Disappointed, but Not Surprised...

The Pope didn't call for any resignations at this "smooth things over" Irish abuse summit. In fact, he posed for a nice picture with all of them, all smiles:

Talk about a united front. Or united facade...

I didn't expect him to actually do anything, of course, but I was still holding out some hope (I still am) that we'd get more than words. If this were the American democracy they're always fawning over...heads would be rolling!

It's so disappointing, but not surprising at all. I mean, it's worked for the Vatican in the past, why wouldn't it again? Catholics just aren't outraged enough to force a change in the status quo.

Who the hell do they think they are? Sanctimoniously traumatizing the Irish with all sorts of repressive pseudo-jansenist guilt over "dirty thoughts" or touching themselves (Angela's Ashes or Portrait of the Artist, anyone?) and then all the while molesting children or covering it up! These men are sociopaths! Sick, sick twisted men. Not just the molesters, but everyone who gave them a pass. And anyone who gives them a pass.

One also can suspect that part of this is trying to salvage mandatory celibacy and, hence, the justification for a cushy paid full-time priestly bureaucracy (which is really quite unnecessary to run the Church). Not that merely being single and chaste causes people to abuse children, of course, but when you institutionalize it and create a secretive homosocial in-club dedicated to maintaining the pretense that the "requirement" is actually being kept (when it isn't, though usually, at least, it is with consenting adults) by holier-than-thou clerics...then you're bound to attract your share of perverse freaks looking for a convenient place to hide, and even among those who arent, that dynamic nurtures cover-ups and mutual blackmail, so defensive institutional self-preservation and rank-closing is what you'll get.

Some Irish bishops may be shamed into resigning by their own people, let's pray. But if the Vatican isn't going to make them resign, with sackcloth and ashes, even after all this, then maybe there are some other people who should resign too. Ahem.

We should demand it. For the sake of the children, for the sake of the Church, Catholics should demand that their bishops step down. All of them. However, the old wisdom goes, "everyone hates Congress, but loves their own congressman"...most Catholics wouldn't dare demand that "their" bishops and the ones that they "like" step down.

Even though child molestation was covered up, pro-abortion politicians aren't excommunicated, and the liturgy was destroyed. We need a clean slate. There should be a massive overhaul and restructuring of the entire hierarchy or perhaps the clergy in general. They should all be replaced by outsiders, by men who haven't been resocialized into their whole bizarre BDSM game.

Which is exactly what you get whenever the concepts of sex and obedience find their way into the same sentence. Whenever control over peoples sexuality is used as a way to control their lives. It's the same reason you have problems with rape in prison, with hazing in frat houses, with sexual harassment in the military. But at least the military has been doing a lot lately to encourage openness, to keep people anchored in the civilian world mentally, to keep people grounded in their families emotionally and preserving their individual identity. These utterly out of touch men, on the other hand, are still in a spidery world where sex and power are inseparably linked, and that is never going to produce a healthy situation.

And now, they're going to get away with it just doing some vague "penance". Which I doubt will involve any true sacrifices. Like with politicians, they made the problems. It is utterly stupid and naive to trust them with making the solutions.

Shameful. Shameful. Shameful. Cowards.

If something isn't done, soon, the wrath of God will be unimaginable.