Even if you aren’t Catholic, you should get a chuckle out of this.
Tag Archive for Catholic
Is Child Abuse a National Pastime?
80% of the child abuse cases within the Boy Scouts of America between 1970 and 1991 went unreported. Churches (Catholic and Protestant and other faiths) have hidden cases involving their clergy, youth leaders, and other members of their staffs. School administrations have quietly moved accused offenders to other schools and positions. Coaches of youth teams carry on abuse in locker rooms while others look the other way. The perpetrators are not strangers. In fact, more than 90% of the children who suffer sexual abuse know their abusers.
A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds. What about all the other, unreported instances?
Why do so many people feel it’s okay to harm our vulnerable children? Apparently, many people do feel this way, because there are so many abusers and so many people and organizations that cover it up. When we hear about it, we act shocked, shake our heads in dismay, then go on with our lives. In effect, those of us who do nothing to stop it are helping to perpetuate it.
Has this national shame become a national pastime, simply another tolerated violence like boxing and hunting? I hope not.
Wedding Bells for Priests?
The Pope is reconsidering celibacy for priests? Maybe. After receiving a letter from a group of priests’ girlfriends last week, the Pope said, “The Catholic Church has married priests in the Eastern rites….Celibacy is not a dogma of faith; it is a rule of life that I appreciate a great deal, and I believe it is a gift for the Church. The door is always open, given that it is not a dogma of faith.”
For Catholics, such a papal utterance is akin to the parting of the Red Sea. Maybe this Pope, who has done so much to return the Catholic Church to the simpler, more human-family-oriented church of the Apostles and early Christians…just maybe he’ll return this “rule of life” to those same olden days. If priests could marry, the church would have more men joining up, which would help the dwindling ranks. There would likely still be orders that stick to this “rule of life”–a division in the church that Ireland had to work through in its early Christian days. A man could choose to join one of those if he felt it was the right thing to do.
Will that change come in Pope Francis’ lifetime? We’ll see, but I won’t hold my breath.
[Full disclosure: I am a practicing Catholic.]
The Pope is a Thief?!
Pope Francis revealed that he stole something from another priest–his confessor, no less. He wanted to remember the man who had done so much for him, so, when he died, he took his confessor’s rosary beads. What’s worse, he is still in possession of those stolen goods.
Just think of the scandal: the Catholic Church is being run by an admitted sinner, a human being with weaknesses, someone who makes mistakes (like the recent inadvertent use of an inappropriate word in a homily). He must be insecure, too, because he asked Catholics worldwide, in a survey, what their thoughts and feelings were instead of steadfastly dictating that “This is the way it’s always been, and this is the way it will remain.” Now, I ask you, what kind of leader is that for the Church? What would Jesus do? I wonder.