Friday, October 07, 2005

Return of the Witch Hunts

Apparently, the Roman Catholic Church's leadership is unswerving in its ability to repeat past mistakes.

Just as in the late Middle Ages, they started persecuting "witches" both within their ranks and in the world outside them, now the Vatican appears poised to begin an internal purging of homosexuals from their clergy.

Apparently, this is some kind of response to the now-infamous pedophile priest issues that started to make headlines a few years ago. I won't go into the obvious complicity of the church hierarchy in concealing these incidents over years and decades - that's irrelevant now.

It appears that the church has once again latched onto some spurious logic of their own to justify purging homosexuals from their clergy. Apparently, they believe that the term homosexual is a synonym for pedophile. Therefore, in the logic of the senior clerics of the R/C Church, purging homosexuals from their ranks will solve the pedophile priest problem. This is the logical equivalent of banning cheese from the store shelves because a tomato made someone ill.

Of course, this is coming from the same bunch of geniuses whose position on birth control means that they believe that proscribing the use of condoms in Africa is morally justified. The fact that this very dogma means that thousands of Africans will die of AIDS - due to the most preventable of problems - ignorance.

Apparently, when you have scripture, facts and rational thought don't matter.

I didn't like Ratzinger as a Cardinal under Pope John Paul II, as the man starts to "put his mark" on the Roman Catholic Church, he seems hell bent on returning the Church to a mode that makes George W. Bush look positively progressive.

It is particularly chilling to see the Church returning to the kind of medieval hunting for "offenders" that characterized the now infamous "Spanish Inquisition" - and justified by the wonderfully circular "Malleus Maleficarum". I wonder if this particular little exercise will be grounded in the yet to be written "Malleus Sexualis"? What's next - public burnings?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just more reasons the RC church (and many others) are wondering why people are finding them less and less relevant in their daily lives.

Either keep up with changes to society or stop complaining when that society no longer finds you relevant.

JN
www.nishiyama.tzo.com

Anonymous said...

Is it the 'cheese' that likes little boys ??
And . . . I'll never be able to look upon a bunch of tomatoes the same way again.

SB

MgS said...

Although overall church attendance may be down, we cannot ignore the growth in TheoCon influence in the legislative dialogue of both Canada and the United States.

Although Ratzinger's church may be in decline, it would be foolish to underestimate the influence of his actions on others. How long before the wing-nutty factions start demanding a similar purge among our educators?

Anonymous said...

However the theocon influence is starting to show signs of weakening. In the US, the polls are showing that theocon beholden Dubya is starting to lose support of the general electorate (mid-term elections next year will be interesting). Here in Canada, Harper's theocon ties is begining to rip the federal Tories apart.

The wing-nuts have been calling for purges in everything for years. The only place in Canada they stand a fighting chance is in Alberta, and with the impending departure of Ralph, there could be issues. It all depends on who's at the helm. The corporatist factions of the provincial Tories will only suffer the wing-nuts so long.

JN
www.nishiyama.tzo.com

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