The Fuck Christ

In short, he’s saying that priests molest an average of 220 kids/year, but teachers molest around 29,000, so it’s unfair that the media has singled out the church. Mind you, last time I checked, the Secretary of Education didn’t help hide the crime, transfer the abusers to schools in other parts of the country, and blame the students for tempting the teacher. I don’t recall any Board of Education referring to the sexual abuse and rape of pre-pubescent and teenaged students as a ‘quirk’ like Bishop Joseph Imesch did. And when discovered for their crimes, I don’t recall PTA’s, Teachers Unions and Parent Associations around the US offering their support and not calling for the resignation of the top official in charge.

So, you know, there might be a few little legitimate issues that the media can raise about the poor Catholic Church which deserve at least a moment’s consideration, eh?

I think the worst thing about all of this is the soft language being used. Can we say what it actually is? The Pope used his power and influence as a top ranking member of the Catholic Church in the past to protect a child rapist from being persecuted for his crimes. The Church has systematically condoned pedophilic behaviour by their willingness to hide the evidence of the crimes, refusal to subject the perpetrators to the loss of stature or livelihood, and engage in vicious ad hominem attacks on the victims. This isn’t exactly a hard thing to understand; if you cover up for a banker who commits fraud, you are condoning fraudulent behaviour at your bank. If you cover up for a priest who rapes a child (and in these cases, children seem to be like peanuts; you can’t stop at just one), you are condoning rape as an on-going behaviour at your church.

While it appears that the church just might finally be waking up to the fact that it has done a wonderful job destroying its brand as Catholics are leaving in record numbers in Europe, in the United States, the apologists are out in force trying to spin the story so that staggering admissions about protecting child rapists aren’t that big of an issue. Hey, teachers do it, right! The media is anti-papist! Also, all those kids were evil little fags that our pastors and bishops had no control over sticking their dicks into! I guess they tripped or something, and whoops! Sorry lil’Billy, this just isn’t my day!

Hyperbole aside (a weapon I hate to put down at the best of times), there is a systemic corruption at the heart of the Catholic Church, and since being a Catholic is irrevocably intertwined with the institution of the Church itself as an entity, the responsibility for that change lies with the Catholic populace. The church is well known for not admitting its errors. After all, it just got around to pardoning Galileo this decade and still is claiming the Inquisition is mostly just Dutch and British propaganda. However, it is the faithful providing the cover that allows them to do this.

I’ve seen people try and defend the church by pointing out all the good Catholics they know and good things that they do, but frankly, that’s like trying to defend Enron by saying all the people who worked in the local branch office are good, honest people and they sponsored the local softball team. The thing that has been missing in the United States has been the sustained anger and implacable demand for reform from Catholic Americans. Each diocese should be under siege by Catholics demanding how they are able to trust that their priests aren’t fugitives from other dioceses. That the ones teaching their children aren’t predators protected by the system. That the head of the church cannot hide behind his position to avoid culpability for his actions. That even the slightest hint of criminal and pedophilic behaviour is thoroughly investigated both internally by the church and externally by law enforcement so that another generation of children isn’t delivered into the hands of these creatures. Those calls are shockingly too few for the enormity of what has happened, and until that changes, Catholics as a faith will remain responsible for what has transpired.