Playing the Victim
Apr. 6th, 2010 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleI see the Vatican is playing the victim card, saying that attacks against the Pope for covering up rampant priestly pedophilia is anti-Catholic bias being waged by "powerful lobbies" that of course include gays, pro-choice supporters and the entire modern world in general. They all hate him because he "defends life and the family."
There's only one group of victims here and that's the generations and generations of children all over the world who were molested and raped by perverts who were not only shielded from lawful prosecution but were also repeatedly reassigned so that they could merrily and safely continue buggering children to their dicks' content. And all this in an organization that has the audacity to lecture emotionally healthy, consenting adults about when, why and with whom they should have sex.
Though I agree that this Pope doesn't deserve all the blame. They have all been covering it up. All of them. This guy just happened to get caught.
I remember, when I was still going to church years ago, being told from the pulpit that the sexual abuse stories were isolated incidents blown out of proportion by a sensationalistic media and that we should just tune them out. They are singing the same fucking song today.
I disagree that allowing priests to marry will solve this problem. Celibacy is not the issue. You know what will solve this problem? Ordaining women. Any organization or culture that allows itself to become a male-only enclave in which women are excluded and marginalized becomes a swamp of sicko behavior. There's just something about men left to their own devices that foments perversion and cruelty. It was true of the boys-only boarding schools of C.S. Lewis's day. It is true of men's prisons today. It's even true of such supposedly wholesome organizations as the Boy Scouts. You need women in the mix. You just do.
There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule, women do not molest children. Even in the horrific Catholic orphanages of Ireland, sexual abuse was rampant in the boys' facilities, but almost non-existent in the girls' (other kinds of abuse did go on there, most notably reducing the wards to slave labor, but at least the girls weren't getting raped, too). Nuns were often put in the awful position of knowing what priests in their parish were doing -- and having to remain silent because those men were their superiors and they were cowed into silence, threatened with loss of their life's work and with excommunication and the damnation that implies. I've heard stories of nuns quietly protecting children from predatory priests, making sure that schedules could be arranged so that children wouldn't ever be alone with them. How many nuns over the decades had to perform this grim undercover work?
For all their sterotypical image as ruler-wielding harridans, nuns have, for centuries, shouldered the hardest work of the Church -- teaching, nursing, caregiving -- and they've somehow managed to do it without diddling children. Maybe women are more emotionally suited to handle a celibate life. Maybe women are less capable of such easy moral rationalizing. Or maybe all these sisters were just too goddamn busy doing the Lord's real work to have time to fuck children.
I recently watched some old footage of the civil rights' marches of the 1960s and saw nuns -- white nuns -- on the front lines. I didn't see any priests. Recently 59,000 nuns came out in favor of President Obama's healthcare reform (prompting Senator Bart Stupak (D-Assholia) to sniff that he didn't consult with nuns over Right-to-Life language, he only consulted with bishops).
In the Catholic Church, women have always worked harder than men. They have always been more willing to walk the talk of Jesus Christ. And best of all? THEY DON'T RAPE KIDS. Sounds like a win-win situation to me. But the Catholic Church will NEVER, EVER let women into the priesthood. Their little fucking boys club (and literally, "fucking-boys" club) means way too much to them. So they're gonna play the victim card. They're gonna blame the real victims and the media and the queers and the baby-killers and anyone else they can point their filthy fingers at. My God, I hope there's a Hell. I hope there's a Hell waiting for every one of these kid-fuckers and everyone who helped them go on fucking kids. Right up to the Pope. I hope those custom Prada loafers of yours are lined with asbestos, pal, because you're gonna need it.
There's only one group of victims here and that's the generations and generations of children all over the world who were molested and raped by perverts who were not only shielded from lawful prosecution but were also repeatedly reassigned so that they could merrily and safely continue buggering children to their dicks' content. And all this in an organization that has the audacity to lecture emotionally healthy, consenting adults about when, why and with whom they should have sex.
Though I agree that this Pope doesn't deserve all the blame. They have all been covering it up. All of them. This guy just happened to get caught.
I remember, when I was still going to church years ago, being told from the pulpit that the sexual abuse stories were isolated incidents blown out of proportion by a sensationalistic media and that we should just tune them out. They are singing the same fucking song today.
I disagree that allowing priests to marry will solve this problem. Celibacy is not the issue. You know what will solve this problem? Ordaining women. Any organization or culture that allows itself to become a male-only enclave in which women are excluded and marginalized becomes a swamp of sicko behavior. There's just something about men left to their own devices that foments perversion and cruelty. It was true of the boys-only boarding schools of C.S. Lewis's day. It is true of men's prisons today. It's even true of such supposedly wholesome organizations as the Boy Scouts. You need women in the mix. You just do.
There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule, women do not molest children. Even in the horrific Catholic orphanages of Ireland, sexual abuse was rampant in the boys' facilities, but almost non-existent in the girls' (other kinds of abuse did go on there, most notably reducing the wards to slave labor, but at least the girls weren't getting raped, too). Nuns were often put in the awful position of knowing what priests in their parish were doing -- and having to remain silent because those men were their superiors and they were cowed into silence, threatened with loss of their life's work and with excommunication and the damnation that implies. I've heard stories of nuns quietly protecting children from predatory priests, making sure that schedules could be arranged so that children wouldn't ever be alone with them. How many nuns over the decades had to perform this grim undercover work?
For all their sterotypical image as ruler-wielding harridans, nuns have, for centuries, shouldered the hardest work of the Church -- teaching, nursing, caregiving -- and they've somehow managed to do it without diddling children. Maybe women are more emotionally suited to handle a celibate life. Maybe women are less capable of such easy moral rationalizing. Or maybe all these sisters were just too goddamn busy doing the Lord's real work to have time to fuck children.
I recently watched some old footage of the civil rights' marches of the 1960s and saw nuns -- white nuns -- on the front lines. I didn't see any priests. Recently 59,000 nuns came out in favor of President Obama's healthcare reform (prompting Senator Bart Stupak (D-Assholia) to sniff that he didn't consult with nuns over Right-to-Life language, he only consulted with bishops).
In the Catholic Church, women have always worked harder than men. They have always been more willing to walk the talk of Jesus Christ. And best of all? THEY DON'T RAPE KIDS. Sounds like a win-win situation to me. But the Catholic Church will NEVER, EVER let women into the priesthood. Their little fucking boys club (and literally, "fucking-boys" club) means way too much to them. So they're gonna play the victim card. They're gonna blame the real victims and the media and the queers and the baby-killers and anyone else they can point their filthy fingers at. My God, I hope there's a Hell. I hope there's a Hell waiting for every one of these kid-fuckers and everyone who helped them go on fucking kids. Right up to the Pope. I hope those custom Prada loafers of yours are lined with asbestos, pal, because you're gonna need it.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-06 11:15 pm (UTC)No wonder I've lost my faith.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 12:42 am (UTC)No, in the case of this guy it was a psychiatrist they finally sent him too.
Oh, you'll love this too--I never forgot it. This priest raped both girls and boys. When they got the first boy complaint they didn't make a connection to the earlier girl complaint because how could they be related? See, the boy was a problem because that's gay. The girl's mother, otoh, was told that that was "normal curiosity."
You heard it from the bishop guys. Sex with a 9 year old is normal curiosity as long as she's female.
And no, not a single nun was interviewed. I wonder if they knew.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 01:12 am (UTC)I wonder if they knew.
When you live in a parish community, especially as tightly knit as those were years ago, I think it would be very difficult for the nuns not to know -- the nuns were around these kids day in and out. I remember reading one article about a Catholic school in the 1950s where the nuns all knew there was one priest who was molesting kids -- he was so brazen that he used to pick his "favorites" out of certain grades and have them come to the rectory for "special projects." And once the nuns figured out which kids had been targeted they just banded together and would find reasons for those kids to stay after school or to never be alone or whatever, just to keep them out of the rectory. They couldn't really do anything else. Even if they wanted to blow the whistle, according to the Church rules, they had to go to their superiors within the Church -- their MALE superiors -- NOT the police or any other secular authority. And you can imagine where that got them.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 02:25 am (UTC)I want to print this out and send it to our very own Archpricks over here, people like George Pell. George, Peter Jensen and others in their Easter messages, which every major network covered in their main news broadcast that evening, went on the attack about 'neo-atheists'. It was atheists, apparently, who were to blame for the horrors of the twentieth century, whereas *only Christians* live lives filled with love, art, compassion, humanity and integrity. No mention that people of other faiths could do the same; no suggestion that atheists, too, can do all of the above; and no mention whatsoever of the biggest scandal rotting the heart of the church today. No, no - much better to be climate change sceptics and blame atheists for everything that has ever gone wrong, ever. Please don't look at the priest in the corner groping that frightened little child. He'll be posted somewhere fresh soon.
As an atheist, I am delighted. Means they're very frightened and losing traction fast. I'm also delighted to know I'm neo. I just thought I didn't believe in a bronze age desert god, or any other floaty imaginary friend, but apparently I'm not believing in a new way. How fun.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-07 06:13 pm (UTC)