I suppose that Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle isn’t wrong to write: “No agency, I suspect, has built more schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, orphanages and clinics. No patron has inspired and endowed more masterpieces of music, art, architecture and literature.” His balanced piece, published two days ago under the title “The Church is tempted by power and obsessed with sex,” also declares that “its scandals and sins are monumental.”
But that latter line is too gentle, in my view. In fact, the Catholic church has been self-dealing and corrupt at least since Martin Luther objected to its sale of indulgences in the Middle Ages. It is the same institution that created the infamous and abusive Magdalene Laundries that endured in Ireland until 1996. And let’s not forget the Church’s silence and complicity before and during the Holocaust.
Only in the 1980s did we begin to learn about the extent of sexual abuse perpetrated at all levels of the Catholic hierarchy, in myriad countries around the world, and the massive, persistent conspiracy to cover up this widespread criminality and to enable continued abuse at the hands or priests (and, as in the Magdalene Laundries, nuns). Oh yes, it is the same organization that has ruined countless lives with what Von Drehle calls its “negative obsession with sex.”
The world abounds with conspiracies at various levels of criminality. There is currently an obsession on the right in this country about Latin American gangs. The Mafia lives and breathes in our imaginations and in local government around the world. And, of course, we cannot forget the GOP conspiracy to deny climate change and undermine voting rights.
I don’t know of an objective comparison of these various outrages in terms of the quantity of perpetrators and fellow-travelers, number of victims, financial and social damage caused, or in their pervasiveness over time and geographic impact. But surely, the Catholic Church, with its worldwide reach, 2000-year history, and outright control of so many societies must be considered nothing less than the most damaging criminal conspiracy in human history.
Though I do not share their faith, I do not begrudge anyone their heartfelt belief. I can imagine (if only intellectually) the draw of tradition, the sense of community a religion can foster, and the deep comfort that belief in something greater than ourselves might offer.
It is now time, though, for every Catholic believer, not to reject their belief, but to examine with open eyes the behavior of an institution they enable with their weekly attendance and collection-plate donations. It is time for these Catholics to condemn their church loudly, clearly, and persistently. They must leave the old church and build a new one. Keep the liturgy and the doctrine, if you wish. But denounce Rome and it’s dispersed hierarchy. Start over with local faith leaders who represent and embody the compassion, mercy, and charity of Jesus.
Von Drehle uses the word “corrupted” to describe the Catholic Church. This word choice isn’t wrong, but it is weak, failing to capture the essential rottenness, hypocrisy, and criminality of the institution.
Only when individual Catholics take their responsibility to their true faith seriously can the their historical church be brought to its knees and a new venue and venture for love — of god, humanity, and our beautiful planet — be erected in its place. It is not sufficient for atheists like me to condemn the Catholic Church. Only Catholics themselves can end the outrage.
©2018 Keith Berner
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