The Vatican is at it again. Another sex scandal involving pedophile priests has surfaced, this time in Ireland. The Pope responded immediately by calling a big meeting of senior Irish clergy in Rome and writing a letter expressing shock, surprise, and a lot of blahblah blah. It's a replay of the response to similar scandals in the USA and Australia. It's what the Vatican always does when it gets caught. Mea Culpa and more of the same.
Let's get real folks. Horny priests have been molesting the choirboys since the Middle Ages and they aren't about to stop now. It shocked Martin Luther too. The Pope can repent all he wants to, and call all the meetings in the world, but it won't do any good until a truly corrupt sexual culture of mysogeny, homophobia, and homo-eroticism that is part and parcel of clerical celibacy is addressed.
The current scandal in Ireland is neither unexpected nor surprising. It is merely the latest expression of an old old problem. The Church's official attitudes towards sex are twisted to begin with. Sadly, they encourage young men of faith, frightened about their own proclivities, to enter a celibate clergy to avoid facing the problem. That is mistake number one.
So they are immersed in a skewed culture, out of the mainstream where they can tell themselves that what they are doing is OK. I have a friend who was molested by his parish priest starting at the age of 7. I'm not talking just a bit of groping here, although that would be bad enough. This went all the way to sodomy which, given the priest's position, carried the weight of incest. This pedophile priest managed to molest at least 25 boys in my friend's parish before being discovered and transferred by the bishop to a new parish, where he could start all over again. There are millions of stories like this all over the world.
I know that there are wonderful priests and religious who are true to their vows and who have embraced a life of giving that deserves respect, and I know that they too are being betrayed by their leaders and the sexual creeps among them. Time for this culture of secret perversion and corruption to see the light of day and be recognized for what it is.
The bottom line is that in Ireland, North America, Australia or Vatican City, secrets and lies are not only just plain wrong, they are evil and the antithesis of what the Church says it is about. Time to open the windows and let in the truth.
Time for the Vatican to stop writing letters and start cleaning house.
photo from http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com/
