The Pope is dope

Obligatory disclaimer on the knowledge that resurrecting threads is frowned upon and my blatant disregard to said rule when a certain thread exists and there is no need to create a new one.

With that out of the way, a friend of mine and I have been discussing the several scandals surrounding the church lately, but more specifically the accusations being hurled at Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. Cardinal Vigano recently retired and wrote a letter accusing church hierarchy, including the Pontiffs, about knowledge sex abuse and willingly covering it up rather than dealing with it. Here are the links to America magazine's, National Catholic Reporter's and the Wall Street Journal's take on it:

https://www.americamagazine.org/fai...ns-what-we-know-and-what-questions-they-raise

https://www.ncronline.org/news/acco...no-letter-exposes-putsch-against-pope-francis

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-f...rick-sexual-abuse-scandal-1535286713?mod=e2fb

The NCR's article is the most biased in defense of the Pope claiming Vigano's accusations prove the conspiracy AGAINST pope Francis by more conservative church members. The WSJ links to the letter, but here it is as well: https://assets.documentcloud.org/do...ONYXCMVX-XENGLISH-CORRECTED-FINAL-VERSION.pdf

My friend also sent me a "conservative" catholic podcast regarding the matter and it upset me to hear them conflate several issues. For example they spoke about the letter proving that a "cabal" of homosexual priests who seduce young seminarians exists and that it needs to be dealt with. They equate the issue with the sex-abuse of minors.

I admit that if there is a group of lustful priests who prey on young seminarians is an issue that needs to be dealt with, but let's for a moment pretend they are not priests. Is there is anything inherently wrong with one adult seducing another adult? No. The problem is they took a vow of celibacy and THAT'S what makes it wrong. This is NOT child abuse or even sexual abuse. The other problem that the podcasters mainly had is that they are HOMOSEXUAL priests. For them homosexuality is inherently wrong. Not once do they mention the problem of heterosexual priests seducing/sleeping with consensual women. To them homosexual priests seducing other adults are as guilty and evil as pederast predators who rape children. I'm sorry, but in my book it is nowhere near the same crime. Breaking your vow of celibacy makes you a bad priest, but raping minors makes you a criminal.

Regardless, the shit hit the fan and it is very ugly. Thoughts?
 
Surely the first (priests & seminaries) is about abuse of power more than breaking celibacy vows? Outside of the church nobody gives a hoot about the latter; however the former is a very topical issue across all walks of life in respect to sexual exploitation. That's the "wrong".
 
My apologies to the Catholics on the board, because I'm going to tear the Church a new one.

This type of obfuscation is because Catholic morals are rapidly diverging from common morals. Fifty years ago, Catholic morals and common morals had a lot more in common. There was a general resistance to abortion and homosexuality - the concept of trans- and cisgender wasn't really even a thing. The Church has failed to change as common Western society has evolved. Which means the Church is literally still conflating concepts we have come to realize are normal (homosexuality) with concepts we still find utterly abhorrent (child molestation). It's a corrupt organization in many ways. There's lots of great priests out there who would never hurt a fly, but the upper echelons of the Church are either a) directly guilty of sexual assault or b) guilty of covering up the acts in question.

We are quite literally more than 16 years since the Boston Globe broke the big Boston-area sexual predator stories and the Catholic Church has done scarcely more than continuously circle the wagons to defend the Church. It seems like each time there is a new series of accusations we see the same dances play out in motion. If Pope Francis really wanted to make change he would fire the cardinals who covered this shit up for years. But we know now that the same behaviour from priests outed in a dozen countries and a hundred cities is still happening. We know that there were literal child pornography rings and cabals within the Church, and we know the Church not only knew about them, but covered it up. For years, and years, and years. Decades. Probably centuries, but we'd never prove that.

If the Catholic Church was any other organization we'd be looking at mass arrests. The fact that these criminals continue to go free time and time again is absolutely staggering.
 
I disagree with you about the church's morality being the same as that of 50 years (or more) ago. Pope Francis himself has made efforts to be inclusive to the LGBT community with his, "God made you like this," remark being the most famous. Father James Martin, SJ has written numerous articles about how the church MUST embrace the LGBT community. Now, of course this is coming from the Jesuits, an order that conservative Catholics have always hated. But they were never this vocal about it. I once again must point out that the percentage per capita of pederasts in the Catholic Church is in line with the general population. I'm not saying it is OK or "not a problem," it IS a problem, but due to it's visibility as an institution, its reputation, etc, they are easy targets for scandals. I'll never forget that in my own hometown newspaper, The Arizona Daily Star, the article on the front page was about a priest who got caught abusing minors. In that SAME issue on page 8, at the bottom, hardly discernible, was an article of a Rabbi that got caught for the same crime. Same crime, both men of the cloth, but one is page 1 news the other bottom of page 8.

As I originally said, we need to separate the pederast issue from the homosexual issue. The conservatives are upset about both. Fucking hypocrits. I've been lucky enough to meet and know "good" priests. In all of my church going life I only know of two scandals and both fairly recent. One was, the Cathedral in Tucson had a young priest, no more than 25, good lucking, charismatic, great public speaker. Mr. perfect. One Sunday he was there the next he's gone. Guess what? Mr. perfect was having sex with a female parishioner, got caught, got transfered. Not ONE person spoke ill of him. Why? Because he's heterosexual? I bet you had he been gay more than half the parish would have been up in arms.

The other scandal was my own parish priest "retired." Turns out he didn't retire, he quit. He was quite old, late 60s early 70s and asked the diocese permission to retire so he could marry. The Diocese agreed and told him the paperwork would take 3 months. He told them to go fuck themselves, quit on the spot and left. It is naive to think he had barely met this woman, more than likely he had been having a relationship for years. Which begs the question, if he had waited years already, what was 3 more months? What was the big hurry? More than likely she gave him an ultimatum. Again... hardly made any news outside of the regular parishioners.

As for le Pope, things are still up in the air.
 
I'm pretty sure we watched Maiden with him in London last year, and I went for a beer with him before Maiden in Stockholm this year.
 
I saw Pope John Paul II on his last visit to Mexico. That popemobile moves pretty fast lol. I was in my dad's apartment downtown and I was watching on TV as he came closer. Then I moved to the window and for all of 5 seconds I saw him IRL haha. Then I just turned back to the TV as he made his way to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. At that point he was more dead than alive, but hey, how often can you say you saw a Pope from your apartment window lol.
 
I was in Boston once when the Pope was there. @Perun and I were waiting for @SinisterMinisterX and there was about 500 people in I (heart) The Pope shirts and one guy in a Maiden shirt and leather.

Guess which one we were waiting for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top