Friday, March 26, 2010
The buck stops with Benedict
To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers and hypocrites of every description.Thanks to Fran Rossi Szpylczyn for this quote. But the Vatican doesn't grasp that the sensationalist media coverage is about real evil. So this will not do:
It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul of every time, country, race, and gender. To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of soul because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves.
– Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing
There were cover-ups. They're documented. The changes were too few & too slow in happening. I can offer only a non-Catholic perspective. Rather than transparency & accountability, the Church patriarchy prefers the 19th Century way. The longterm strategy is to focus on doctrine & discipline, engage in witchhunts that have little or no connection with the pedophilia or blame it on Vatican II reforms. Any Catholics for whom this on-going scandal matters enough to leave the Church are welcome to go, even if it shrinks the Church, because they're troublemakers who will not shut up & submit. This strategy has Benedict's fingerprints all over it. It should; he was working on it long before he became Pope.
The Vatican has attacked the media over charges that the Pope failed to act against a US priest accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys two decades ago.
A Vatican newspaper editorial said the claims were an "ignoble" attack on the Pope and that there was no "cover-up".
The head of the UK Catholic church said the Pope had made important changes to the way abuse was dealt with.
This is a political scandal in a political institution, & media is correctly treating it as such, investigating it, dwelling upon the lurid details, & placing the spotlight on the man who has the Earthly power & authority. Benedict reminds me of Richard Nixon, imperious & imperial, the man who said, "Well, when the President does it that means that it is not illegal." It's time for Harry Truman's "The buck stops here."
Labels: in the news, religion
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
You know enough about me to know how much my heart is broken. I am living in some real cognitive dissonance as I work for and around men with whom I would trust my child's life without hesitation.
The Vatican is a big institution; it is about power. The Church is not an institution, although it has been conflated into the Vatican, so it appears as such. Church is ekklesia in Greek - the assembly.
The Church is the Body of Christ, literally be re-membered in its people. The institution being about power, finds ways of power - which would include sex crimes as as obfuscation and defensiveness.
Jesus was on the cross, arms wide open, without defense.
The other day I put up a FB post that reflected on the reading from Wednesday's mass - about the three young men, Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego, who were sent into the firey furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. They went fearlessly and with their faith.
On Thursday we celebrated the Annunciation - about emptying oneself and about reception, deep listening. I reflected that if the Vatican couldn't get into the firey furnace on Wednesday that it seemed unlikely that it could receive the Word as it did on Thursday.
I know that I have gone on too long here... You know that this cuts to the quick for me.
Peace to you Bob.
The Vatican is a big institution; it is about power. The Church is not an institution, although it has been conflated into the Vatican, so it appears as such. Church is ekklesia in Greek - the assembly.
The Church is the Body of Christ, literally be re-membered in its people. The institution being about power, finds ways of power - which would include sex crimes as as obfuscation and defensiveness.
Jesus was on the cross, arms wide open, without defense.
The other day I put up a FB post that reflected on the reading from Wednesday's mass - about the three young men, Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego, who were sent into the firey furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. They went fearlessly and with their faith.
On Thursday we celebrated the Annunciation - about emptying oneself and about reception, deep listening. I reflected that if the Vatican couldn't get into the firey furnace on Wednesday that it seemed unlikely that it could receive the Word as it did on Thursday.
I know that I have gone on too long here... You know that this cuts to the quick for me.
Peace to you Bob.
I always try to make the distinction between the institution & the assembly - the whole. The Church hierarchy isn't even promoted from the pastoral ranks of clergy, but from a specially groomed class of bureaucratic priests.
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