Yes, I grew up Catholic, baptized, confirmed, ten years of my schooling, devoutly mothered. Left as soon as I was free to do so, but kept that largely to myself. No desire to replace that religion in my life. So, as the pedophile scandal unfolded, I was not particularly surprized, although I never saw anything like it myself. Nor do I have any sympathy for the believers (the kids victimized, get it all) nor for the institution. Give one group too much power, give up too much of your intellect to blind faith, add a pile of money over a couple of thousand years, and this is the kind of misery that will result. Better to give the scoundrel only a limited space to move, and keep for ourselves plenty of skepticism of authority.
That the Pope's advisor is now arrested on the very problem he was charged with solving does not surprize me either. In our guard unit, the guy put in charge of sexual harassment was the one who cornered females to force a kiss on them. Didn't work with me, but only because I was older, faster, and had already dealt with that sort of behaviour. When I worked at the Detroit library, as a 19-20 year old, I was cornered by an older guard in an elevator, and he kissed me. I did not like him, did not take it as grandfatherly at all, but it was, however disturbing, ultimately harmless. An important lesson, since no old pervert ever caught me again. But if he'd been more aggressive, more violent, more violating, I would have had no defense, no recourse - only boatload of guilt after.
Not that there weren't other incursions on my person, but they abated as I got older, and I got better at preventing them by picking up on early signs. Which is why it is so evil when predators use children, who don't even understand what is being taken from them. That a religious institution is so cavalier about how they deal with this is institutional evil. Just as we all knew that assigning that Officer to take charge of Sexual Harassment meant putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop, everyone who worked with that priest knew. Of course they knew. What they were thinking is the mystery.
Whatever my spiritual leanings and aspirations, I will never belong to a regimented belief system. That way lies destruction of one's soul. No truth lives there. Only hypocrisy and dogma.
Dogs know better.
4 comments:
My Man had the same upbringing as you, left it when he left school and started work. Married in the church to please his family. Always respected those with a firm and honest belief in whatever (as I do)
What were they thinking- were they thinking?
My deep suspicion is that they gave up thinking as a bad job, and swapped it for blind faith so they have someone else to blame.
The soul knows better, but it get's smothered and silenced, eventually murdered.
(o)
Right on.
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