Capeesh?
The pope and the Vatican are trying even harder to get the whole world outside “the Holy See” to loathe and despise them for their passionate selfishness and territorialism and their shocking, persistent, hardened inability to take the real and horrendous damage done to Other People more seriously than minor inconveniences to themselves.
Pope Benedict has joined mounting Vatican criticism of raids by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse, calling them “deplorable”…Pope Benedict’s criticism of the raids came in a message of support to Brussels Archbishop Andre Joseph Leonard, the head of the Belgian bishops’ conference. “I want to express, dear brother in the Episcopate, as well as to all the Bishops of Belgium, my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out.”
Just so the stalwarts around Hitler might have described the deplorable methods of the crude and vulgar non-German soldiers who liberated the death camps.
I mean that. Not that Ratzinger is another Hitler, but that this imbecilic and vicious loyalty combined with contempt for laws and police that are there to prevent child rape is just that – it’s imbecilic and vicious loyalty combined with contempt for secular, democratically constituted law enforcement and for laws that apply to everyone. It’s simply disgusting that Ratzinger still can’t get it right – still can’t learn to just STFU and take whatever is coming. It’s simply disgusting that he still thinks he and his gang deserve some kind of special holy immunity from investigation and prosecution.
On Saturday Vatican officials compared the raids and investigation into allegations of child sex abuse with the treatment of the Church under communist rule.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, described the detention of priests “serious and unbelievable”.
“There are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes,” he said.
The cardinal alleged that the Belgian bishops were left all day without food or drink, although this was later denied by the Belgian authorities.
The Vatican has summoned the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See to voice its anger at the incident.
I hope the Belgian ambassador gave the Vatican an earful.
“stfu” (Or Shut the fuck up) probably the best piece of advice given to the Pope.
Interestingly, in the CBC report on the same thing, the pope is quoted as asserting the parallel jusridiction of canon and civil law, in these terms:
This kind of language is a matter of great concern. The ‘One Law For All’ campaign is relevant. If catholics can have their own law and parallel jurisdiction, and demand respect for it, then no doubt Muslims can do the same, and that would go presumably for any other code of law that a group might choose from time to time to adopt. Time to slap down this upstart tinpot dictator and remind him that we do not live in the Middle Ages. As an aside it is worth mentioning that it is obvious why Henry VIII broke with Rome, and why the 39 Articles of Religion (one of the founding documents of the Church of England), in Article 37, “On the Power of Civil Magistrates”, added: “The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.”
Exactly. Regarding canon law: if the outside world grants them even an inch, they’ll take 100 miles, and, like you say, it will set a very dangerous precedent that other religions will surely be eager to follow.
You’re right, Marie-Thérèse, the pope just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all. He doesn’t understand what it means to be human, and to care. And no wonder. There he sits in spendid isolation, playing charades, because he hasn’t had to take human beings really seriously for a lifetime. He’s never had a wife or a partner, to love or care for. He’s never had kids, or the responsibilities and all the fears that attend parenthood. He’s never really had friends, because to get to the pinnacle he’s had to guard his thoughts and feelings. You don’t get that high by being completely open with another human being. And so he’s never really had to be penitent or remorseful. for all the factitious penitence of the confessional, or the theatrical remorse of Good Friday. So, bishops and archbishops, cardinals and all the rest of the skirted gang are bound to seem most important to him. They’re playing the same game. The church’s dignity, and the dignity of its officials have occupied him for years. He doesn’t understand real people. He doesn’t know how important many people think that kids really are. He hasn’t sat up at night with them, or worried as they took their first steps and learned to ride a bike. He hasn’t worried about their future as they set off for the first time to school, with all the love and promise that attends them. He doesn’t know how much commitment and love and hope people vest in their children. So, he writes to his beloved brothers, and forgets why the police raided them. But no one gets to hide behind chancery doors, and dispose their own kinds of justice, where the church and its officials are more important than kids, more important than little Andrew, whose torment is a minor annoyance to such a one as the Rat – zinger. He really does sicken me. Yes, I’ve got more reason now to loathe and despise him and his whole unholy gang of hard-hearted self-worshippers. He just doesn’t get it. He never will.
Jeezis – as you say, Eric, that is very scary.
What if “canon law” just decided that, say, kidnapping and imprisonment were no crimes? That clearly is exactly what the church thought in the days when it grabbed and enslaved women in Magdalen laundries and girls in rosary bead factories. The pope is apparently claiming they can just do it again if they feel like it.
That’s a brilliant comment, Mo.
Have to agree wholeheartedly with you, Eric. Rat et al are on a different plain from the rest of us and simply don’t get it. That said, my cynical mind also tells me that neither do they don’t want to ‘get it’. They’re so wrapped up in their holier-than-thou smug world, they probably think it’s beneath them to even contemplate comprehending the gravity of these crimes.
Why didn’t these CHRISTIANS, on seeing the police coming, say something like, ‘Come in, brothers, please feel free to look where you like, we have nothing to hide’?
Because the police are emissaries of Satan!
And Benedict indeed did blame all this on Satan:
!!!
I can’t even wrap my head around what’s going on here.
As others have observed here, in other words the Catholic Church is above national laws. But it goes beyond that: the record to date of the Brotherhood of the Episcopate has been one of protecting the perpetrators and frocked criminals from those same national laws. Ratzinger who beats the pants off Nelson’s record in turning a blind eye, would have the letter and practice of church law on this subject become the model for national law, and not the other way around.
The clearest way the Pope can express solidarity with his brothers in Child Abuse the Episcopate is by doing exactly what he has been doing. Makes you wonder what he got up to in his own past. But then again, as a Catholic member of the Hitler Youth he would have been as pure as the driven snows of Auschwitz Austria, I am sure of that. ( Sorry about the typos.)
His main problem is all that sand in his moral gearbox. But who put it there? Not his holy self, surely! Must have been the company he kept. Must have been The Brotherhood. And so the wheel goes round and round.
Oh good god – I thought I was kidding. Although I do remember seeing a mention of that speech, now you mention it.
I’ll second (or third) Eric’s point about the alarming potential implications of the demand for acceptance of canon law over and above civil law for the case similar cases of shari’ah, halakha, and other potential “alternate legal systems.” How does the Church’s claims differ from those calling for shari’ah tribunals? In a way, it’s even more extreme — it’s basically a demand that those under the religion’s purported authority be judged ONLY by the religion’s special law codes, unless the religious authorities choose to release them to civil authorities. Even most Islamists in Europe aren’t (openly at least) calling for the full establishment of criminal shari’ah hudood punishments in Muslim communities and consequent exclusion from civil criminal law.
This is an extreme example of what the Catholic hierarchy has in mind when it claims to support “separation of church and state” – as opposed to anything that any of us might have in mind when we use that phrase (to us it presumably means something like: “The state will not enact laws for the purpose of imposing a religion or enforcing a religious morality”)
Notice how words such as closeness, deplorable methods, sadness and searches were also synonymous with deplorable methods in closeness of some of the pope’s (middle ranking) dear brothers of the Presbyterate, as well as dear brothers of the (higher ranking) Espicopate as they methodically searched, violated and perpetually raided the bodies of innocuously defenceless young children.
To give an example of one dear brother of the Presbyterate:
I am three quarters way through a harrowing book called ‘Altar Boy’ by Andrew Madden. He was systematically sexually abused for the duration of three years by a dear brother of the Presbyterate, beginning when he was twelve years old. There was nobody out there to express solidarity, or to protect the young boy, during, or after the heinous criminal acts when they were being perpetrated on him by one of the pope’s middle ranking dear brothers. Not even afterwards, when he reported the serious abuse to the local clergy. Yet, the pope is up in arms; telling his big dear brother, grown men of the cloth, how close he is to them, in this moment of sadness.
It shan’t be too long before this moment of sadness turns into a moment of bling-kissing, when the dear brothers are summoned to Rome to be consoled by him for all the torment and suffering they endured at the hands of the Belgian authorities.
To hell with the lifetime torment of Andrew Madden, as well as Belgian children and countless children throughout the world, who certainly and unsurprisingly suffered at the hands of comrades in Christ of these dear brothers of both the Episcopate, Presbyterate and Deaconate.
The entire criminal enterprise (religion) should simply be prosecuted and disbanded when its determined it fronts for — and covers-up such crimes.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rick S and Rick, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Capeesh? http://dlvr.it/24sp8 […]
I have myself repeated numerous times that these serious facts must be dealt with by civil law and by canon law, in reciprocal respect of the specificity and autonomy of each.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article521762.ece/Pope-criticises-Belgian-raid
Now, here is what this translates as “The Vatican should be the one to investigate and punish those involved.”
Which means of course, the Vatican should have the power to cover up the abuse and rape more children.
If One Law For All aren’t covering canon law and the RC Chruch’s attempts to put itself above the law in matters of child abuse they should be.
I doubt it. If the British ambassador to the Vatican is anything to go by, he’ll be a drooling sycophant, chosen for religious sympathies and nothing else. The meeting was probably a cordial chat, where they agreed on how ghastly the police are, and on how wonderful and cruelly persecuted they are.
Ann Widdecombe has been tipped to be the next UK ambassador to Rome. This extremely well-educated woman is otherwise totally bonkers.
Still, it could have been worse… His Holiness Tony Blair could have been asked.
The fact is that the Vatican’s theology simply does not recognize crimes against another human, only “sins” against g-d. If one has violated a little boy or girl entrusted to one’s care, (if one even recognizes it as a ‘violation’) then one prays to g-d for forgiveness, and says a few Hail Mary’s to remind oneself that one is already forgiven. The RCC teaches that there is no crime against another person — not a one — that is unforgivable, since the only thing unforgivable is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
By this twisted reasoning, some of papa’s remarks make a twisted sense. Dual investigations representing dueling “specificity and autonomy”? Sure! — we do sin, civil authorities do crime. The civil authorities focus on punishment within the lifetime of the miscreant; we leave punishment to g-d and defer it to the great by and by. Children (or adults) were raped? Then pray that they accept the forgiveness Jesus has already died for, and hope that the g-d’s grace (certainly nothing we can do!) will ensure that the sinner/rapists keep on praying and not preying.
Certainly, all this is in the hands of g-d. The civil authorities should butt out (you’ll pardon the expression).
Oh thanks for that. I was having a good day until I read this.
Oh, and PoxyHowzes, the word is god. It does not bite if you spell it correctly.
Actually, I’m having a good laugh at the idea of Miss Widdecome going to the Vatican. They don’t know what she’s like. We do.
Imagine the fireworks :-)
Not very likely! Not by the Coalition.
The priest (link) just doesn’t get it.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0119/1224262632172.html
The Sisters of Mercy who were bound to the laborious duties of instructing the ignorant, just do not either get it.
They are all suitably living in a make-belief world, which cocoons them from the reality of suffering of children, created first and foremost by their brothers and sisters in Christ. These religious people, who gave up their lives to love God, very rarely loved babies and children who were placed in their care for generations.
I have said it before at B&W, and I will say it again, that I never remember a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a year, a decade and more in my whole childhood while in the sole care of the religious an ounce of physical affection. Apparently showing real love to children was frowned upon by religious superiors, who warned the sisters not to get attached to children. No wonder children spent their time banging their heads against a condescended rec wall, anything at all to stimulate themselves, as well as sucking their big toes, thumbs, fingers and pulling the hair out of their heads.
So nothing surprises me in the least, about the whole darn lot of them, including the pope, they are all singing from the one hymn sheet.
Then they tried to convince children that theirs was the kingdom of heaven. What a whole load of codswallop! More like the kingdom of hell for generations of children in industrial schools. At least, children who were abused by diocesan priests, had parents or guardian’s to go home to and the outside world to stimulate them, not so the children who were imprisoned in institutions.
Yeah, Eric, you are ever so right, when you say the pope just does not get it. But, is it not before time that a beaming bright light should be shone in their vision to let them blindingly see the errors of their ways. Should they not be shocked out of their complacency and denial that they are so expert at hiding behind. De-Nile is in Egypt, and Denial is in the Vatican.
@#23. Matt Penfold
Nor did it bite when I spelled it g-d.
Well it did make you look a pretentious idiot. I assume that was your intention.
PoxyHowzes: Hoping this finds you. I read your comment #27 here concerning #2. Seems we share some sentiments about school yard tactics. See here #15 and #24.
I replied briefly to your first referenced post with a simple “spot on”. Disappointingly (“at many levels”), my two word acknowledgment of your appreciated (at least with this reader) remarks were discarded by Dr. Coyne or an agent . . . twice. Speech at that site is apparently *tightly* controlled, with comments of the ilk that met your attention seemingly welcomed and anything that could arguably pass for reasoned conversation seemingly discouraged (in mobbish fashion). I understand, “it’s my blog and I’ll print what I want to”, but naively assumed an academic (of all people) would be a stalwart of the free and courteous engage of ideas, particularly on topics of such timely import. Apparently not so. I took umbrage with some remarks here, finding a bit of hypocrisy in light of invective in the realm of science here, where Coyne ridicules fellow academic David Sloan Wilson in disagreeable fashion for having non-mainstream thoughts about evolution, which Wilson proposes to test in an unconventional way (The Neighborhood Project). Alas, my comments were deleted as “WAY too long” (a criterion not universally applied); they now appear here.
You observe that the authors of the stature of Dr. Dawkins (and I include Dr. Coyne), should know (and I add act) better. The rhetoric of their books, although controversial in many circles, at least gives *some* quarter to tolerance. Not so at that blog site. Why is that? If the blog is the real deal, one might cynically suggest the books were tempered to sell better. Similarly, although it’s a personal blog maintained on personal time (at least I hope so), it is more than unsettling that those in positions to shape and influence young minds are not more like the scientists they claim to be and less like the fundamentalists they claim to oppose.