There are some who might accuse me of Pope-bashing or, at least, hammering the Catholics … shall we say? … mercilessly.
Well … yeah. But they started it.
All those centuries of burnings and beatings and such rather set a precedent for showing no mercy, and, gee, all I do is give a tongue lashing, and like Blacks can use the “N” word, girls who grew up in the bat-like shadow of Sister Mary Stanislaus and her ilk have license to lash.
Yes, I was a Catholic girl, although I didn’t start that much too late, and had my share of rotten treatment at the hands of black-clad despots, so bear with me.
This story raises a host of ghosts, and we ain’t talking little white bread dots.
… current research and expert opinion suggest that men within the Catholic Church may be no more likely than others to abuse, and that the prevalence of abuse by priests has fallen sharply in the last 20-30 years.
How’s that for missing more than one point in one go?
First, let’s look at the “research” … and feel free to note my bolding of type and call it hammering if you like:
The best-known study on sex abuse by Catholic priests was published in the US, by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops …
Well, grab my head and stick it down a baptismal font! That attribution drips.
Moving right along to more on the point-missing, how’s this?
“The real problem is an abuse of authority, the duty of care that pastors have to their flocks,” says the British historian, and former member of the Jesuit Catholic order, Michael Walsh.
“This has been abused and that is the greatest scandal – that’s what is systemic, rather than sex abuse.”
No, Father Michael … the real problem is that kids have been getting fucked by priests, and the fact that church dudes in big hats and dresses did everything in their vast powers to make sure nobody ever did a thing about it, and that tactics that guaranteed this were engrained into the fabric more clearly than the face on the Turin shroud, just made it more fun.
Trotting out stats is often a dodge, and here’s a classic case of the trots used to suggest that: “There is a big gap between the reality and the public debate … ”
Overall, from 2001-2010 the Vatican has considered sex abuse allegations concerning about 3,000 priests dating back up to 50 years, according to figures given last month by Monsignor Charles J Scicluna, who as the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice heads the office that investigates such cases.
Though the cases were spreading geographically, “the phenomenon itself is much reduced,” he said, noting that there are 400,000 priests worldwide.
Sorry, but the cases the Vatican “has considered about sex abuse allegations” hardly qualifies these numbers as hard data.
My favorite bit of gospel though is this line:
“Celibacy can indeed be a challenge but the vast majority of sexual abuse is not committed by celibates … “
I’ll be charitable and assume this means theoretical celibates …
There’s more, but I have kids to bathe, and if anyone tries to sprinkle them bashing and hammering will happen.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 