Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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.

3 comments:

Juan said...

I couldn't agree more. People are not outraged enough in general! No one really cares about anything any more. I don't count myself as an exception. In fact, I acknowledge that, most of the time, it's difficult for me to care about anything other than myself unless it relates to or affects me directly! I also think an overhaul would be for the best, if highly unlikely.

Kelly said...

Oh, I know. It totally disappoints me and, yes, it is harming my faith.

I have no direct experience of God. I have had no miraculous answers to prayers. I have never "felt" anything supernatural. The only single reason I have faith is because of my experience as a cradle Catholic believing and trusting people who said that God exists, that he wants us to worship this particular way as Catholics, and that it really is all true.

And when I consider that so many priests and bishops are, in fact, total and utter slimeballs, why in the world should I trust what they have to say about God and the meaning of life when they can't even be trusted in ordinary matters?

Anybody who can't see that physically and sexually abusing children is wrong, wrong, wrong, doesn't have any good judgement and shouldn't be trusted with *ANYTHING*.

So I generally try to maintain "custody of the eyes" and not read too much about these abuse scandals because, although I know intellectual that it shoudn't bother me so much---it DOES bother me.

It has damaged my faith in God already.

I could easily see myself becoming an atheist over this garbage.

A Sinner said...

I wouldn't become an atheist, but I could see it driving me towards a sort of indifferentism towards the hierarchy and the institutional church. A sort of "individualist Catholicism" of my own kind. Arturo Vasquez said some interesting things along those lines, reported on another blog here:
http://athaumaturgus.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/food-for-thought/

In a way, it already has. I used to be a super-uptight neocon worrying about every little thing the Pope said ("This pope likes cats?! I'd better get a cat!" "This pope hates Harry Potter?!? I'd better not read it!") Then I learned what is truly essential, and all the leniency we truly do have to disagree with the hierarchy on all non-essential matters, and became more willing to think for myself and not worry too much about idolizing the human administrators or trying to be a teacher's pet.