Thursday, November 22, 2007

Dear Catholic Church: Please just shut up.


You'd think this sort of thing would put a little wag in my tail, wouldn't you?

Que. archbishop asks forgiveness for church's sins
Updated Wed. Nov. 21 2007 7:00 PM ET

The archbishop of Quebec City is seeking forgiveness for the Catholic Church's handling of sex scandals and its treatment of minorities.

Marc Cardinal Ouellet issued a wide-ranging mea culpa Wednesday, admitting that "errors were committed" in the past by certain Catholics and other church officials.

Ouellet's open letter was published in Quebec newspapers on Wednesday and addressed attitudes prior to 1960 that he said favoured "anti-Semitism, racism, indifference to First Nations and discrimination against women and homosexuals.''

Ouellet also spoke about sexual abuse carried out by priests.

"Youngsters were subject to sexual aggression by priests,'' the letter reads.

"These scandals shook the confidence of the people towards religious authorities, and we understand them. Forgive us for all this pain!''

This may come as a surprise to my regular readers, but I'm not interested in hearing any more apologies from the Catholic Church. I'm not even interested in hearing how they're having to fork out millions of dollars in settlement claims for people they've brutalized and abused over the years. Truth be told, by now, there's only one thing I desperately would like the Catholic Church to do.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Seriously, I just want them to put a fucking sock in it. You can only listen to that collection of rancid pedophiles apologize so many times before you're just plain tired of it. And, at this point, they really have only one moral choice left to them.

They have to shut up and stop lecturing to the rest of us. They have to fuck right off and clean up their own house and, in the meantime, they have to stop lecturing the rest of us on topics of morality like sex, gays and abortion, because they so don't have the moral standing to be preaching to anyone else. About anything.

Not only that, but it's high time for the mainstream media to understand all of this as well, in terms of simply not inviting Church representatives on their programs any more. It is not even remotely defensible to have a discussion on the pros and cons of, say, same-sex marriage in which a representative of the Catholic Church has to take time off from fending off countless accusations of child molestation to smugly tell others what does and does not constitute morality. And it shouldn't end there.

People like National Post columnist and utter hack Father Raymond J. de Souza should be told, in no uncertain terms, that if they want to continue being published, the only thing coming off their typewriters for the next five years should be an endless stream of apologies for what their organization has done. And that's it. No preaching. No lecturing. No moralistic philosophizing. Just one long, unbroken stream of heartfelt pleas for forgiveness, and we'll tell you when you can stop.

At this point, it's time for these people to just go away, and reflect on how truly evil they are. And only when we believe they can be trusted again should they be allowed to return to civilized society (albeit strictly on a probationary basis). And until that happens, well, I think I've made my position relatively clear.

STFU.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree more but just one point, no amount of apologizing will ever vindicate this evil church for the lives that lay in ruin, the decades of therapy for fuck upness that they are solely responsible for.Don't hold your breath waiting for piece of shit Ratz or his corrupt vatican to ever have an ounce of accountability.

Unknown said...

CC, I bet you're just thrilled today, by the extra tidbit of news that the Halton Catholic School Board has pulled "The Golden Compass" from their library shelves because of "a complaint" (implying: one whine) from a parent that the author, Philip Pullman, has said he's an atheist.

(In other words, "Everyone who disagrees with us MUST. BE. SILENCED. Our precious children MUST be fed only one opinion, and never be allowed to hear anyone else's views on anything, ever.")

I'm beginning to think you just can't trust these fundie religious types around children, period. (You can see why Dawkins thinks religious indoctrination of children is tantamount to child abuse.)

Kids can still actually get the book out of the library, of course, by making a "special request." And you can imagine the persecution THEY'LL experience by the institution, once they've gotten onto its radar that way!

I think what every Halton Catholic school kid should do is form "Golden Compass Clubs," and make a point of acquiring a copy of the book, and reading it.

Meanwhile -- THIS is what public tax money is funding. Grrrr.

Dr.Dawg said...

I note in today's press that other Catholic officials are distancing themselves from the apology. At least they're being consistent.

Anonymous said...

When I was spending mislaid years in the Ontario Catholic school system, I learned about the Catholic Church's take on confession. After you confess your sins, you're supposed to do penance.

What penance has the Church done? They hid the crimes for two or three decades, shuffling the guilty priests here and there to avoid conviction. They deny and fight the charges when they're finally laid. Now they whine about the whole affair. How can they claim any moral authority whatsoever, when they've behaved worse than Enron.

Unknown said...

Joe, I'm sure they think that having to admit that anything untoward happened at all is "penance."

E in MD said...

In one word : No.

Plead to your God. Perhaps he will forgive you if he exists.

The people, however, should neither forgive nor forget. Why? Because even now, what the fuck have you done in order to fix the mistakes you have made? Paid off a few victims to be quiet? Shuffled a few priests around so nobody would notice. Tried to silence victims with threats of excommunication ( which to Catholics means that you're going to hell ) if they ever talked.

And you expect the public to forgive you? Fuck you. What have you done to even fix the damage you've committed on the weakest of us? They trusted you. Their parents trusted you. You betrayed that trust.

If you had dealt with the situation years ago. Disbarred the priests, even. Admitted there was a problem to the public and told them you'd take steps. Anything. But no. You covered it up just like every other criminal does with it's crimes.

As far as colluding with the Nazis and other corrupt, dangerous and evil regimes. If your God exists you'll need to square that with him. Because no amount of forgiveness from humans is going to wash the stain off your hands for that. "Errors were committed" isn't going to cut it. An error is when you type teh instead of the. You (the Church Hierarchy )destroyed lives.