Why I despise the Roman Catholic Church

[Matthew Shute]

I cannot pretend that the endless allegations of child sex offences in the Roman Catholic Church motivate my hostility towards the rotten institution. Where I live (England) there’s a constant hysteria about paedophiles, increasingly a witch-hunt, whipped up by the tabloid media; any regular reader of the Sun, for example, could be forgiven for suspecting all of his friends and family members of being constituents of a coven of haunted-looking men and devil-faced women scheming to abduct all the children in the country.

Much more scandalous and barbaric, in the case of the R C Church, has been the flow of details of brutal rape, and mental and physical torture, meted out by disturbed men and women claiming to represent an absolute moral authority. Incidentally, my uncle was tormented in this fashion, in a Catholic-run orphanage many years ago; in his particular case, his physical torment and humiliation at the hands of the nuns was worse than anything dished out by priests - so he has confided. There has, of course, been a systematic effort by the Church to cover up evidence of such astounding cruelty and hypocrisy.

The Pope’s inner-circle, in his defence, have said that the Dear Leader will not be “bullied” on the basis of “petty gossip”. Wallowing in self-pity, the Pope’s preacher even compared the “persecution” of the Pope with the suffering of the Jews in the holocaust. Now, there’s a man so out of touch with reality that, if a dog began reciting Shakespeare to him, he’d simply berate the creature for not entertaining him with the Bard’s great works sooner.

My hostility to this foul organisation runs deeper than my human reaction to their recent crimes and mendacity. The Roman Catholic Church is an organisation that has, for centuries, built up for its hierarchy: fabulous wealth, prestige, and privilege. The Church has done this by methodically preying on the fears, weaknesses, the ignorance, and gullibility of their fellow creatures.

Along with their protestant rivals, they whipped up anti-Semitism to such a degree in Europe that Hitler’s holocaust was possible in the early decades of the twentieth Century.

More directly, men in Roman Catholic robes tortured and murdered unknown numbers of men and women for inconsequential non-crimes – in truth, anything merely suggestive of dissent against the Pope’s authority to police the very thoughts of his Earthly subjects. Perhaps these above examples of the Church's conduct are more suggestive of a malevolent gang that could teach the mafia a thing or two about extortion and two-facedness.

Eventually, faced with the realisation that they no longer have the power or the means to simply torture and slaughter their critics into silence, the Church grudgingly apologised for these and other expression of its basic nature as an institution imbued with God-given authority to do and say whatever it likes. Even while talking about it’s “regrets” regarding the past actions of past infallible Popes, they are keen to remind us that the current Pope is the infallible representive of God on Earth.

[Rum]

Not sure about your stance then...?


Actually +10

Bastards ruined the childhoods of possibly millions.

[Tigger]

Good post. Totally agree.

[Feck]

It is hard to see how anyone can be anything other than horrified by generations of horrific abuse if nothing else .Let's have the LAW used to it's full extent
(how often do you hear me say that ?)

[maiforpeace]

It is hard to see how anyone can be anything other than horrified by generations of horrific abuse if nothing else .Let's have the LAW used to it's full extent
(how often do you hear me say that ?)

They're trying - not only that, I'm amazed that this particular priest isn't going to fight extradition. I certainly hope this sets a precedent for other prosecutors to level charges to the rest of them hiding out elsewhere and at the Vatican.

Priest Accused of US Abuse Won't Fight Extradition
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 6, 2010

NEW DELHI (AP) -- A Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually assaulting a teenage parishioner in Minnesota said Tuesday he would willingly leave his native India and try to clear his name in the courts if the United States tried to extradite him.

Meanwhile, the bishop who oversees the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul said he had overruled a Vatican recommendation that the accused priest be removed from the priesthood and applied his own lesser punishment.

''Unless guilt is proved, we cannot take any strong action,'' said the Most Rev. A. Almaraj of the Diocese of Ootacamund in southern India.

In a separate case, a church official confirmed Tuesday that a priest convicted of fondling a 12-year-old altar girl in New York more than a decade ago had returned home to India where he still served as a priest.

The Rev. Francis X. Nelson was sentenced to four months in prison in 2003 in connection with his role as a visiting priest at a church in Brooklyn. His victim testified that Nelson showed up at her grandmother's apartment uninvited and groped her.

In a telephone call with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Nelson denied he was the same priest who had served in New York and hung up. However, his bishop, the Most Rev. Peter Remigius, confirmed that Nelson had returned to India after serving his jail term and continued to work as a priest in the bishop's office in his home diocese of Kottar in southern India.

''His conviction was finished, and he has finished his term,'' Remigius said. ''He is not in charge of any parish ... he is helping people who are alcoholic.''

Remigius said Nelson had already returned to Kottar when he took over as bishop in 2007. He was not aware of any correspondence between the Vatican and his predecessor, the Most Rev. Leon A. Tharmaraj, regarding whether Nelson should be removed from the priesthood following his conviction. Tharmaraj died in 2007.

The revelation came a day after critics of the Catholic Church highlighted Jeyapaul's case as another example of what they said is a practice of protecting child-molesting priests from the law.

Jeyapaul, who denied the accusations, was one of many foreign priests brought to help fill shortages in U.S. parishes. Last year, about one-quarter of the newly ordained priests in the United States were foreign-born, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Jeyapaul, 55, came to Minnesota in 2004 and was assigned to work at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Greenbush, a town of fewer than 1,000 people just south of the Canadian border. In 2005, he went to India to visit his ailing mother.

While he was in India, he was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl, and Bishop Victor Balke of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, told Jeyapaul not to come back or he would go to the police. Jeyapaul was later charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female parishioner.

Balke also notified the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the top office in the Vatican that was formerly headed by Pope Benedict XVI and handles all abuse cases involving priests.

The Vatican said officials thought Jeyapaul should be removed from the priesthood, but under church law, the decision was up to the local bishop in India. Almaraj held his own canonical trial and sentenced Jeyapaul to spend a year in a monastery.

''He didn't want to leave the priesthood, so then we took this administrative process,'' Almaraj said. ''He is accused. If it is proved he is guilty, then the necessary action will be taken with the guidelines from the Vatican.''

In a May 2006 letter, a Vatican official said Jeyapaul's bishop in India had been instructed to monitor him ''so that he does not constitute a risk to minors and does not create scandal.''

Vatican officials said they cooperated with efforts to extradite him to the U.S. -- even providing authorities with his exact location in India.

Almaraj said Monday that there had been no discussion of Jeyapaul returning to the United States to face the charges, but he said Tuesday that in light of the very public criticism of the case he should go back.

''It is his duty to prove his innocence,'' he said.

In a brief press statement later in the day, Almaraj said Jeyapaul's case would be referred to the Catholic Bishops Conference of India.

The Rev. Babu Joseph, spokesman for the conference, stressed that the church would ask Jeyapaul to face the courts in the U.S. if an extradition request was made. He said church officials in India also planned to issue new guidelines for dealing with similar situations by the end of the month.

''We don't want any leniency on this. We take it very seriously,'' he said.

Jeyapaul, who continues to work in the diocese office handling paperwork for schools, said he would not put up a fight if the United States tried to extradite him.

''I am ready to go because I am innocent. I am ready to prove I did not do any wrong,'' he said.

Lisa Hanson, the prosecutor in northern Minnesota's Roseau County, said her office has been working with the U.S. Justice Department to extradite Jeyapaul.

''He's charged with serious felonies here in this country,'' Hanson said. ''We want justice for the victim here and we want to do whatever we can to protect potential future victims everywhere.''

Officials at India's Foreign Ministry were not available to discuss whether the U.S. asked for Jeyapaul's extradition.

Jeyapaul said his accusers falsely targeted him to get money from the Minnesota diocese, and he fought back against the Vatican's recommendation that he no longer be a priest.

''I explained to the Vatican that I am not guilty, so I do not want to leave the priesthood,'' he said.

An attorney for the alleged victim in the Minnesota case, Jeff Anderson, demanded Jeyapaul be suspended and returned to the U.S.

''Everyone knew there was a serious problem, but they chose not to ask and they chose not to tell,'' Anderson said.

The Vatican has denounced such accusations and has blamed the media for what it calls a smear campaign against the pope and his advisers.

------

Associated Press reporter Patrick Condon contributed to this report from St. Paul, Minnesota, Nirmala George contributed from Ootacamund, India, and Nicole Winfield contributed from Rome.

[The Red Fox]

The child abuse scandals coupled with every PR disaster Rome has had since Ratzi was appointed Pope (think back, is there any group that man hasn't pissed off?), and the Church apologising constantly show the Vatican is on the defensive. The fact the Church even needs to apologise shows a lot of progress. I think Rome knows its days of power in Western Europe are through. After all, this would never have happened in the good old days when dissenters could be burnt at the stake for such heresy.

The Catholic Church is fucked. The fact the world's wealthiest and most powerful religion needs to go on the defensive says an awful lot. I've met a lot of Catholics and all of them were religious in the Church of England sense i.e., not at all. They merely used Catholicism as a cultural label. And with the aforementioned scandals, these people are now a lot less willing to associate themselves with Rome. The Catholic Church is going the way of all other religions; down the toilet, along with all the other turds humanity has pushed out of its collective anus.

[Coito ergo sum]

I despise priests in general.

They pretend to know that which they cannot know. They scare children with threats of eternal damnation (which is one of the things they can't know).

They pretend to some high level of holiness, and are nevertheless just men.

They point their fingers at others, when they are in no better position than anyone else to know anything.

They live off the lies they tell to their parishioners, siphoning off money so they can live lives of contemplation and ease. They are snake oil salesmen that seek to persuade their flock that they have something to give them, when in fact it is THEY who have their hands out. THEY are the beggars in this world, promises riches in the non-existent next to scared and gullible "sheep."

They can:

[AshtonBlack]

I despise priests in general.

They pretend to know that which they cannot know. They scare children with threats of eternal damnation (which is one of the things they can't know).

They pretend to some high level of holiness, and are nevertheless just men.

They point their fingers at others, when they are in no better position than anyone else to know anything.

They live off the lies they tell to their parishioners, siphoning off money so they can live lives of contemplation and ease. They are snake oil salesmen that seek to persuade their flock that they have something to give them, when in fact it is THEY who have their hands out. THEY are the beggars in this world, promises riches in the non-existent next to scared and gullible "sheep."

They can:

+8.4!
Well said that man.

[Pappa]

I despise priests in general.

They pretend to know that which they cannot know. They scare children with threats of eternal damnation (which is one of the things they can't know).

They pretend to some high level of holiness, and are nevertheless just men.

They point their fingers at others, when they are in no better position than anyone else to know anything.

They live off the lies they tell to their parishioners, siphoning off money so they can live lives of contemplation and ease. They are snake oil salesmen that seek to persuade their flock that they have something to give them, when in fact it is THEY who have their hands out. THEY are the beggars in this world, promises riches in the non-existent next to scared and gullible "sheep."

They can:

+8.4!
Well said that man.

+54839384849494948484949393