any priest can overcome even a grave sin like child molestation. And that these priests are inherently, deeply good people who must be given that chance rather than turned over to secular authority that will assume they’re like every other criminal.
Ah, tribalism.
Redshift
@Svensker: Yeah, but they used to be limited to shouting on street corners instead of having access to nationwide TV networks.
beltane
@PTirebiter:
This would explain Tony Blair along with Newt Gingrich.
Martin
As an atheist, I would just like to say to Catholics right now “Where in your faith do your morals come from?”. It is widely believed that I have none because I have no divine text to guide me. In the Catholic church, it’s not the Bible directly that provides guidance but the interpretation by the church leadership. If the Pope says its okay to cover up the abuse of children, did he speak to God to reach that conclusion? It is from scripture? Or is it just a measure of the character of the people that are entrusted to provide moral guidance for a billion+ people?
JGabriel
Svensker:
It’s not vilification to call someone a child molester if, in fact, they molest children.
Reminds me of a line from last week’s Justified : Put it like this: If you was in the first grade and you bit somebody every week, they’d start to think of you as a biter.
.
Nutella
@aimai:
Yes, and another example is the many bishops who threaten to deny the sacraments to Catholic politicians who go against church teaching but somehow the only teaching that they’re worried about is the one about keeping women subservient by banning birth control and abortion. The church is also morally opposed to capital punishment and unjust war (such as the invasion of Iraq) but you never hear about a bishop going after any politicians who vote in favor of them, do you?
dan robinson
From the Google books link of “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”, Jason Berry. This is from the introduction to a late edition.
The book is a good read.
Redshift
@beltane: I followed a link to some unrelated article at Murdoch’s Times of London yesterday, and one of the links in their “today’s stories” section was to an article with a headline like “Was Therapy Partly to Blame?”
Apparently Ratziger sent some of these guys to therapy instead of having a church trial and then sent them back to work and then sent them to therapy again when they molested again, so therefore it’s the fault of that evil therapy stuff, rather than of the person in authority over them who decided it was okay to send them back to work. Repeatedly.
The mind boggles.
beltane
@Martin: The Pope doesn’t speak to God, he speaks for God. Because Jesus, who was both God and the Son of God, invested St. Peter with this authority. And all subsequent Popes have inherited this authority directly through St. Peter through a process called “Apostolic Succession”. It is similar in some ways to the Dali Lama allegedly being the incarnation of the previous Dali Lama.
beltane
@Redshift: Had a parish priest come out forcefully in favor of abortion rights, they would have dispensed with all that therapy stuff in an instant. The priest in question would have been defrocked after a speedy trial. This excuse is just more pathetic bullshit from the apologists.
dan robinson
In the early days of the church in Rome, property donated to the church was not taxed. Families donated property to the church and then a son from the family would become a priest to manage it. Celibacy was intended to break that cycle. There were no children of priests to inherit the property or lay claim to it.
So now they have a priesthood that is celibate, at least to women.
Nutella
Another important part of this defense on the part of the church hierarchy is that they are not so much defending the church as defending the priesthood. They are like policemen and doctors in that everyone who is a member of The Brotherhood is defended to the death no matter how many crimes or sins they commit.
Once you’re in one of those professions you can count on The Brotherhood to back you up no matter what. Priests raping children? They are priests and so will be protected from any punishment by all the other priests. Cops committing violent crimes? They are cops and so will be protected from any punishment by all the other cops, even if the whole world has seen him on video beating a bartender with a chair.
morzer
After reading the thread again, I am starting to get visions of Billy-Bob Ratzinger holed up in his sacred trailer, excommunicating black helicopters while screaming at his attorney to get his welfare checks flowing. Time for a late lunch, and then some conspiring to maintain the democratic institutions that menace rightwing “liberty”.
beltane
@morzer: The only workable solution would be for Nancy Pelosi to be made the next Pope.
lamh31
OT: HuffPo has a video up of some teabagger spitting on Rep Cleaver in response to Klannity “asking if there was any evidence proving that it had actually happened, and Tea Party groups offered a cash reward for proof.”
Congressman Spit On By Tea Party Protester (VIDEO)
Roger Moore
@freelancer:
Fixt. This isn’t about the particular crimes involved. This is about the Church trying to be above secular authority. They want to go back to the day when the Church was allowed to police its own, and a Church trial was a replacement for, not an addition to, an ordinary trial.
gwangung
@lamh31: Bet those freaks will never pay up. And will still deny it ever happened.
TenguPhule
A Hellfire missile for every teabagger’s home!
tyrese
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I just left a comment on his site to the effect that He’s never going to do jack and he knows it. So go check the mail for that gummint check.
Not holding my breath til that one gets approved :-)
TenguPhule
TenguPhule
Actually the Church was for butchering people and invasions before they were against it. They’re just returning to their roots.
Quackosaur
I’d say the Church is probably due for another major schism in the near future. The Reformation was (or, rather, started) nearly 500 years ago, and the Great Schism was about 450 before that. Sure, the issues are a bit different here—a lot more to do with Church practices than its dogma—but I don’t think that makes them any less important; in fact, I’d say the actions of the clergy would speak much louder than their words to the lay people.
I doubt we’ll see any war this time, but if the Vatican continues going down the road to Krazytown, I may need to reevaluate this statement.
Alex S.
@PTirebiter:
I think it’s because Newt realized that political evangelicalism is dying. Catholics (catholicism is about to become the religion of the majority of Americans – thanks to hispanics) are meant to fill the gap.
Nellcote
Feds raid christianist militia group in Michigan.
AhabTRuler
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
</Ripley, believe it or not>
morzer
@mcc:
After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
morzer
@Alex S.:
Only Newt could become a Catholic just as the whole organization was revealed as a vicious sham. It must feel like coming home for him.
Bloix
“fundamental and deliberate separation from secular society”
Oh, I misunderstood. I thought the Catholic bishops were telling members of Congress how to vote on health care. I guess they were all meditating on the mysteries in their churches and those were some other guys telling the politicians what to do.
4tehlulz
@Nellcote:
ZOMG ISLAMISTS HAVE INFILTRATED THE ARMY OF PATRIOTS
Nellcote
@Svensker:
I hope that asshole gets booked on every “news” show on the planet. Especially in this case, he’s about the worst possible spokesperson for the Church.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
They’re not against it now, at least not in principle. They’re against “unjust” war, but, of course, the Church is the final arbiter of which wars are just and which ones aren’t. IOW, the Church is always right, and it can support any war it damn well feels like.
beltane
@4tehlulz: Since when has the Michigan Militia gone all hopey-changey politically correct? Sellouts.
Mark S.
Speaking of Donahue, CNN gave Mr. Pedophilia Defender space to defend the Church. It’s the usual everybody does it bullshit (“Hey, what about that rabbi in Brooklyn?”) and nobody reports it but I found this particularly disgusting:
No, I would say the highest form of injustice is molesting kids and covering it up. And Fuck You, Bill, it is not immoral to be outraged at what the Church has done.
Liberty60
@kid bitzer:
Speaking as a Catholic, this is on target.
What many outside the Church don’t get, is that the Pope and Cardinals are not the Church; everyone thinks they are, even they think they are, but the truth is, the Church is actually the laypeople who make up its ranks. This isn’t a cult of personality- no one places their faith in a man, or even a group of men.
Meaning, in blunt terms, the entire lot of them can be sacked, jailed and punished, and the 500 million of us will go on with our lives, and pursue our spirituality.
As for the political equating of Catholicism with the modern American Right, the truth is a bit more complex (isn’t it always?)
Its always a problem when you try to portray a 2,000 year old institution with 500 million members, as This Way, or That.
Trying to overlay the politics of 2010 America onto a worldwide organization doesn’t yield a lot of clarity.
There are factions and divisions within the Church, between liberals and conservatives, and factions that don’t correlate nicely with the current American political scene.
But just to make it clear- I (and most of the laypeople I know) don’t have any pity for the guilty ones. There isn’t any excuse or fuzziness about the blame- they knew that crimes were being committed, but were more concerned with their own embarrassment than protecting children.
kay
@Nellcote:
He comes off as unhinged and defensive. That blizzard of intended-to-distract rhetoric, and how he’s always so angry.
What’s true about this is it’s sad. The victim’s stories are heartbreaking. If he doesn’t get that, he still doesn’t get it.
Anger isn’t the right response, for the Church’s defenders. I feel as if an angry response is proof-positive that they still don’t get it, on some gut human level.
Whoever told him the best defense is good offense gave him poor advice.
Mark S.
One more thing about that fucking Donahue column. At one point he says:
And a little later
Oh, now it’s just about “suspected wrongdoing,” not “sex abuse.” Sorry, we’re talking about sex abuse. And the onus is on you, asshole, to show where GM, TWA, Texaco, etc., made it a routine practice to cover up for employees suspected of raping children.
Craig
True story:
Several years ago I received in the mail a letter to my neighbor up the street (I recognized the name), but with my address. No problem: I fired up the web browser and went to Google to see if I could get his house number (I wasn’t sure which house was his.) Google returned hits, lots of news stories from Boston about a priest that was sued because a teen aged boy claimed they had an “encounter.” One of the stories had a picture of the priest…it was my neighbor.
BetsyD
Bruni was far too kind in that article. The Church distrusts secular governments because of a history of persecution? The government in Ireland was only nominally secular and bent over backward to kiss the Church’s butt–and this has been true for most of independent Ireland’s history. The Church recognizes sin, rather than crime? Does Bruni honestly think that if a priest were, I don’t know, hit over the head by someone, the alleged perpetrator wouldn’t be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, even if he confessed and asked forgiveness? This isn’t doctrinal or theological, it’s about a hierarchy covering for itself.
Seebach
@Liberty60: How’s about y’all stop funding the criminal organization, lest you be, y’know… complicit. You can pretend it’s not about “the people”, except for the fact that it’s your money they’re using.
You Don't Say
Now I have twice the incentive to root for WVU.
Oops wrong thread. ;-)
Elie
I believe that in many ways, some forms of religion are a proxy and outlet for expressing deep brain inpulses for territoriality — a need and instinct based on the fear that we have to make sure resources – food, water, safety and sex/reproducing ourselves, are safeguarded. It is deep in our midbrain and a feature of the brain going back to the age of reptiles…
The Catholics who support this, conservative Islamists, Hindi and Jews are operating out of that deep sense of fear and need — not out of higher brain needs as much right through this period — like spiritual salvation, freedom, peace, mercy or justice. All of those needs evolved much later when the cerebral cortex started influencing the deep reptile. But the reptile is always there. It never goes away because sometimes we need it for our own protection (fight or flight), so there is no way to safely completely extinguish it. So this instinct/impulse penetrates in many different situations in our human existence.
I believe strongly that while this instinct and impulse is very strongly expressed right now through many different religions and political movements, that it will not be successful. The Catholic church as manifest by this Pope is dying and will see a mass exodus of membership (something that it does not need). Evolving to one of the uncivilized movements that supports the disgusting practice of exploiting children is no way to build anything but contempt. People have plenty of alternatives to that. The Pope has made this church a contemptible laughingstock. That is worse than any other possible outcome — they should pray for martyrdom cause this is much worse. No lamb of God, no mercy, just mortification.
Ash Can
There’s even more to it than this. There’s a great deal of contention in the relationship between Church leaders and the Catholic laity as well. As far as (not all, but too many) Church leaders are concerned, our job is to shut up and do as they say. The wishes and needs of the laity are misunderstood at best, and generally ignored. The world that the priests occupy is substantially different and removed from the one the laity occupies. Often, it seems like we’re speaking different languages.
@Martin: Speaking as a Catholic, our moral foundation comes primarily from the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. As you and other non-religious people demonstrate, however, Jesus didn’t hold a monopoly on a moral philosophy that emphasized concern for and service to others. Nor does the pope hold any such monopoly. He speaks with what’s called infalliability on interpretation of Scripture only. (And even then, not all Catholics are willing to forget that he is, after all, just a human being.)
Mike G
This defines the American right wing to a T.
The fall of the Soviet Union left them with no bogeyman-scapegoat to focus their hate and stoke the gullible peasants into an obedient lather.
Saddam Hussein was a short-term solution, but Desert Storm was over too quickly and easily for him to durably fill the role of New Hitler.
With the directionless ‘conservative’ masses wandering forlornly wondering who they were supposed to hate and fear, voila, the early 90s saw the rise of Limaugh and the rest of rabies-radio, stoking them toward their new designated hate targets — the Clintons.
When Bill Clinton left office it was ‘Sore Loserman’ until 9/11 provided a new enemy straight out of central casting. The conservative machine coasted on hating Bin Laden, lustily ramming through torture and wiretapping to boot. Then when their lord and savior GW Bush’s incompetence meant an inability to provide any satisfying successes against Al Qaeda, they refurbished and wheeled out the old model Saddam(TM), Now With Nookyular Threat!
With Bush gone and Iraq/Afghanistan/Al Qaeda a festering fuckup but not dramatic enough to stoke the fear machine any more, Kenyan-Muslim-Antichrist Obama has become the new hate object.
As with any dysfunctional system, the hate inputs are getting larger, more desperate and more obviously detached from reality, as the mentally-bankrupt bogeyman-scapegoat machine thrashes on, fed by the fear and hate of the gullible enthusiasts voting and protesting against their own economic interests, and stoked by the moneyed interests who really benefit from distracted, angry, fearful, tribalist masses.
Ash Can
@Nutella:
Bullseye.
@Seebach: Liberty60 already answered your question. The “criminal organization” is only a tiny fraction of what we fund. Regardless of what Ratzinger and many cardinals and bishops would like to believe, they alone are not part and parcel of the Church. Sunday collections go far beyond funding the clergy; they fund many helpful (and to many people, necessary) charitable programs on the parish and dioscesan levels. Cutting off all financial support from the laity ditches a tremendously great deal more than the corrupt faction of the clergy. It’s like using a thermonuclear device to kill a mosquito.
The annual “Peter’s Pence” special collection is the only collection that actually goes directly to the Vatican. I won’t be kicking in this year (again), and I’m betting I’m not the only Catholic who blows it off, either.
LD50
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the ATF & the FBI do not give a fuck what he thinks.
Liberty60
Again, just to make note, the Church isn’t a centralized hub and spoke entity; each diocese and parish operates with a tremendous amount of autonomy, and reflects the makeup- the politics, the ethnicity, the worldviews and opnions/ biases of its laymembers.
Thats why you have parishes that are highly progressive, supporting immigrant farmworkers, social justice, and so forth, only a mile away from other parishes that emphasize only abortion, and speak reverently of the Free Market. Both operate within the Catholic doctrine, but just give greater weight to different aspects of the teaching.
Which is also why the entire Vatican could be vaporized, with only a mild ripple felt by the individual parishes. Its sort of like the organizational version of the Net.
Which is also why most lay people wish Donohoe would shut the hell up- at least the Pope can say a bunch of other Catholics voted for him; nobody voted to make Donohoe our spokesman.
Blue Raven
And I wonder if Donohoe has ever heard of embezzlement. It’s an internal corporate matter that tends to lead to prison sentences.