To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam’s moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman — whether she’s his mother or a prostitute — be treated as a second-class citizen. Negating women is at the heart of the church’s hideous — and criminal — indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests’ care.
As the burgeoning pedophilia scandal envelops the Catholic Church, I’ve been doing more observing than commenting. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, my feelings about the Catholic Church should be no secret to anyone who’s spent any amount of time at all reading my posts over the years. My feeling that the Catholic Church is akin to a thinly-veiled cult could possibly leave me open to accusations of anti-Catholic bias. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. I’m not anti-Catholic; what I virulently oppose is the White Male power structure that cares for little except its own self-aggrandizement and the maintenance of their unquestioned and unquestionable authority. For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church’s hierarchy has been the earthly representation of corruption, venality, and the absolute, abject hatred of women. That shows no sign of changing any time soon.
Secondly, the reactions of those apologists lining up to defend the Vatican have provided ample comic relief and blind obedience, becoming little more than self-parody in action. Whether it’s the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue blaming priestly pedophilia on homosexuality (never mind mind that the Church both ordained and enabled the pedophiles), or bishops and cardinals around the world lauding Pope Benedict XVI as the model of Christ-like probity, it hardly seems necessary to add to the lunacy. When your target shoots themselves, you might as well holster your weapon, eh?
The Vatican, a corrupt and venal influence over millions of Catholics worldwide, has two basic problems:
1) The Vatican’s insistence on priestly celibacy has resulted in parishes worldwide being ministered to by priests who have had to channel their sexual desires in ways that are all too often unhealthy and destructive. The enforced denial of a basic human drive has been, and will continue to be, a recipe for disaster. The current atmosphere of predation and license has turned the Church into a punch line in a joke of its own creation.
2) Catholic doctrine and Church teachings support the contention that the Vatican hates women. The truly sad thing is that millions of Catholic women freely acquiesce to a system that openly treats them as second-class citizens…and teaches them that this is God’s will.
Of men. By men. For men. And yet millions of women worldwide freely follow a Church that preaches and fosters the subjugation of women as second-class citizens. Worse, Church teachings allow for no flexibility, no individuality, and no recognition of extenuating circumstances. This leaves me with only one conclusion: the Catholic Church is a cult, a thoroughly evil, repressive institution that’s as much about the teachings of Jesus Christ as Glenn Beck is about social justice. With evidence mounting that the cover-up and enabling of the activities of pedophile priests travels up the Vatican food chain to the Pope, can their be any doubt that the Catholic Church has become a joke. It’s just too bad that no one seems to be laughing any more.
Isn’t it about time the Vatican was broken up and sold for parts? And isn’t it about time that pedophile priests- and the bishops who enable them- traded their vestments for orange prison jumpsuits? Perhaps becoming someone’s “girlfriend” in a prison would be a fitting denouement to their careers. It’s time that the leaders and members of this cult who have preyed on children be called to account.
