Pope Benedict XVI has made the statement that the outrage and calls for action from outside the over the sexual abuse of children within the church is a for of “persecution of the Church.” He further stated that the cause of that widespread sexual abuse of children that has been documented within the Catholic Church is caused by sin. For those of you who are not paying a lot of attention, or who prefer an appeasement strategy when it comes to El Popo, or who just don’t know, let me spell that out for you: If the problem of regular sexual abuse of children by priests is caused by sin, then it can be fixed internally, by the Pope himself or his bishops.
So, once again, as I have noted before, the Pope is placing responsibility for these acts anywhere he can other than a) the offending criminals who happen to be priest and b) the other offending criminals who have been involved in the cover ups and deflections of justice, including numerous priests, bishops, and it would appear the Pope himself.
Here is what the pope said about the cause and context of these problems and the solution, as recored by reporters traveling with him and reported by the BBC:
Today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but is born of sin within the Church. [The Church has] a very deep need [to acknowledge that it must do penance for its sins and] accept purification.
Am I reading this wrong? I don’t think so.
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[The Church has] a very deep need [to …] accept purification.
I sense a major Purge coming…
Yes, time to purge, starting with Ratzi, more Archbishops and all the guilty priests – then charge them and prosecute them.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the issue is somewhat hidden behind the euphemism “sexual abuse”, when terms like “molestation” and “rape” are more appropriate.
So the problems facing the church come from within. No shit. To “do penance” and “accpet purification” means “turn the cases over to police as soon as possible and stop protecting the offenders and accept responsibility for the problem instead of blaming the devil or sin for the issue.”
Yeah, I’ll hold my breath for that.
I had the same reaction. FIrst I read a headline saying “Strongest words from Pope condemning sexual abuse to date” or something like that. Then when I read the article my impression was that he is still considering these calls to stop abuse as “attacks on the church”. He still seems more concerned about stopping the attacks on the church than solving the real problem.
so what if they purge? They’ve been binging so long they csn’t possibly het this out of theit system
Another problem with this papal labeling of the Church’s history of child abuse as “sin”: not only is sin the business of the Church itself (and hence, doesn’t warrant external solutions), as Greg posted, but in good old Abrahamic tradition, “sin” is the basic state of being for all humanity. There are greater and smaller sins, but everybody is tainted. So, it looks like Benedict is still trying to confuse the issue by refusing to make distinctions between the offenders and the victims, here.
For instance, when the Pope calls “sin” the crimes committed by a child rapist, remember that for the RCC, being angry with the Church (even with just cause, as in the case of child rapists) is a sin too.
I agree that labelling child rape as “sin” rather than “crime” serves the RCC’s agenda in several ways. As Greg noted, it keeps it on it’s own soil and as Irene pointed out it subtly renders it as “within the church” not “of the church” but rather of “humanity”. Therefore responsibility of the institutions of the RCC is diminished and the source of the problem is dumped squarely back on “Eve”. They have taken the trick of using sin to mitigate personal responsibility and applied it to a whole institution. The next step may well be to imply that society is so dirty from giving civil rights to the “wrong people” that the RCC only got the hem of its vestments dirty because of our mud. Others have been there already.
What kind of world do we live in, if priests don’t have the right to bugger little children without being oppressed?
I wonder what has happened to their other strategy: blaming it all on Teh Ghey?
Slipping and sliding,
Peeking and hiding,
Seems so long ago
[/vaguely recalled lyrics to a song from back yonder-Sam something-or-other’?]
So. In the game of name the blame there’s only one rule: it’s anyone else but me who did it. I didn’t do it. They did. Them. Not me.
How convenient. And magic to back it up. And magic to back it up.