Abandoned_Altars

What’s wrong with this picture?

I’ve neglected this blog a lot. Believe it or not, I’ve wanted to turn my attention to topics other than clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. As a gnostic, heretic, and long time sci-fi fan, the religious implications of UFOs, what the Church knows about Roswell, and even the possibility that Christ could be seen as an extraterrestrial have long intrigued me.

But the Church just won’t let me be. Every time I think, Okay, I can walk away now, they come up with something even more outrageous. I’ve stoically ignored the meltdown in the Irish Church, even failed to mention the choirboy scandals in Germany. But now…

Well, now there’s a new scandal brewing in Rome.  And thus the cause for the irony between the headline and the picture above.  Those are Irish cardinals who’ve been called in on the carpet for the sex scandals there.

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Behind the mask

I had a rather peculiar feeling when reading how shocked and dismayed Pope Benedict XVI said he was over the report on Irish abuse.  I was reminded in fact of a scene from the classic film Casablanca (1942). You know the one — the refugees in the bar beat the Germans in the “Battle of the Anthems” and so the head Nazi, the evil Maj. Strasser, orders the corrupt French cop Capt. Renault to shut the place down.

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Capt. Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Capt. Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Capt. Renault: Everybody out at once!

Yes, caught between admitting that abuse was due in large part to the Vatican’s culture of secrecy and cover-up which he himself has restored and having to do something about it, the Supreme Pontiff’s response of “outrage, betrayal, and shame” is predictable. Since, however, as the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Ratzinger is more likely outraged by the revelations of abuse rather than its actual happening.

For if anybody knew what was going on it was him. And if the Grand Inquisitor didn’t know, that in itself is a major scandal!

But rather than confess any faults of God’s Holy Church, he places the blame squarely on the perpetrators and the bishops who enabled them. Like Capt. Renault, the Holy See profits from the cover-up and also by the abuse.

Let’s face it: Abuse, or even homosexual acting out with their peers keeps some of the remaining clergy — mainly men who cannot survive in the “real world”, content.  The cover-up is necessary to keep a lid on things and the papal hands as white and unblemished as his robes. And the corruption in the sacred premises is every bit as seedy and degenerate as that in a refugee hellhole.

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Blessing or curse?

Here they are, two headlines next to each other this morning on ZENIT, the official Vatican newsfeed.

Benedict XVI Defends Young Migrants
Encourages Christians to Aid Children and Youth

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is appealing to Christians to reach out to migrants and refugees, especially children and adolescents, and to raise awareness of their plight….

and this:

Irish Prelates Lament Report on Child Abuse
Say No Apology Is Sufficient

DUBLIN, Ireland, NOV. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- In response to the publication of a report about sexual abuse of children by clergy, the archbishop of Dublin is stating that “no apology is sufficient.”..

The intellectual disconnect revealed here is astonishing in its audacity, truly overwhelming. It goes soars beyond denial, leaps past hypocrisy and lands squarely in the briarpatch of pathological, institutionalized schizophrenia. It would be funny if it were not so scary.

This is pure madness! The Roman Catholic hierarchy condemned by the Irish Government for covering up sex abuse for over 60 years is no different in Ireland than it is anywhere else — all the lying archbishops, deceiving bishops, and enabling monsignors fingered in the report were picked, evaluated, promoted and in short,  given their jobs by Rome, same as everywhere. These men are cut from the identical cloth as the rulers of the Church universal in every nation on the planet, and thus, acted no differently. Prelates in America, Canada, Austria, Australia and elsewhere have acted exactly the same.

This is a Church with no moral leg to stand on. And yet, its fearless leader, Pope Benedict XVI, who himself has done so much to reinstate the coverup, dares harangue the world about child abuse!

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