Interesting points from an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday:
"Should the pope resign?" No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly - ideally - qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.
No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice - the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution - while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.
13 comments:
What a wonderful analysis. I've been doing some research on articles that exist already on Wikipedia that document sexual abuse of children, and have noted how comparatively high are the Roman Catholic instances.
Sell the Vatican. Feed the world.
I don't care if he resigns I'm more interested in him being taken in for questioning as soon as his plane touches down outside of the Vatican City; why should priests be above our laws?
On a more humorous note did you see an article last week in the Times, titled "Vienna boys' choir caught up in sex abuse scandal"; the article was the usual sorry tale of Catholic evil and cover up but the author was a man called "Roger Boyes" :) made me chuckle anyway, I was thinking of sending it in to "mock the week" or something.
coupla points.
Institutions can't be "profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping", rather that is something reserved for the humans who operate within them.
Second, to Tim - who would you sell the Vatican to? And where would they get the money? Wouldn't that money also feed the world (that is, if you could eat cash)?
I love op-eds - they're regularly like half-baked bagels.
I think a rather long and large auction sale wudl do the trick
OP, Those things can be "institutionalised" though, and in the case of the Catholic church some would say have been.
Tim,
same thing applies.
Steve,
Inanimate objects like stone buildings and crucifixes don't kiddy-fiddle - they are inanimate: the RC church has been criticised for an organised cover-up, not for actively promoting abuse.
If you are going to take aim at institutionalisation of abuse then for consistency's sake you should look first within the familial home as the vast majority of abuse occurs in the family. So will you criticise all parents and accept blame yourself, arguing that family is a corrupt institution because of the behaviour of disparate individuals and that you are participating in a conspiracy of silence? The only logical reaction would be that families are disbanded and all parental rights should be stricken, don't you think?
...hmmm!
It's simply no good allowing your personal biases to get the better of you because that just leads to wild prescriptions.
Abuse and covering up abuse are two different crimes, which have different causes and cannot be treated the same - it is a massive error to either conflate them or place them in the same category, which despite satisfying the need to prove moral superiority would nevertheless fail to address the actual problems.
Do we disband the Police because some police officers have in the past been racist or took bribes, dealt drugs and pimped prostitutes, and that this was covered up by the freemason culture? Who would then represent the law on our streets? And how would you arrange oversight to ensure the new institution is held more accountable?
OP, thanks but I realise that there are two issues here, and I realise that bricks cannot be immoral (???)
I also find your comment about personal bias somewhat patronising, are you sure that your own bias isn't colouring your pro-Catholic stance here, of course it is, that is natural. The point is, if we were talking about a greedy corporation who exploited thousands of vulnerable people and ruined their lives you would almost certainly take a different line, but simply because it's the Catholic church you seem to demand a different approach, why?
Comparing a family to a church is a specious comparison, one is a biological necessity the other an entirely man made construct and evidently unnecessary.
The answer to your question is a simple one, if a police force was systemically covering up it's abuses then I would fire the head of police and hire someone who isn't bent or incompetent! Isn't that obvious?
The other obvious observation is that we need a police force, we don't need the Catholic church, or perhaps you think we do?
Steve,
at what point did I make any pro-catholic statement?
Just because I didn't take an overtly confrontational anti-Catholic position you've fallen into the trap of polarising the debate by telling me I'm pro-Catholic. I think you should know better than that.
As to whether we actually need a Catholic church, I think this is a matter of opinion.
Clearly you are of the opinion that there is no need, but I don't think this is something that can be proven either way.
I'd also point out that reproductive biology does not necessitate a family structure, so I reject your criticism of speciousness. The family unit is another construct of humanity, which study of the animal world shows.
And whether we objectively need a Police force or a criminal justice infrastucture, the same applies.
So I think I've got to challenge you to back up your assertions with some evidence, please.
Surely these institutions are our cultural legacy and whether an individual supports them or not reflects their support for what they represent.
It seems obvious to me that the existence of the criminal justice infrastructure in this or any form is entirely contingent on current levels of crime, support for families is contingent on individual experience of them and support for religion is contingent on any percieved benefit accruing from them.
I think it's relevant here, so let me give you my favorite Homer Simpson quote: "Beer. The source of - and solution to - all the world's problems."
Profoundly agnostic (I prefer rum anyway).
OP, Whilst I completely agree about beer :), let me attempt to back up my comments further.
Do we need the Catholic church?, well no, a posteriori this is true because there are human beings surviving perfectly well on this planet right now who have never even heard of it or have a different religion.
You could argue that we don't need a police force, but in a modern society I think it would be a purely theoretical one from the point of view of social cohesion (someone has to keep the priests in check!). Anyway, you haven't addressed the point of the post - like the head of a police force, is the Pope ultimately "responsible" for this cover up or not?
Regarding Munich, the document trail leads to him, this is not a matter of opinion; so if he read them he is complicit, if he didn't read them or didn't understand them then he is incompetent, which is it?
I inferred your comments to be pro-Catholic because at no point did I accuse that institution of the things that you subsequently corrected me on, i.e. I simply pointed out that evil can be "institutionalised" (by any group) which I don't think you actually disagreed with but countered with a completely different point, i.e. that you can't blame the Catholic Church for the behaviour of some of it's members, which is a classic apologist argument when it comes to any religious or group misadventure, not just Catholicism.
re. "Families", semantic wriggling! but I still think you are relying on an equivocation fallacy, i.e. the properties of a biological "family" are not the same as those of a religion even though we sometimes use the same words to refer to them (like "Father") This is an example of religion hijacking natural terms in order to add more "gravitas" to itself; but it does not mean they are the same or that one is a natural extension of the other. Yes, we don't need a "family" in order to reproduce but that's not the context you used the term in.
I agree these institutions are our cultural legacy, culturally I am a Christian, but like slavery and bear baiting we don't necessarily _need_ (in an absolute sense) to hang on to them or more importantly, treat them any differently from anything else to which our laws apply, this would simply be an argument from tradition?
You're completely right that I didn't address the question of Joseph Ratzinger's personal responsibility on this matter, but I'd prefer to be slightly more cautious and be sure of my ground before doing so.
Getting back to the general debate I think your argument that a Catholic church isn't necessary because some other people can survive without it is odd, to say the least.
You are promoting the absolutist viewpoint, which, while I'm prepared to accept may be accurate, cannot be proven absolutely. Therefore to seek to impose this view unilaterally lays you open to dangerous intolerant behaviour of exactly the kind you decry.
So, on the one hand you call for immediate and unequivocal apologies while simulataneously attacking the concept of apologising.
Irrespective of any accuracy on one side or the other I find it impossible to support such an incoherent and self-contradictory stance.
I also think it is irresponsible to make an argument ('evil can be institutionalised') and not accept the logical extension of it without emplacing any parameters or conditions on its application: if you wish to make the case that abuses by priests indicate something systemic then it is worth making a fair comparison with similar social institutions (such as the family, or the police).
Therefore, rather than seeing my rationalisation as a defence of the church you may be served better by recognising it as an attack on unbalanced family life in westernised culture - or rather, my rationalisation of your argument as an attack on the western family.
Perhaps this is why you reacted so strongly - instead of just disagreeing with your argument I extended it to show how you were actually criticising your own reality. And calling me as an opponent of your position was just an easy way of refusing to understand the consequences of what you actually said - as you made plain, I didn't address the main point myself.
I also dispute any equivocation fallacy regarding the concept of 'family'.
If I'm to read you correctly you are judging everyone negatively who grew up away from their biological parents for whatever reason (which includes Tim) - that's to infer he'd be 'normal' if he had gone to a 'normal' comprehensive. I think he may wish to dispute that point.
The concept of biological parents being mainly responsible for child rearing is generally a relatively new historical development (since the industrial revolution) which is related to transience and economic conditions, so when you use the term 'natural' you are making a historically contingent distinction relevant for only a few lifetimes.
Regarding the Pope, I think it is important to recognise the temporal aspect of the office. Although religion is mainly occupies a spiritual existence, the church in Rome is an exception to this rule.
Like Tim said, you could sell off the Vatican and debase any earthly position it holds, but that would not be upheld by international law unless done voluntarily - which is even more unlikely.
So we must all accept the realpolitik situation that the continuance of his reign depends upon continued confidence of the electoral constituents in the College of Cardinals.
If he were to resign without facing criminal proceedings (which is impossible since there is no jurisdiction for these matters) he couldn't be stripped of his other titles (since there'd not yet be another Pope to do so) and he'd be eligble for reelection - and given the college is largely unchanged under Ratzinger, except to bolster support for his tenure, it is likely he would be reelected with a greater majority (reports are that he was the overwhelming candidate first time round anyway).
I think it's interesting that the ethical argument is being used in an attempt to undermine the position of this Pope when his mission has been to consolidate the spiritual appeal of the church by addressing these issues.
Obviously nobody who has risen to such high rank could be completely untouched by the questions of abuse that have circulated in recent decades, so if you're expecting to hold this Pope to account and kick him out then I strongly suspect you'd have to force the wholesale resignation of all the cardinals which would cause a constitutional crisis.
Which means there is a double lock on Ratzinger's position and his resignation would be an empty gesture serving no purpose: you couldn't get rid of him without getting rid of the church and you couldn't get rid of the church without invading their neutral unarmed territory which we've signed treaties to protect and desacrating every church in every land.
And who's going to advocate a new Kristalnacht against Christians to purge any guilt of abuse?
In a perverse way even falling church attendance in the short term has historically reaffirmed the political position of the papacy over the longer term since it confirms their matryrdom-complex.
So frankly, the matter of abuse by priests is a political football for those with ulterior motives.
One of the things I was told when thinking about international political issues was to remember where there's an election going on, as there's always an election going on somewhere.
I think that's good advice.
Or put it another way - it's never about ethics, it's always about politics.
I'm not entirely sure where growing up away from biological parents arrived from. I thought we were discussing an organisation that has allowed and concealed the abuse of many thousands of children, sexual, physical and emotional, globally.
If it helps, I'm as normal as the next man. I refuse, though, to tell you who that next man is.
I think you might look at http://tinyurl.com/yj2vjla for amusement and at http://tinyurl.com/ydakngkbfor an interesting viewpoint, although he does bang on for twice as long as he should.
And any sell of seems to me to be in the spirit of Poverty, which the Vatican patently does not adhere to. Chastity, which the housekeeper is provided to help with, and Obedience, which seems not to happen that much either, those are separate matters.
So a public auction of assets with poverty eliminated with the proceeds is an interesting idea.
Oops. I forgot to link those urls.
http://tinyurl.com/yj2vjla and http://tinyurl.com/ydakngk are the links.
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