Soapbox

   I've been reading about the Catholic church's latest and and most vile form of spin control in the fallout over the pedophile priest cover-up scandals that have rocked it this year. They've decided to at last do the right thing and- blame the gays.
   And while my feelings of nausea and disbelief and yet total lack of surprise were warring with each other, I found myself indulging in a little "what if" fantasy.

 

   What if the Republican party- or maybe the Democrats- had been in absolute control of this country for a thousand years: Congress, the chief executive and every court in the land. They proposed the laws, passed the laws, judged the laws and decided who had broken them and how they should be punished. You were required to live your life, both publicly and privately, as they and they alone found fitting. If you didn't like their decisions, you could appeal… to them. Heh heh. Good luck with that.

    Except that the revenue stream was really the most important thing to the party. (They wouldn't never admit it, but the top dogs all lived in palaces and even called themselves "princes") So the laws were the most strictly enforced for the ones who paid the least. Send a big enough check to the party and they could be persuaded to look the other way for even the most heinous of crimes. But if you were a nobody with nothing to offer other than your faithful yearly taxes, you were screwed.

    And if the president said something, it was true. Even if your own eyes said it was a lie. Even if he said it was raining on a sunny day. Even if he was senile, or insane, or was just a total dick. Not only that, but you had to kiss his shoes every time he came by!

 

    What if any time anyone tried to challenge the party platform, to suggest even the slightest modification of their laws to keep up with modern thinking about human rights and with scientific advancements in medicine, technology, astronomy, whatever- the challengers were threatened, branded seditious, driven out and even burned at the stake. (You know- like on FOX news.)

 

     Now occasionally one of these traitors had refused to be bullied and went off and started their own new little country with their own rules, and in time maybe some other people thought they made more sense and joined them. Still, millions of people stayed where they were, because their parents and their grandparents had lived there, and the party assured them that those other countries were inferior and unsafe, and anyway, they would end up dead if they changed allegiances.

 

    And so it was that in a thousand years the most significant change this country had made was to grudgingly agree to conduct their business and write their laws- the ones you had to follow or die- in a language you could at least read! woo hoo! Of course the party and the nation would never significantly change. Why should they? You don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

 

.  It is my belief that any church that allows itself to become an exclusive club, that has an cover change and exhorts obedience from members with threats and abuse ceases to be a church and becomes just another institution where absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    The Roman Catholic church is probably, at its core, no worse than many other churches, but it has wielded an absolute power over life and death~ and life after death~ for much longer than most, and so it has become more rigid, and more corrupt, than most.

    Their excuse for this intractability, oppression and murder is that it's all "God's will", despite the fact that rigidness inevitably leads to injustice and cruelty, and the God they claim to worship is all about mercy and justice. But they have accumulated massive wealth and power over the centuries by never giving an inch, and see no reason to mess with a winning formula now, just because it would be the just and loving (and the Christlike) thing to do.

 

   Of course, with this attitude you find yourself defending all manner of ludicrous, contradictory positions, for example, the idea that God loves us all… except the ones who don’t say exactly the right words out of the right translation of the right book. These people, however well meaning and loving to their fellow man will writhe in eternal torment.
    That God wants everyone to partake of the sacramental bread and wine to be redeemed- but if you happen to be dangerously allergic to wheat- too bad. God apparently doesn't love you enough to allow rice bread.

    That all life is sacred except for the life of an ill, pregnant woman.

     And that if priests are molesting children and the church is letting them get away with it- it must be the fault of homosexuals.

 

    Study after study shows us that pedophilia is not about sexual preference, any more than someone who rapes a comotose hospital patient does it because he is sexually attracted to her! Adult men don't molest little boys because they're male- they molest them because they're little, which means they are accessable and easily intimidated into keeping quiet.

   
    A vast majority of molesting priests (as with most pedophiles) self-identify as heterosexual. Most priests molest little boys because, thanks to the continuing institutional chauvinism of the church, boys are the ones they have the most contact with.

 

   So naturally, in the face of all this evidence, (and after decades of hiding their dirty laundry from not just the public but the police) the Bishops Boys club of Catholic church came to the conclusion that the best way to deal with the problem of a church which is protecting and abetting people who rape children… is to carefully screen everyone who tries to enter seminary to make sure none of them have the slightest whiff of homosexual leanings. In fact, they've announced that anyone who even believes in gay rights will not be allowed in. You're welcome, abused children and their traumatized families!
 

     Rooting out all gay and gay-friendly priests in response to a pedophilia cover-up is the moral equivalent of attacking Iraq because of 9/11. Other than ensuring that future priests will not have a flair for fashion or enjoy show-tunes, it accomplishes absolutely nothing. It just perpetuates the church's centuries-old persecution of an entire class of people. (see "God loves us all except" above). And it proves that they fundamentally don't get the nature of the public outrage. People aren't hurt and angry because sometimes priests molest children. that's hideous, but sometimes teachers, and coaches, and IRS agents molest children.
   What has people so angry and ready to question their entire faith tradition is that when priests molest children, the first, last and only thing the Church thinks of is its reputation.

 

    Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that the Roman Catholic church as an entity (not the members as individuals) is no longer a true church. It's just a corporation run amok, drunk on power, wealth and privelege which does not care who suffers in order to assure that the leaders all get their golden parachutes.

    My reasoning?
    A true church ministers to the people before it takes care of itself. It protects and loves the innocent- even those who are not members- before it protects itself. Damage control is just not part of it's philosophy.

    A true church realizes that absolute morality is an oxymoron, because God is the one who forgives, with a forgiveness cannot be bought, or even earned. God knows that one size does NOT fit all.

    A real church knows that life with a blade at your throat isn’t really living, faith that is required isn't really faith, and forgiveness that is given for a price isn’t really forgiving.

    Because it’s not about the kind of bread, it’s about getting people fed.

    It’s not about enforcing the laws, but about finding a common cause.

 

    A true church does not give its leaders unchecked power over helpless children and then blame the abuse those leaders commit on a class of people it will not even admit as members.   A true church recognizes that all are equally holy and equally profane, and equally prone to temptation- even the princes of the church. It recognizes the danger of power and privilege… and the tyranny of secrets.