Why Are Pedophilia-Hiding, Child-Abusing Church Fathers Allowed to Write Laws About Women's Bodies?

Why Are Pedophilia-Hiding, Child-Abusing Church Fathers Allowed to Write Laws About Women's Bodies?
The Nation / By Katha Pollitt
April 3, 2010 |

My favorite moment of the whole child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was when Father Klaus Malangré suggested that Peter Hullermann, the redoubtable German pedophile priest, might be sent to work in a girls' school. No boys, no molestation. Or, in churchly language, no occasion of sin. Problem solved! Plus, the good father would spend his life warding off female cooties. Malangré must not have heard about priests -- and they do exist -- who abused both male and female children. Nor had he learned the lesson of Watergate: the cover-up is worse than the crime.

The church has yet to learn that lesson. There is a positively Nixonian smarmy truculence in the response of church hierarchs to the ongoing scandal, which now involves Pope Benedict XVI himself. On Palm Sunday, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan urged worshipers at St. Patrick's Cathedral to show "love and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob and scourging at the pillar, as did Jesus." On his blog, Dolan explains that what gets Catholics angry is not just the molestations themselves but also that "the sexual abuse of minors is presented as a tragedy unique to the Church alone." Oh, really? Does the name Mary Kay Letourneau mean nothing to him? This man needs to read the tabloids, which have for years featured an endless parade of molesting teachers, doctors, dentists, therapists and scout leaders. To go by the news, looking at child pornography on one's office computer is so common, it's a wonder anyone finds the time to abuse real kids. At this late date I doubt anyone is unaware that the sexual abuse of children is a widespread phenomenon.

The difference is, when other professionals who work with children are caught out, justice takes its course. People are fired. Licenses are lost. Reputations are ruined. Sometimes jail is involved. No human institution is perfect, and it would be foolish to suggest that incidents are always investigated and that abusers who don't happen to be priests are never protected by colleagues or superiors. Still, it's probably safe to say that if a principal was accused of overlooking a child molester in his classrooms or recycling him to other schools, nobody would compare his suffering to Christ's.

And nobody would be asking for his views about sex, reproduction, women, homosexuality or healthcare either. The moral authority granted the Catholic Church in the secular world is for me the most repellent aspect of the current crisis. In the succinct words of Jodi Jacobson, editor of RHRealityCheck.org, "Why is a pedophilia-ridden, pedophilia-hiding, child-abusing Church allowed to write laws controlling women's rights?" To which one might add: what gives a church in which celibacy is equated with holiness, in which males have almost all the power, the right to a place at the table where laws are made about women's bodies? The same institution that has dealt so indulgently with its ordained pedophiles had no problem excommunicating a Brazilian mother who sought an abortion for her 9-year-old daughter, raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, or pushing for laws in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Chile banning abortion even to save the woman's life.

Most Catholics take a flexible view of the church's teachings on sexuality. They use birth control -- how else could Italy, Spain and Poland have among the lowest birthrates in the world? They divorce and remarry, use condoms to prevent STDs, undergo in vitro and other banned fertility treatments and even have abortions. Yet there were the bishops, holding the whole healthcare reform bill hostage to their opposition to abortion rights, advising on the crafting of language right in the halls of Congress. And as Jacobson details, it was the Conference of Catholic Bishops that worked alongside Republican Congressmen Chris Smith, Joe Pitts and Mike Pence to insert last-minute language denying HIV-positive women access to contraceptives and favoring abstinence-only-until-marriage policies in the 2008 President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.


Rest of article at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146287/why_are_pedophilia-hiding%2C_child-abusing_church_fathers_allowed_to_write_laws_about_women%27s_bodies?page=entire

it's the pinnacle of hypocrisy, asymptotically approaching the zenith...

These are the things that make me most angry as well. The boil known as the Catholic Church is festering and I am hoping the son of a bitch will finally get lanced and all the horrific infection that it has been will come pouring out and it will either have to change or DIE. This organization makes human rights a joke, they deserve no respect for their views of women alone, not to mention the fact that they seem to be one huge, ancient pedophile ring.

This organization believes a woman should die before ever having an abortion; and they believe molesting children is no big deal. If it wasn't a religion it would be ground into the dust by now.

reproductive choices used to serve the purpose of establishing paternity in an age where DNA identification of paternity did not exist. Wealth and power as well as station were frequently determined by station. The church and nobility formed a cozy arrangement for centuries. The nobility held onto power as sanctioned by the church and the church had a ready source of revenue and exerted its influence over the policies developed by the rulers. The additional bonus for them was the ready source of labor, tithes, goods, sales of indulgences, and new priests that could be readily renewed among the poor who adhered to the faith. The Vatican and the papacy hold vast wealth, and it wasn't all come by honestly or blood free. It was bought at a huge price throughout history.

It will only change when they appoint a women Pope..... and you know that won't happen anytime soon.

having sex for any reason besides marital procreation... it gives them more sexually frustrated males to choose from.

nt

Every real 'Murkin knows that.

Just ask any real 'Murkin politician.



















:sarcasm:

Previous to this it was only 99.5%.

i don't give a shit if you're president or pope....laws are laws

Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral (They don't him oral for nothing.) Roberts, Ernest Angley, Jimmy,Swaggart and Paul and Jan Crouch.
The Catholic Church is centered in Rome so they can't be included in the Founding Fathers thing. But they did influence the signers of that illustrious document 'The Declaration of Women and Children Depending on Men for Everything' including, making sure dinner is ready at 6:00pm sharp or else! (and) Satisfying the 'need' when manly stress relief is desired. So there.

Brought to you by the International Board of Sarcastic References.

A local progessive radio host (Mario Solis) was discussing this whole issue in very gingerly terms and several callers referred to (and agreed with) Maureen Dowd's column citing the need for women to take the helm--even perhaps as Pope. Then a devout Catholic female who professed to be progressive called in very upset at these suggestions that the church should elevate women to deal with the problem, stating that this would "never happen, that it was not the way the church tenets were formed and would never change" and that she found it offensive. I'm driving in my car listening to this, so incredulous I nearly drove off the road...

:wtf:


Really, wtf is wrong with some of these women that they not only accept but have no desire to change the church hierarchical view of women?

Their self worth is defined by men.

Almost, pitiful?

tradition does not equal morality.

the u.s. started as a noble experiment in self-governance, yet they also compromised to allow slavery. the tradition of slavery was internalized hatred of others as second-class citizens.

when you're in the midst of such training, it's hard to see that others have taught you to demean yourself and all other women.

The RCC will never budge on this issue ever ever ever. Why fight against a religious organization that doesn't represent you and will never change most certainly not in your lifetime or your children's, children's, children's life time? Free to go. Free to stay and believe what you like as most Catholics do. Most Catholics do not agree with most social strictures of the church, but it doesn't impact their daily lives, so why bother?

I grew up Catholic. The moment I realized the church didn't represent me, I was done with them. Never looked back, and why should I? I didn't choose to be considered a Catholic by the church because my parents were, nor choose to be raised as a Catholic, and never bought into what they were selling. The moment I was no longer forced by my parents to adhere to the rituals, I no longer did and was thrilled to wipe the Catholic church from my life and mind. Good riddence.