I had one of those moments this week, where I quite literally could not believe my ears.
At the end of yet another report of child abuse by Roman Catholic priests, Anton Enus added, in an almost throwaway fashion, "Victim advocates estimate that up to half a million children have been abused at the hands of the Catholic Church over the last 50 years."
Pope Benedict, in his former role as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly called the Inquisition), banned anyone from speaking about the abuse outside the church. The criminals were protected and the victims silenced in order to safeguard the church's image.
In a letter to Irish victims he now says 'serious mistakes' were made by the local bishops, but still does not confess his own complicity.
The Holy See has 'permanent observer' status at the United Nations. It can't vote in the General Assembly, but has the same status as a member state at most UN conferences.
It has used that status to obstruct: the provision of emergency contraception; the promotion of condoms as protection against HIV/AIDS; sexuality education in school curricula; and the training and equipping of health care workers to ensure safe and accessible abortion.
The 2004 Jay Report on child sexual abuse in the US Catholic Church found that from 1950 to 2002, 10,667 people made allegations of child sexual abuse. Eighty-one percent of them were male, 78 percent between the ages of 11 and 17.
The Vatican tries to say it's a gay issue, not a pedophile one. Monsignor Charles Scicluna, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that of the 3000 cases referred to his office over nine years, 60 percent involved adolescents of the same sex, 30 percent involved heterosexual relations, and only the remaining 10 percent were pedophilia 'in the truest sense'.
Here in Australia, Rome wields massive influence in both major parties.
Every hour of every day for the last 50 years, at least one child has been physically and/or sexually abused by this organisation. And our politicians go to them for moral guidance?
The Roman Catholic Church continues to scapegoat gay priests. Five years ago, its response to child molestations by priests was to ban men 'with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies' from studying for the priesthood, and to begin a gay witchhunt through the world's seminaries.
Now the Church is at it again, claiming that because most victims were boys who had reached puberty but not the age of consent the issue is not pedophilia but homosexuality.
Pardon me, your holiness, but a grown man in a position of respect and authority forcing himself on a boy whether not he can yet grow hairs on his balls is still child-molesting, regardless of the technical definition. And covering it up to protect your own arse you, who claim to be God's representative on earth is worse.
These men did not molest boys because they were gay they molested boys because of the warped religion in which you raised them, teaching them that the only good woman is a virgin, and that the answer to their homosexual inclinations is to fall in love with an imaginary perfect dead bloke in his early 30s (usually depicted almost naked and nailed helplessly to a cross, I might add). And never, ever masturbate, or have sex.
In other words, your holiness, your church creates abusers, and has been doing so for centuries. "Clergy sexual abuse did not begin suddenly in 1984. It has been a recognized problem throughout the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church" (Doyle and Rubino, Fordham Urban Law Journal).
The wonder is not that there are so many Roman Catholic clerical abusers, but that there are so few.
More importantly, your holiness, you and your minions covered up the abuse to protect your business and reputation, denied the victims justice, protected the wrongdoers, and effectively ensured a supply of further victims. Your attacks on gay priests conveniently deflect attentions from these crimes of your own.
The Pope's response is to say the Church should do penance. Traditionally, penance means "a rigorous course of fasting, prayer, and alms giving, during which the penitent is excluded from the Mass" (Wikipedia). Penance also involves making redress to any victims.
Is this feeble self-administered 'punishment' meant to be an adequate response to the physical and sexual abuse of up to half a million children over the last 50 years, and your facilitation and concealment of the same?
The Pope personifies the Church. But the Pope is personally implicated in the cover-up. Who is going to deny him Mass, and decide when he has repented enough? What 'almsgiving' would be appropriate? Flogging off the Vatican for a luxury housing development and giving the money to the victims?
Which reminds me. The Inquisition used to publicly flog penitents. Why not revive the tradition? A cardinal being whipped the length of Oxford St. I'd like to see that in next year's Mardi Gras.
[%chipin%]
