Monday, April 12, 2010

The Vatican's Sacrament of Delusional Denial...

(Hat tip to  Joemygod.com)
The Pope's number two man, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, whose home archdiocese has recently imprisoned priests for molesting young girls, is blaming the Catholic Church's problem with child rape on gay men.
The Vatican's second-highest authority says the sex scandals haunting the Roman Catholic Church are linked to homosexuality and not celibacy among priests. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, made the comments during a news conference Monday in Chile, where one of the church's highest-profile pedophile cases involves a priest having sex with young girls. "Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relation between celibacy and pedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That is true," said Bertone. "That is the problem." His comments drew angry reactions from Chile's gay rights advocates. 
For the most part,  aside from posting  a video earlier this year of the great Stephen Fry's rebuttal to the  question   is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world.   I have  largely stayed away from this topic.   The reason being,  I am not Catholic.  I am  Protestant,  Lutheran  to be  exact.  So, as  the  horrific  and  sordid details  of  the Vatican's  institutionalized acceptance of the rape of children spilled out  over the past few years,  I  have felt,  that  as I am not  a member of the  Roman Catholic Church, it  really wasn't my place to comment.


Well,  Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's  response to  the  crimes  of his  church,  has made me  rethink that  position.   This twisted, deluded , sexually dysfunctional man in a dress, has  spewed forth his  hate fueled  internalized  homophobia in hopes  of  shifting the blame for  the horrors perpetrated against children on his watch to ANYbody other  than  those  actually  responsible.  


Lets be clear here.  This issue  deals with  the Roman Catholic Church as  an organization,  NOT as  faith  or  theology.   I have no quarrel  with anyone who professes  the Catholic faith,  seeks to practice and  honor the liturgical rites of that faith,  or  even seeks to actively  share that faith with others.  Yet  the institutional culture and organizational hierarchy of that church, were it a  secular institution, would have been raided by the police, it's operations shut down and it's leaders arrested  decades  ago. 


The problem  with the Roman Catholic Church in  2010 is  that  men like  Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, don't  see the  systematic  and institutionally sanctioned  rape  of children as the  real problem.  Rather  Cardinal  Bertone thinks efforts to  stop those crimes and  hold those who commit them responsible, for him THAT is the real sin.   


Until that  viewpoint  changes,  the  Catholic Church  should and must be viewed as  a threat  to Children and epicenter of  the largest  organized  sex crime ring in human history.

1 comment:

Dorothy Allen, Madison, WI said...

Good for you David. We need more to speak out.

i grew up 1 block from the Catholic School and Church in my community. I hope none of my friends had to be part of this.