There’s such a thing as being too special
The pope’s co-workers circle the holy wagons.
A prominent cardinal, in a marked departure from tradition, stood near Pope Benedict XVI at Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday and delivered pointedly public support in the face of growing anger over the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal…The remarks…came among a chorus of denunciations by church officials of what they have framed as a campaign of denigration of the church and its pontiff…“Holy Father, the people of God are with you, and do not let themselves be impressed by the gossip of the moment, by the challenges that sometimes strike at the community of believers,” Cardinal Sodano said.
In other words, the people who criticize the pope and the Vatican are not the people of God, and the notion that the suffering of the victims is more important than the suffering of the Vatican hierarchy is mere petty gossip, and the whole thing is just one of those ‘challenges’ that make clerics even stronger.
Many in the church hierarchy, from local bishops to the cardinals who run the church, have grown increasingly aggressive in the face of sweeping criticism, and more specifically, at charges that Benedict failed to act…In the culture of the church hierarchy, the mere idea of a pope — the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, the successor of the prince of the apostles, the supreme pontiff of the universal church and sovereign of the Vatican city state, as his official titles have it — being called to account like the secular head of a corporation is incomprehensible.
And there’s your problem right there. The pope is not ‘the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth,’ because that’s a magical phrase that refers to some kind of employment relationship with a guy who died two thousand years ago. People don’t get to tell other people what to do and demand all kinds of special deference and respect because they have a self-declared connection with some long-dead human being. It’s silly enough when monarchs do it, and it’s even sillier when ‘popes’ do it.
This is what is wrong with the Catholic church. It’s a bad, diseased way to think, and it’s exactly what’s wrong with them. They think they are in a special caste elevated above other human beings, because of their ‘ordination,’ and this is a terrible, wretched, dangerous way for humans to think. This is obvious. It makes them think they can do no wrong. It makes them sanctimonious instead of good. It makes them incapable (from all appearances, at least) of thinking clearly about their own actions.
The stench gets stronger coming from the RCC.
The parts that got to me were:
“With this spirit today we gather around you, successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome, the unfailing rock of the Holy Church of Christ,”
If you label someone your ‘unfailing rock’ can you ever admit their faults?
Also:
“Since the pope is the visible head of the church on earth, an attack on the pope is perceived as an attack on the church universal,”
And here I had been led to believe that it was atheists who were equating the two, and repeatedly told what a fallacy it was.
And, lastly:
“For curia officials, it literally hits home. It’s one thing to deal with a sexual abuse scandal in another country. It’s another thing to deal with accusations against your boss, with whom you work with every day.”
I just want to shake the man and ask him how he thinks the actual victims and their families feel. Maybe being raped hits a little closer to home than someone talking about your boss.
“…They think they are in a special caste elevated above other human beings, because of their ‘ordination,’ and this is a terrible, wretched, dangerous way for humans to think. This is obvious. It makes them think they can do no wrong. It makes them sanctimonious instead of good…”
Very well put, OB. As a caste, priests put themselves somewhere between Heaven and Earth. Markedly and consciously different, they wear black because it is an authority and power colour; same as worn by the villains in Hollywood westerns.
And power corrupts.
Methinks that you give them too much lee-way in terms of innocence. They, like the Mafia, know EXACTLY what they are doing when they support, encourage and commit the most heinous of crimes.
Of course they are going to spout this vaccuous garbage, much as the Mafia claims to only use gentle persuasion.
The Hierarchy are LYING when they make these claims of superiority derived from a supernatural source and they know it.
Historically, their deliberately undereducated marks have fallen for this transparent lie.
Not for much longer, it seems.
MKG – not so sure.
Think of the many crimes committed by past Popes, and how the church has got away with it.
Start by reading Dante!
Or John XXII who faked his own near-death to get elected, then ran an internal reign of terror. Beautifully portrayed in “Les Rois maudits”
Chris Geraghty, a former Catholic priest and retired NSW District Court judge said (at http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/pope-must-grovel-and-beg-for-our-forgiveness-20100406-rpag.html )
“This is the deepest scandal that the church has faced since the Reformation, maybe the worst since Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss.
“We need to see heartache and sincerity, a genuine acceptance of the evil done, the scandal spread, the pain, the confusion, the damage inflicted. Church leaders throughout the world need to demonstrate to all of us, Catholics, Christians, pagans, atheists, to everybody, this atrocity in the heart of our church has been openly, honestly dealt with; heads in the bin; blame coldly targeted; victims supported; nothing hidden; the canker worm exposed and expunged.”
Well, that would be a start. But where it would end is anyone’s guess. Pope Ratz has probably had a few thoughts on that topic too, but is keeping mum on it.
Re MKG: There is a case to be made that the Borgia popes were better; though Pope Ratz could claim that his cover-up activities were carried out before he became Pope, and thus at the time he lacked infallibility.
I have been breaking my head over the question why the Catholic Church is handling the whole situation so incompetently. You’d think they could at least go through the motions of promising they’ll take measures to prevent the abuse from happening again, even if they weren’t really planning on making any substantial changes. But maybe I have now found why they won’t even bother to do that in the bits you quoted:
They reject the whole concept of accountability for the Church and its leaders. That explains a lot.
There are followers of Christ; who sit in the front pews of the church, thumping their holy cras; who have the audacity to tell those who point out the failings of the church – to get out of Gods house. The hypocrites! They are Pharisees! Thy should remember that Jesus thought more of the samaritans who humbly sat at the back of the temple – than those who licked the altar-rails, up-front and reminded the good lord of how wonderful they were – not like those offending and offensive of the faith. How warped and brainwashed they are to the reality of the state of affairs. ‘Whatsoever you do to that least of my brothers, that you do unto me’ is what Jesus preached. So who do these cra-thumpers think they are kidding?
Circle the wagons?! You’ve got to be joking! These guys haven’t even invented the wheel! :-)
On the other hand, their propaganda technology is light-years ahead of everyone else’s.
The propaganda itself on the other hand could hardly be any worse. It would be funny if it weren’t so disgusting.
If you have as many people working under absolute authority, as is the case with the Roman Catholic Church, it is no wonder that their propaganda machine is as effective as it is. They have access to people at every level of society. They have an inside track to those in power, and to the weakest of the weak, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. And they speak to them every week, in church, in newspapers, organisations for the family, pro-life (anti-choice) organisations, so-called catholic civil rights organisations – the list is endless. But it is so completely lacking in integrity that I still find it hard to understand how so many people can be taken in so much of the time. Of course, this has become so much more obvious lately, but it has really always been so. The reason that it has become so obvious now is because it has become so disgustingly self-serving about the church’s malignant treatment of the vulnerable, that is, about people about whom it usually pretends to be concerned. The dissonance is palpable.
I am involved fairly deeply in the whole right to assistance in dying movement, and this is so plain in the church’s propaganda about sanctity of life and human dignity – the same thing crops up on the abortion front – but it is largely hidden, because it can at least seem (and it is, I am afraid, only a seeming) to be about concern for the welfare of others. But in this case it has so obviously been trampling over the the rights of children and women, and then trying to trivialise the outrage that people feel at the abuse and the coverup of systemic crime, that the whole machinery of propaganda is exposed as a giant mechanical monster of self-serving and reflexively self-preserving pretence and lies; the structure has become so transparent that you can see all the gears moving behind the scenes, so that it is virtually impossible to take it any more, now, than as a bizarre, revolting charade. You can see the wizard pulling the strings, and making the monster move. Some people seem to manage to ignore this, but even they seem forced and fake now. The piety is so at odds with what is being defended by it. No one can be that purblind, surely?
This comment from Shuggy may be optimistic, but there is that element of simply being unable to grasp that things have changed and slipped out of their control which is familiar.
I was left wondering: is this Rome’s Ceauşescu moment? There was something about the reaction – from old men accustomed to obedience and deference, responding with arrogant incomprehension to the fact that they are no longer receiving it, that reminded me of this. A phenomenon that is both tragic and repulsive.
http://modies.blogspot.com/2010/04/millstones-vs-therapy.html
Yes Don. Shuggy is probably right. It looks like the Vatican’s shock, horror and awe moment.
To paraphrase TS Eliot: This is the way the Church ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.