Assuming one buys into the concept of sainthood - and I admittedly do not because it is a display of incredible hubris on man's part - the Roman Catholic Church's rush to sainthood for John Paul II makes a mockery and travesty out of the concept. More and more evidence is coming out - the 1997 letter to Irish prelates being but the latest - that confirms that John Paul both aided and abetted serial molesters like Marcial Maciel, directed that bishops engage in the deliberate obstruction of justice, and cared nothing about the rape and molestation of countless children and youths. Not exactly the behavior of a saint - or even a remotely moral person for that matter. Instead, it sounds like the behavior of a Mafia Don or some other low life criminal and, therefore, the rush to sainthood for John Paul II in my mind simply further underscores the complete moral bankruptcy within the Vatican and the ranks of the Church hierarchy in general. Andrew Sullivan not surprisingly holds similar views to my own and here are highlights of his lambasting of the sainthood effort for a man who should have been criminally prosecuted for criminal conspiracy or worse:*
And let us be clear who was presiding over this disgraceful and disgusting negligence of a core moral value: the protection of children from abuse and rape. The Pope ultimately responsible, John Paul II, is on an absurdly fast track for beatification. How will history look on a church that made a saint out of a Pope who ignored, suppressed, and had underlings covering up the rape of countless vulnerable children? In Ireland, the abuse was so severe, so long-running, so protected by a vile collusion between church and state that the attempt to hush it up is damning. It seems to me a stretch to argue that the Church under John Paul II returned to a very papal hierarchical structure and simultaneously say the Pope has no responsibility for the mass rape and abuse of children he so blithely presided over.
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[T]here is also no doubt in my mind that he was a disgraceful manager of the Church with respect to the greatest crisis it has faced in generations. His relationship with and protection of the pedophile, incestuous neo-fascist, Marcial Maciel, alone makes beatification, to my mind, an appalling swipe at the children John Paul II abandoned to the wolves.
1 comment:
They've canonized some real bastards in the past so I don't see how this will be any different. It's all politics and hand waving.
Take Mother Teresa. That woman had a sadistic streak in her. She felt suffering brought you closer to Jesus so she refused to give any painkillers to patients. Made no distinction between curable and incurable patients causing people to die that otherwise might not have; her clinics were understaffed and filthy and staffed with poorly trained nuns and volunteers. Hell, she even discouraged the nuns from getting medical training because God empowers the weak and ignorant...yeah.
And I can't really see her as a friend to the poor either. Not when her basic out look was "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."
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