Tuesday, July 19, 2011

There's the Right Way ...

... and then there's the Vatican way.

Cardinal Rigali of Philadelphia resigns after a second grand jury report accuses the Roman Catholic Church of covering its ass at the expense of children. In this case, 37 abuser priests (!) were knowingly kept in positions with access to children.

Rigali will be replaced by Cardinal Charles Chaput of Denver, a hard right winger who expelled the children of a lesbian couple from a Denver area Catholic school.

Despite all of the warfare and squabbling in the Episcopal Church these days, and despite the abundant dysfunctions of the Church of England, I'll take both over Rome every time. Thank you sweet Jesus I was born and raised in the lukewarm embrace of the Methodist Church! Its corruption was the usual normal stuff; embezzling discretionary funds and adulterous affairs with parish secretaries or choir masters, none of this dark occult stuff that Roman clergy are into (evangelical pastors certainly have their wild sides too). There's nothing like unaccountable authority and secrecy for letting the infections fester. Authoritarian opacity is the predator's best friend.

Rome has gone completely verkakte.

3 comments:

JCF said...

I've been saying the same . . . but it got me a smackdown even at Episcopal Cafe!

I just don't know what to say anymore. I am in NO way instinctively anti-Roman. I wasn't raised that way. Was very ecumenical in college, and through early adulthood. Still love the (Novus Ordo . . . while it lasts!) liturgy.

But the Vatican Church is BEYOND fckked-up now, and same for its sycophants . . . and I'm just running out of patience w/ the grin-and-bear-it types [If you're not threatened w/ being denied communion EVERY Sunday, you're probably part of the problem]

I don't know what else to say. [Except I probably say it problematically]

Counterlight said...

I agree. Catholics are not the problem. But the hierarchy has lost its mind.

Murdoch Matthew said...

Why do Roman Catholics put up with it? People experience church locally, "wherever two or three are gathered together," and in familiar ways. It's the group that commands the loyalty. Lots of Romanists are leaving, because believing that "people are the church" wears thin when the people have no power or voice in the institution. Many just drop out rather than join other churches -- it's the one true church or nothing. A messed-up bunch of fabulists for sure.