Touching Upon the Untouchable: The Church Thing
Posted on March 4, 2013 | 1 Comment | Edit
Okay, this is just too much to take let alone let slide. The news channels are treating the current “Conclave” of “princes of the church” with a great deal of respect, even in reporting such as is to be found in the article posted here. Yes, there is a hint of derision, but at most subtle derision and little in the sense of outrage, outrage that need not be of the editorial kind, but reporting that at least points to the principles violated, the meaning of such violations, and the issue of respect for the authority of the people involved and the fact that they do go about their business treated as “holy” people, people somehow different from the rest who are to be understood to be of real importance for reasons other than what reasonably qualifies one to be treated as an important person. That importance, the importance of the church hierarchy, has been based on the moral authority of those who are anointed to serve in high places in the church. Recent history, which, it appears goes back a long way, points to the FACT that these people, and they are people, have what most sensible human beings would consider to be a truly corrupted sense of morality and their importance really resides in the criminal deeds in which they have participated or refused to acknowledge, the latter leading to the continuation of horrific behavior that led to horrific consequences for the victims.
To treat pedophilia in the way it is treated when it takes place in the church is to deny, yes deny, the grotesque nature of the crimes committed and, to hear the criminals ask for forgiveness as though they are more deserving of such that others who have committed similarly terrible criminal acts against children, against children, is beyond any sensible sense of morality I have ever encountered. Still, the pleas of forgiveness are made in such a way as to try to place the miscreants in a different category of failed being, a category that somehow preserves holiness, that makes the criminality appear to be a tragedy for the perpetrator and, every article read seems to report in such a way as to somehow hint to the reader that such is the case, a holy person fallen from the heights when, in reality, this person, because of his behavior never was in anyway “holy” (in a sensible telling of reality, the notion of holiness would have been dismissed from the get-go), and that this entity we call a church has no authority to confer such status because it, in and of itself, cannot be holy considering the kinds of sinful behavior it, in its “better” moments ignored, and which, in reality it actually condoned. For those who want to bristle at the charge that the absolutely irredeemable actions of the church are characterized by use of the word “condoned,” I say another term that accurately conveys the true sense of what has occurred would be “instigated,” valid because the whole set of beliefs that the church argues are writ holy allow for those within to think in ways that sensible people would not, in the belief that what they do is a manifestation of the will of a force more powerful than themselves. And there it is that, as Christopher Hitchens so effectively argues, not only is the god worshipped by these people not good, such a absurd and ridiculous posturing provides further evidence that “religion [at least this particular religion] poisons everything.
