Themes & Thoughts

The Gross Hypocrisy of the Pope Protesters

Already, in Britain, there have been protests directed not just at the Roman Catholic Church, but Pope Benedict himself; when his official visit comes next year, the demonstrations will no doubt intensify. The usual suspects are responsible – worst of all, surely, are the people who have the gall to call themselves “Humanists”, when in reality anti-humanism is their clear trade. Apparently, though, some of these protesters have been forthright enough to openly state the motive of their dislike of the Catholic Church – it opposes abortion. There is only one major organisation in the world today – only one – which clearly, uncompromisingly and unvaryingly supports and promotes the value, and valuing, of human life; only one significant body stands in the way of the – powerful and universal - promoters of the Culture of Death; until it is removed, their dream will be thwarted. That body is the Catholic Church, and the scandals in the Church over sexual molestations have provided the pro-death lobby with a marvellous opportunity which they could never have engineered themselves, or even imagine, some years ago.

A rational, unbiased view of the sexual crimes of clergy is one that would be seen in proportion to the incidence of such crimes on the part of others (the article “Moral panic flares again” by Massimo Introvigne, http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/mora/ on Mercatornet gives many useful figures and data). It has been said that such crimes among teachers and sports coaches (at least in America), are much, much higher in number (but there are no calls for top-level resignations in those communities, or sensational journalism from the mainstream media; however, it may be said that we have a right to expect the moral conduct of priests to be higher than that of teachers and sports coaches, and this may well be true). Also, it has been pointed out that a large proportion of the unearthed incidents were between priests and adults, and so are not crimes of paedophilia as such (though they may still not have been consensual acts). The idea that Catholic priestly celibacy is the root cause of the problem has been exposed by pointing to the allegedly higher incidence of sexual misconduct among married clergy in other churches. The cause – which so few know about or are willing to admit – is the laxity and tendency towards “Liberal” values and ideas, in the Catholic Church, in the post-1960s period; at least some part of the blame must fall upon society’s ideas of the acceptance of homosexual practices in modern times, since it is clear that abuse of a male-sex-with-males type of abuse predominated, rather than priests’ abuse of girls. Certainly, though, the clear incidence of senior clergy covering up and not punishing known incidents is inexcusable – but again, it has been said that a “Liberal” incursion of moral laxity is not entirely absent, here. Surely there are people whose pain from clergy abuse will be with them for life; but much of it – at least in Ireland – has been said to have taken the form of horrendously harsh punishment regimes, which though inexcusable, may not in any way have been sexual; and in addition to genuine pain, there is surely a real desire for gain, where, in our litigious society, lawyers offer an encouraging prospect of high settlements to abused people who sue.

Pope Benedict has been personally smeared by the unearthing of age-old, long resolved, cases from the part of Germany where he was once Archbishop (they have been reported in the media as though recent). In fact, it is clear that the Pope and his church are going to put their house in order and clean their Augean stables, declare sin and badness to be what it is, and counteract the culture that has helped made such conduct possible. Let us compare this approach with the politicians, governments, and super-government organisations (the EU, the UN).

Will they be doing any of these things?  Certainly not (just try to imagine the present British (or US) government, and the people that direct its projects and forge it values, admitting wrongdoing? No, in fact the promotion of abortion, juvenile sexualisation, and the normalizing of dangerous sexual practices (such as anal intercourse) will go one apace. Will we see Cabinet ministers admitting that Britain is indeed broken, and they and their colleagues have played a significant part in breaking it? I think not. They expect not only to continue as before, but to accelerate their activities; the Pope, by contrast, will demand and institute the opposite, the very thing they will never do.

And one question we must ask (suggested, above, by reference to the unearthing of old, settled, cases): why all this now, exactly? Massimo Introvigne helps provide the answer: now is a time, in Europe,  and not only in Europe, when many high-level decisions are being taken concerning  an abortion pill, euthanasia, and the recognition of same-sex unions; now, more than ever, is a time when the one barrier has to be breached, so that the Culture of Death can be rolled forward.

April 2010 

Themes & Thoughts

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