I basically go to church about as often as the Nets make the playoffs Cubs win the World Series (might as well be honest), so my memory of the religious mythology might be off, but I didn’t remember this piece of lore:
The leader of the nation’s second-largest diocese urged his congregation to pray for the pope, saying he was suffering some of the same unjust accusations once faced by Jesus.
Can someone show me in the bible where Jesus was unjustly accused of covering up systematic pedophilia?
(via)
C Nelson Reilly
Jesus thinks you’re a jerk
beltane
The last time I went to church was on Christmas Day 1999. The priest told the very affluent congregation that conspicuous consumption was nothing to feel guilty about as it was just one more reflection of God’s love for us.
I have known drug dealers with a higher sense of morality than that.
eric
Easy: 2 Sodomites 13-16….and he laid hands only to see the boy rise up. So he smote him. Hard.
scarshapedstar
Hmm. He wants children to suffer and to… “come unto” him.
Hmmmmmmmm. Well, at least he wasn’t coming unto the children.
cleek
they wouldn’t have crucified him, if he wasn’t guilty of something. trust in the wisdom of the authorities. they keep us safe.
HeartlandLiberal
No. Perhaps because there is of course no such passage. Certainly not in the New Testament.
I suspect if we searched the Old Testament hard enough we, thought, we would probably find the opposite, i.e. we would probably be told that the Pope’s transgressions required us to stone him to death. There are plenty of such penalties liberally applied in the Old Testament.
Frankly, on a serious note, any one in the Church who still gives a damn about salvaging its sorry decaying hulk from total collapse might want to consider that right at the moment Pope Beenie is nothing but a toxic liability.
This story is NOT going to go away, and it is growing day by day, as people who were abuse are crawling out of the woodwork from country after country, all of the with solid proof and documentation of a litany of cover-ups and abuse that makes one want to heave.
kommrade reproductive vigor
But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 19:14)
[scs: I owe you a Coke.]
AhabTRuler
The last time I was in a church was for a funeral.
The last time I attended a church service, it was for a funeral.
The last time I was in a Funeral Parlor and a cemetery, it was for a funeral.
OK, the last two aren’t that shocking.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I don’t think we are doing the whole civilization thing right. Shit don’t make sense like it should.
popegrope
wow, these guys really are better than us. accuse them of heinous abuses they’ve actually committed and they’re JUST LIKE OUR DEAR LORD JEEZUS, UNFAIRLY PERSECUTED!!!!
beltane
It will all work out in the end. Andrew Sullivan has written several sternly worded blog postings demanding that the Pope resign. I am sure Pope Ratzinger will take Sully’s advice.
MikeJ
Mark 14
51And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:
52And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Next step: Blame the Jews!
Politically Lost
I am endlessly fascinated by this story. The crime considered to be the worst of all crimes is either silently endorsed or covered up by an institution and yet the institution survives and has active defenders.
What would the catholic church have to do in order to be finally discredited?
Support Obama?
Because raping children in the confessional is apparently not sufficient evidence of corruption.
beltane
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Not all the Jews. But I’m sure Rahm Emanuel has a hand in this.
robertdsc
Yet what would happen to Ratz if he was tossed out? Is there an ex-Popes club like for past Presidents? Would he slink off into retirement without saying a word?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The worst part of that, to me, was that he got a standing O from the congregation. A friend of my mother’s, really hard core Catholic, thinks all these stories are just made up, and another friend of hers and my mother’s has two sons who were molested. It’s seriously fucked up.
Chad S
In the lost Book of Jacko.
Linkmeister
Given human nature, there must be a Catholic equivalent of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” I wonder what it is.
Comrade Javamanphil
Is this the Anti-Godwin law? The chance that someone will compare themselves to Jesus being persecuted is directly correlated to the seriousness of the accusation.
Religion for the modern era: All mine enemies are Hitler. All that I have done makes me pure as Jesus. Repeat ad nauseam.
Kyle E. Moore
I think it was Bullshit 3:16 but my New Testament is a little shaky so I could be wrong.
calling all toasters
Little-known fact: Jesus was in the Herod Youth.
danimal
@Linkmeister: The DaVinci Code?
Max
@beltane: Well, to be fair, it probably isn’t Rahm’s “hand”.
MikeJ
@Comrade Javamanphil: If not Jesus, Rosa Parks.
Lev
The reason they’re saying this is the same reason they covered up for the pedophile priests in the first place: a belief that they’re right, that they only have to answer to God and not to other people, that bad people are out to get them, etc. Niebuhr once said that Catholicism was basically medieval in its outlook, and if this scandal is proving anything, it’s that he was more right than we figured. Back then, pedophilia was no big deal, from what I understand.
Leelee for Obama
@Politically Lost: For that they would surely be damned forever to hell.
@Comrade Javamanphil: Sounds just about right.
As a nauseous reader of these bits of info, I have to say, I thought nothing would ever shock me again when it came to Hoekestroika or this new version, but that pile of crap is the frikkin limit.
Al Not a Catholic
God damn it God! What does one of these fellers have to do to get smitten with your righteous anger? It says in that there book that you once killed someone for lying about their tithing right there on the spot! And now you let these boy rapists walk around all puffed up with their own perverted brand of righteous indignation?
Are you even there?
Didn’t think so.
Still sucks to be a rapist.
El Cid
I’m sure Jesus would have stood up for the multi-billion dollar church protecting child molesters, as opposed to the worthless shifty Negroes fighting to get homeless people housed, keep people from losing their homes, and fighting usurious interest rates on payday loans (ACORN).
Keith
Didn’t Jesus say something about “Blessed are the twinks, for they shall inherit the earth”? I’m sure they’ve got a non-canonical Bible they can dig up with something closer to pure pedophilia if that’s not good enough.
Jon
One of the more interesting things about this whole scandal is how so many of us as well as the press (I believe) are referring to the Pope as “Ratzinger”, which I think is great/indicative of how much respect his uh…”office” has lost. Even in the waning days of JPII he was always John Paul II and never “Wojtyła”.
MDW
If we could still find that part of the Bible, it wouldn’t be much of a cover-up.
cleek
if the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
he’d be gunned down cold by the CIA
The The baby, yeah. let’s party like it’s 1989!
jeffreyw
I was marched to church in Ft Gordon, Georgia-along with the entire training company. It was our turn. Last time I’ve been to church but for weddings.
Lev
@Jon: He’ll always be Ratz to me!
eemom
@beltane:
yes, but where exactly was Rahm’s hand? Where’s that doll?
feebog
So the Pope is being persecuted, just like Jesus, heh? So lets do the whole 49 mile boogy, nail a crown of thorns in Bennie’s noggin and hoist him up on a cross for three days. That should make for some great headlines.
HRA
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
“Next step: Blame the Jews!”
No, it’s always the first step in the Catholic church. Any minute now…
Leelee for Obama
@feebog: And just in time for Good Friday, how appropriate.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Taking the Gospels at face value, Jesus was more or less accused of two things; unjustly he was accused of sedition, justly he was accused of blasphemy. The archbishop is being paraphrased in the story that I read, so it’s hard to tell what exactly he really did say, but any comparison with putative Jesus would regardless be laughable.
Joseph Nobles
It’s a great gig for the pedophiles – they outlaw contraception and abortion, making for large, unwieldy families in the flock, and then they get the pick of the ones that get lost in the crowd.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out they’re having a recruitment problem because they’ve always molested the target demographic. It’s only these days that the molestation is seen as a problem.
(Of course there are other reasons why people enter the priesthood or convents. But I’m dead certain this is one of the primary ones. And of course the system wasn’t set up intentionally to facilitate child abuse. But it does and people have a way of making the same mistake over and over if the results please them in some sick way.)
ETA: Molesting the kids or young ones has always seemed rather Pauline to me. He had some kind of run-in with John Mark, causing JM to go back to Palestine on one of the missionary journeys. Then he took up with Timothy and circumcized the kid himself when it became an issue with some of the Jewish Christians. The man wasn’t right.
The Ithacan
The child rape scandal is just the far end of a continuum of the catholic church’s abuse of young people. Survivors of catholic schools like to make light of the treatment they received during those years but underneath the “nun jokes” is a terrible quantity of pain.
I was talking with a catholic school survivor friend of mine about all of this and we agreed that the “ordinary” abuse and guilt-tripping that was, and remains, part of this system is not a bug— it’s a feature.
The whole point is to engender a life time of guilt and self loathing– the child rape is just the logical extreme of a highly effective set of time tested cult practices.
ChrisZ
It’s right after the part wear Jesus says America is a Christian nation.
Loneoak
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Ratzinger’s Law! A new meme is born!
jl
There is something about that, and not at all favorable to the pope, in the Book of Erasmus. But I cannot quote chapter and verse, so check it out.
Nellcote
Sally Quinn called for the pope to step down. When you’ve lost The Quinn…
ChrisZ
@ChrisZ:
*where
I don’t want to here about it (see what I did their (ok I’m done for real now))
UlyssesUnbound
Is it just me, or is Cole really on top of his game tonight re: wit/sarcasm?
arguingwithsignposts
Haven’t read all the comments yet, but OMFG! I spent time in seminary in a previous life, and that is just about the most abhorrent bullshit I have read in a loooonnngg time. WTF? It’s possible he’s being misquoted. For his sake, I hope so, because if not, he’s got a serious case of “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
Oh, well, time for some smudge to cleanse the palate.
mr. whipple
I heard on the radio today that Ratz wanted to do something about this long ago, but JPII stopped him.
Glen Tomkins
When it suits their turn, they trundle out the antinomianism
Any theologian worth his salt (and a big chunk of them on the planet at any given time have that salary paid by the Pope) would have no trouble with this one. It’s slow pitch.
Sure, the Church mostly makes use of legalism in analyzing moral questions. You are supposed to do A and avoid doing B, because doing A is God’s commandment, while avoiding B is God’s commandment. It’s God’s Law. You say you support a woman’s right to choose? Sorry, that’s against God’s Law, nothing we can do about it, so we have to be against abortion rights no matter what the practical consequences of following that Law.
You’re absolutely right about this question if you only take the legalistic approach. No way is pedophilia encouraged, made a requirement of God’s Law. While not explicitly condemned anywhere I can think of, God is pretty much agin’ any sort of sex, and pedophilia surely counts. So, sure, no way does Jesus ever in any way condone pedophilia, much less ever do anything of the sort, anything in any way sexual, in fact, Himself. So, no, Jesus was not accused of pedophilic Law-breaking, or of covering for pedophile Law-breakers.
But, you see, there’s this other approach they can take to analyzing questions of morality. The Law isn’t to be blindly obeyed, you are supposed to pull a donkey out of a well it’s fallen into, even on the Sabbath, if a regard for even donkey life requires that the Law against working on the Sabbath to be broken. And the Law, if applied in all its rigor, can sometimes be more unjust than the Law-breaking. Jesus stops the mob from applying the penalty for adultery called for in the Law upon the Woman Found in Sin, stoning, presumably because this is a common failing, shared by many (all?) in the mob, for which stoning is too extreme a penalty. We certainly aren’t to imagine that Jesus thinks that adultery is a good idea, is in any way now allowed, much less required by, the Law.
In fact, that’s just the approach they’re taking, comparing the Pope’s actions, and those of the hierarchy in general, towards their pedophile priests, to that of Jesus towards the Woman Found in Sin. It’s not that pedophilia is alright, is anything less than a terrible sin. It’s just that these priests need to be judged with compassion and mercy, and not thrown to the legalistic lynch mob.
The comparison of Jesus’s persecution to the firestorm of criticism enveloping the Pope follows naturally from this appeal to antinomianism. Jesus was persecuted by the Jewish religious authorities for blasphemy, largely blasphemy against the Law, for His antinomianism, for doing things like interfering with the Law in matters such as that of the Woman Found in Sin. Just so, at least according to this line of thought, the Pope’s critics are angry with him for applying mercy and the forebearance of the antinomian approach to the pedophile priests, rather than judging them by the strict standards of legalism.
Of course, at the end of the day, the existence of these two very different approaches to analyzing some people’s failings, some getting the strict judgmental approach, while others get the lenient approach, is just another way of saying that the Church has a gaping double standard. Its made men can, almost literally, do no wrong. “All things are lawful”, or, “all things are just for the just man” are the extreme statements of antinomianism. The Church seems pretty much all the way there with respect to its pedophile priests and the princes of the Church who shielded them. “All things are lawful.”
Damn good thing these folks no longer make our laws. Let’s try and keep it that way, shall we? I can think of no better way to keep it that way than to prove to these people with criminal prosecutions that they are not above human law, however much they have convinced themselves that God’s Law absolves them.
stannate
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
(This part of the Catholic Mass always made me giggle like Beavis & Butt-head.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
@HRA: Nothing is working. Send in the nuns!
Felonious Wench
The Vatican’s position is that the Pope is being persecuted by those they feel wish to harm Benedict’s reputation…which they equate to Christianity itself. In other words, criticizing Benedict is the same as persecuting Jesus.
It’s a false equivalency. Jesus was tried and put to death for his actions against the status quo that were seen to be subversive. Benedict covered up the actions of abusive priests to MAINTAIN the status quo. If there is any equivalency to be found, the Pope is Caiaphas, not Christ.
It’s absurd. Falls under Hoekstroika.
Splitting Image
As I understand it, Jesus was accused of two things: being King of the Jews, and fulfilling the prophecy of a Saviour.
If we are to understand that he was unjustly accused, then I guess neither of those things was true.
Right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mr. whipple: I bought into the whole JP2 thing for a long time, even as I drifted from cafeteria Catholic to secular humanist atheist. Seeing an old video from the 80s of him literally wagging his finger at some nuns who were working against a right wing gov’t in IIRC El Salvador. It was the beginning of the end of my admiration.
ChrisZ
Just remember that Ratzi was the best that the cardinals could come up with to be Pope.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ChrisZ:
The Best and the Whitest.
Leelee for Obama
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When he did nothing substantive about the assassination of Romero, and the rape and murder of the nuns, I knew he was nothing. I wasn’t involved with the Church at the time, for years, but I had some affection for JP2. Not after the crushing of the social justice movement in South America.
TuiMel
@scarshapedstar:
I had nearly the same thought. Can we (or can Catholics) impeach the Pope?
mr. whipple
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, I just thought it was conveeenient to blame the dead dood.
Little Dreamer
@Joseph Nobles:
He had a problem with Peter too. The two of them just didn’t like each other.
Little Dreamer
@TuiMel:
The Pope is Vicarius Filii Dei (the vicarious impersonation of God on Earth) – as God on Earth, the Pope is unimpeachable. Only God can take the Pope’s title of office away by rendering him dead, and unfortunately, he’s been out to lunch for ages, would you care to leave a message?
Mark S.
@ChrisZ:
I think he got elected because he had dirt on every one of these cardinals.
ChrisZ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, since Jesus was white it only makes sense that the Pope would be!
Chad N Freude
Ecumenicism in action:
Not only the Catholics, but the Mormons (Morons?) and the Ultra-Orthodox Persons of the Jewish Persuasion and the Baptists and the Methodists and the Greek Orthodox and the Buddhists and the Hindus and the Muslims . . .
Have I left anybody out?
EIGRP
@stannate: OH GOD! OH GOD!
SiubhanDuinne
@MikeJ #12:
The LOLCat Bible translation is even more picturesque:
51 Thiz one guy wuz followinz Happy Cat, wearinz nuddin but linen undiez. Teih catched him, 52 but he left teh linen undiez and ran off nakedz. lol!
Courtesy http://www.lolcatbible.com
TuiMel
@Little Dreamer:
How about: Yo! God! WTF?
Mnemosyne
@Little Dreamer:
Can you blame Peter? You have this asshole coming around who never actually met your friend Jesus but claims that he knows Him better than you did.
Paul’s lucky he didn’t get a sock in the jaw from the actual Apostles.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mr. whipple: That too, I guess. I think these guys are capable of almost anything. Wasn’t it JP-2 who saved Bernie Law’s ass?
Little Dreamer
@ChrisZ:
If Jesus was white* (and the Pope too) then I have to ask, since Obama is half black, how exactly does the Anti-Christ (who is supposed to copy Jesus to the point that most people would believe he was Jesus) equate to Obama?
*realizing (of course) that Jesus was Jewish, not white, nor black.
gnomedad
@mr. whipple:
What? Ratz wanted to bypass the Holy Pseudonym?
Little Dreamer
@Mnemosyne:
What’s worse, he decided to rewrite most of the religious texts while reinterpreting them by inserting his own ideas.
Ballsy kind of guy, huh?
lacp
I’m not really down with the prayer thing, but if I ever did have the desire to talk righteously to myself I wouldn’t waste my air on Bendover Benedict.
Donald G
Being Pope is a pretty good gig if you can get it. God’s representative on Earth, being infallible on doctrinal matters, pretty much immune from the laws of man and God (since you’re the guy who determines what God’s law is), and multitudes of brainwashed suckers, er, believers who’ll defend you to their dying breath even if you may be one of the vilest monsters on the planet.
How could any authoritarian Arschloch resist the job’s appeal.
Brachiator
@Jon:
I’m holding out for the NY Post to refer to him as Pope Ratzo.
Quackosaur
@TuiMel:
Well, you’d probably first have to try reviving conciliarism, but I doubt that would happen (given that the matter of councils vs. popes has been settled, more or less); even then, there’s no guarantee that a council of bishops would move against the Pope. Benedict could resign, though the last Pope to do that was 600 years ago.
On the whole, the RCC seems to lack ways of dealing with any sort of succession/replacement problem concerning the Pope that doesn’t involve death. What if the Pope goes rogue and decides he is in it for Teh Evulz? Can you declare the Pope a heretic? What if the Pope gets senile or Alzheimer’s? Will he start asking who this Jesus person is and why he’s so popular?
—–
In any event, you’d think it would be some form of blasphemy (or at least in poor taste) to compare being called out for covering up scandal with the persecution of Jesus.
ChrisZ
@Little Dreamer:
That’s easy, just ask Michael Jackson. The real hard one is figuring out how it was that Jesus was a Muslim.
geg6
Another thing that many non-Catholics and younger Catholics do not know or understand is how the Church viewed children before Vatican II. Essentially, take their way of viewing women (sinful, gleefully looking for opportunities temp others to sin, a threat to be controlled and not pampered) and apply it to these small demons. That is what explains the cruelties for which nuns are justly famous. That all changed with Vatican II, but Ratzi is accelerating the complete roll back of that ray of light that JPII started. He is only doing what he should according to what the Church has taught. Kids are nothing but sin-filled vessels that can be filled by Satan or by the grace of god in the form of his representative on earth: the parish priest, the bishop of the diocese, or the heir to Peter who lives in the Vatican.
The Raven
There are too many choices for “Croak of the Day” today, but this one is definitely in the running.
BTW, we’re starting to see a new prudery. Expect to start hearing that all our problems are the result of…loose morals, meaning people having sex.
Croak!
zulif mclaren
I believe that’s in the book Hookers 12:127.
Joseph Nobles
There’s always the John Paul I solution.
New Yorker
Good job updating the analogy, John. It may seem an eternity ago, but the Nets went to the finals twice in the past 10 years.
Quackosaur
@John Cole
Also, as a fair-weather Cubs fan, I would say I care about your maligning of the storied franchise (now under new ownership!), but I don’t, so carry on.
Fax Paladin
@Jon: I think what’s happening is that he’s being called Benedict when referring to actions taken as pope, and Ratzinger when referring to actions taken as a cardinal or archbishop, before he became pope. His predecessor is referred to entirely as John Paul II because the events in question all occurred while he was pope.
stannate
@Fax Paladin:
How about Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we’ll call him Ratzo, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we’ll call him King Benny?
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkdYRIGceA
TenguPhule
So they’re just trying to pour the holy juice into the children before Satan can?
petorado
Wow. If Jesus was accused of the same “unjust accusations” that the current pope is, then those twelve apostles that dropped everything and followed Jesus around were a whole lot younger than I was lead to believe and the whole pedophilia thing is entirely more systemic than just the last few decades.
Anne Laurie
@ChrisZ:
Ratzi had been running the “Office for the Protection of the Faith”, aka The Inquisitors, for many years under JPII. I can’t be the only one to assume ‘Benedict’ had as many compromising files in his office as the late J. Edgar Hoover.
asiangrrlMN
I go to my brother’s church from time to time. One Christmas, it was to see my niece in the play. A modern musical (note to writers, it’s not a musical just because you throw a hymn in at the end of it. You must have JAZZ HANDS!, too). In a nutshell, the story was about how you can buy a ready-made family at the local store and everyone will live happily ever after. It’s like a Harlequin romance for Christians.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
My more cynical side says that the reason the church is pushing the Pope Ratzi = Jeebus = Persecution line is because they know that there is no god or jeebus who will hold them accountable for their “sins” (because in church parlance, that is exactly what they are: SINS). They are a religious version of NAMBLA, IMO have been for centuries and their problem is that they can’t deal with the modern communications we have today. Back then it was very easy to hide shit like this and get away with it, there is no doubt about that. Not so with the instant communications we have today.
Progress has passed up catholicism and many other religions whose members insist on pretending as if we are still living in the middle ages. If there is a god he (or she) has a pretty twisted sense of humor in leaving man to dictate to man (and woman) about god.
Nothing could go wrong with that, amirite?
4tehlulz
Pedobear for pope.
booger
Oh SNAP! That’s gonna leave a mark!
cminus
See, this is what happens when you let someone who isn’t religiously observant write the snark. Everything has to link to the highest-profile Catholic scandal du jour, even if it’s about a completely different scandal.
The Archbishop wasn’t referring to the child molestation scandals, but to accusations that Ratzinger is planning on overthrowing the Italian government and declaring himself King of the Jews. And these accusations are probably unjust, at least in part; Interpol’s best assessment is that Ratzinger lacks the power to be an existential threat to the Israeli government.
chopper
@eric:
“and yay, he tappeth his feet thrice about, and did accost the attentions of the stall next, and he did know him, over the sink by the hand-dryer…three wetsuits did he wear.”
CJ
Be fair, the pedophilia was ad hoc. The cover-up was systematic. ;)
twiffer
suffer the little children to come unto him?
wolfetone
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: FTW!
DavidTC
I’m with Splitting Image above. What exactly was Jesus unjustly accused of?
Basically everything he was accused of was true. Okay, he wasn’t exactly claiming to be ‘King of the Jews’, but that’s a reasonable misunderstanding by the Romans, who were going along with what the Jews thought someone who was claiming to be the ‘Messiah’ was claiming.
And he was accused of was breaking various Laws, like healing the sick on the Sabbath, which, again, he actually did. He explained that is not, in fact, a violation of God’s Law, and he should know.
And he was put to death for heresy, but, like it or not, Christianity is a pretty serious Jewish heresy.
I can’t think of anything Jesus was accused of doing that he didn’t actually do. He did stuff that people didn’t like, and that they said was morally wrong, and he corrected their misunderstanding of the Law…but he did everything they said he did.
…which actually works, analogy-wise, if the Pope is arguing he did protect pedophiles, but that’s not morally wrong.
Jesus: Some of you have said I healed the sick on the Sabbath and broke God’s law. Well, I did heal the sick on the Sabbath, but God has no problem with that.
Pope: Some of you have said I protected pedophiles and broke God’s law. Well, I did protect pedophiles, but God has no problem with that.
Um…ooookay.
EIGRP
@eric: I thought that was Sodomites 69
Ed-words
“Pray” that he does NOT resign. The longer he resists, the worse off is the Church! Whoopee!
KEEP celibacy! Imagine how many more Catho holics
would have been born without it!
Jed Hughett
Since they are suppose to live an absolutely chaste life perhaps all candidate for the priesthood should submit to radical castration, cock and balls, zip, gone. They are not supposed to use them so why not remove the temptation. Bastards, there is nothing worse than sexual abuse of children.