More Vatican Deflection as the Abuse Cases Pile Up

Well this just gets more and more sickening. After a Holy Week of insulting Jews and sex abuse survivors and blaming the media for doing its job, the Vatican is upping the ante on its relentless self-pity.

The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

No. I'm pretty sure that criticism of both his Holiness and the church has to do with the avalanche of new reports of sexually abusive priests who were not properly dealt with. And am I the only one who sees some irony in claiming to be pro-family in the wake of a child abuse scandal?

Meanwhile the charges are piling up. Over Easter weekend we learned that the Vatican dragged its heels on defrocking 2 priests who were described by their own bishop as "satanic."

The abuse cases of two priests in Arizona have cast further doubt on the Catholic church's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope.

Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that as a Vatican cardinal, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.

In another Tucson case, that of Msgr. Robert Trupia, the bishop wrote to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005. Bishop Manuel Moreno called Trupia "a major risk factor to the children, adolescents and adults that he many have contact with." There is no indication in the case files that Ratzinger responded.

The article notes that this case languished, in part, because the Vatican was revising its procedures, which resulted in the controversial 2001 letter from then Cardinal Ratzinger. Many interpreted this letter as calling for secrecy as the Vatican adjudicated these cases. Even after the changes implemented by Ratzinger, the process seemed unconscionably slow.

More alarming, the most recent case to come to light started in 2005, well after the new streamlined procedure was in place, and it has yet to be prosecuted.

A Catholic priest who fled Minnesota for India after being accused by two teenage girls of rape continues to serve as a priest in a Catholic school system five years after his case was brought to the attention of the Vatican, according to documents and testimony in a lawsuit against the Church.

The accused cleric, the Rev. Joseph Jeyapual, oversees the hiring of teachers for 40 Catholic schools in the diocese of Ootacamund, India, according to documents in the case.

. . .


In the first letter, Bishop Balke warned that to ignore the case "would be a shameful act of betrayal towards the women and girls in India to whom Fr. Jeyapaul could at present pose a risk."


In a response six months later, on behalf of Cardinal Levada, a deputy made no mention of disciplinary action against the accused priest but said he would "be monitored so that he does not constitute a risk to minors and does not create a scandal among the faithful."

Monitored?!!

The Vatican spokesman told the Associated Press the priest had been punished by being sent to a monastery for a year to pray.

So prayer and contemplation are punishment? For a priest?!! Isn't that what they do?

As with so many of these cases, Rev. Jeyapaul became a football, just punted from one diocese to another, and protected from law enforcement. In this case, he  returned to his native India, where the Bishop refused to follow a Vatican directive and defrock him. So let me get this straight: Only the Vatican can order a priest be defrocked, which has held up some of these cases for years, but a bishop can just refuse? Who's running this show? And how does this protect children? Meanwhile a second priest who was actually convicted and served time for molesting a 12 year old girl, remains in the priesthood in another Indian diocese.

If the Vatican can't see that cases such as these open the Catholic Church to fair criticism, there is something seriously wrong. It's always bad policy for leaders to refuse to take responsibility for failings in their institutions and blame everybody else. Where does the buck stop if not with the Pope?

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

A Tale of Two Churches

I have to wonder if the Times isn't editorializing with the placement of images in this article. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch has made headlines for apologizing profusely for the failings of the church in the handling of abuse cases. He seems to genuinely believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Juxtapose that with signals from the Vatican, including the most recent embarrassing display of self-pity from the Pope's preacher, and you get what is graphically depicted above; the emotional contrition of an archbishop and a pope with his back to the world.

Archbishop Zollitsch said that the Church had committed serious mistakes and done too little to help the victims of priestly abuse. “The caring responsibility towards the victims was insufficient in the past because of our own disappointment at the painful failure of the perpetrators, and out of a falsely understood concern for the standing of the church," he said.

It was as close as the Church in Germany has come to admitting that it covered up crimes committed by priests

That, he said, was the "painful reality that we have to face up to". The Archbishop's words were notably blunter than those used by the Pope the previous day. 

This is a real step in the right direction as are signals from numerous dioceses.

More than 20 out of 27 dioceses had agreed to integrate the prayers into the service. The formula — openly acknowledging the victimhood of the children molested by priests — had been worked out by Stephan Ackermann, Bishop of Trier, the Church's expert on abuse. Last week he introduced a hotline for victims and found that 20 of the callers claimed to have been abused in his own diocese.

Far less encouraging are statements from Pope Benedict's personal preacher. The Vatican is struggling to distance itself from the homily in the wake of a firestorm of outrage.

At a solemn Good Friday service, Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher likened the tide of allegations that the pontiff has covered up sex abuse cases to the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism." But within hours, facing a storm of criticism at the comparison, the Vatican felt it necessary to distance the pope from the preacher's remarks.

Both Jewish and victims' groups responded that it was inappropriate to compare the discomfort being experienced by the church leadership in the sex abuse scandal to the violence that culminated in the Holocaust. The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days, saying the church has been singled out and collectively stereotyped for the problem of pedophilia, which it says is a society-wide issue.

Invoking any comparison with anti-Semitism was particularly sensitive on Good Friday, itself a delicate day in a decades-long effort by Jews and Catholics to overcome a legacy of mistrust. There was a long-held Catholic belief that Jews were collectively responsible for executing Christ, and a landmark achievement of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s was a declaration stating the Jews should not be blamed for the crucifixion.

Thoroughly offending two groups of actual victims on Good Friday... I think that may be a new personal best for the Vatican.

I am somewhat encouraged to read that Pope Benedict has given the nod to the German church's approach.

The Pope listened "with keen interest, great sadness, and deep emotion" as the German prelate related the steps that are being taken to respond to the revelations of abuse. "The Holy Father was very satisfied with our decisions," Archbishop Zollitsch told reporters after the meeting.

The German hierarchy has announced that it will report all claims of abuse to law-enforcement officials, unless the victims ask for privacy. The German bishops have commissioned an independent investigation of the more than 100 claims that have already been made, and vowed to cooperate with any government inquiries. "We want to uncover the truth," Archbishop Zollitsch said.

The bishops have applauded the German government's decision to convene a national roundtable on the abuse issue, which will bring together religious leaders, teachers, and abuse victims. Pope Benedict has also indicated his support for the roundtable initiative.

If Holy Week services so far, though, are any indication, the Vatican and much of the Catholic Church still don't get it. There is nothing more offensive than whining about how victimized you are because you're being criticized, when there are people whose lives have been damaged, and destroyed in some cases, by mistakes you made. It displays a narcissistic indifference to the suffering of others. Not the message I'd think the church would want to send as it celebrates Christ's martyrdom.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Bill Donohue on the "Homesexual Crisis" in the Catholic Church

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has refined missing the point to an art form. Why anyone ever hands him a microphone is a mystery to me, but Larry King gave this bloviating gasbag plenty of opportunity to thoroughly offend Tuesday evening. And being Larry King, challenged him on none of it. His justification? The problem isn't pedophilia, it's homosexuality. Not a new argument for the Catholic Church, but Donohue can always be counted on to take obnoxious wrong-headedness to soaring new heights.

His most unintentionally funny line?

"You've got to get your facts straight. I'm sorry. If I'm the only one that's going to deal with facts tonight then that'll be it."

An amusing statement from one so wrong on fact... and grammar, but I'll let that go.

He outlined his argument in a recent missive:

The Times continues to editorialize about the 'pedophilia crisis,' when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.

Where to begin... For starters, and assuming his stats are accurate, what about the twenty percent who are female? Do they not matter?

Next: Homosexuality doesn't cause predatory behavior, but the problem is still homosexuality, not the predatory behavior... Huh?

But let's get to the meat of his argument: The majority of the boys were "post-pubescent." No, they weren't. Postpubescence is when puberty is over and in boys, since we apparently only care about boys, that can be as late as 17, even 18. Donohue would have you believe that postpubescence begins at "12, 13 years of age." But that's when puberty is just starting in the average boy. So, at best, we could say a majority of the male victims were pubescent.

Post-pubescent means beyond puberty. In other words you're an adolescent and that's what homosexuals do and most of them -- the molesters -- have been homosexuals in the Catholic Church.

No, Mr. Donohue, adolescence refers to the social and behavioral issues that concur with puberty.

In fairness, Donohue is right about one thing. Pedophilia refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children. An adult attraction to pubescent children is ephebophilia. Sexual interest in older adolescents is not considered a mental disorder, like pedophilia. Acting on it, however, is very often illegal. The age of consent varies around the world and in the US ranges from 16 to 18. (In Wisconsin, for instance, where as many as 200 deaf children were exploited by Rev. Lawrence Murphy and ignored by then Cardinal Ratzinger, it's 18.) It's called statutory rape. It's a crime. And if you can't count on members of the clergy to be law abiding, who can you trust?

If the sexual advances are unwanted, as they clearly were according to the many abuse survivors who've come forward, there's nothing "statutory" about it. It's rape. It's sexual assault. And few could argue that there isn't a significant power disparity between a priest, aged, on average, over 30, and a 14 or 15 year old kid. These were authority figures in their churches, schools, and communities. But Mr. Donohue would have us chalk all this up to an indiscretion to which homosexuality can, but does not necessarily, make one prone.

Mr. Donohue would like to misdirect us by focusing on what the scandal isn't. What about what it is? The physical and sexual abuse of minors. No amount of obfuscation or homophobia changes that fact. But Donohue is an old hand at parsing these crimes to dust and blaming the victims.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Modo Speaks for Me

As I said to a friend just yesterday, if I don't seem angry about the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, it's only because when I'm angry and disgusted, my tendency is to be flip. In that I must doff my hat to the queen of flippantry Maureen Dowd. Yesterday's column is right on target.

It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.

Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged — children.

The church gave up its credibility for Lent. Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday.

. . .


If church fund-raising and contributions dry up, Benedict’s P.R. handlers may yet have to stage a photo-op where he steps out of the priest’s side of the confessional and enters the side where the rest of his fallible flock goes.

Or maybe 30-second spots defending the pope with Benedict’s voice intoning at the end: “I am infallible, and I approve this message.”

The whole thing is a must read.

As I said on Sunday, what makes the church's tack particularly galling is that in resorting to this Nixonian assault on media critics, it insults members of its own flock and revictimizes the victims of horrific abuse. The Survivors Network explains:

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Pope's Homily Finds its Mark

While I was sickened by the self-serving rhetoric used by his Holiness on Palm Sunday, his remarks seem to have hit home with Archbishop Timothy Dolan. It's the Pope who's the victim to pitied and protected. In fact, he's now a martyr to the cause of harboring pedophiles... just like Jesus!

In remarks following Palm Sunday Mass, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York urged Catholics “to express our love and solidarity” for Pope Benedict, who, given the recent media onslaught over sex abuse allegations, is “now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob, and scourging at the pillar, as did Jesus.”

. . .

“No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than the man we now call Pope Benedict XVI,” Archbishop Dolan stressed. “The dramatic progress that the Catholic Church in the United States has made – documented again just last week by the report made by independent forensic auditors – could never have happened without the insistence and support of the very man now being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo.”

A glance at Matt Taibbi's blog this morning reminds me that this isn't Archbishop Dolan's first attempt at such tortured apologia.

One expects professional slimeballs like the public relations department of Goldman Sachs to pull out the “Well, we weren’t the only thieves!” argument when accused of financial malfeasance. But I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I read through Dolan’s retort and it dawned on me that he was actually going to use the “We weren’t the only child molesters!” excuse. Dolan must have very roomy man-robes, because it seems to me you’d need a set of balls like two moons of Jupiter to say such a thing in public and expect it to fly. But this is exactly what Dolan does; he bases his entire defense of the Church on the idea that others are equally culpable.

. . .

The most revolting part of this response is the last bit about how “no one knew… back then” the depth of the scourge of abuse, or the fact that child molesters cannot be allowed near children ever again once caught. Dolan is trying to get us to focus on the 1962 case, but the truth is that as recently as this last decade, the Church’s doctrinal office elected to proceed with church trials for less than 10% of the 3000 cases of abuse reported to them between the years of 2000 and 2010.

And just a few days after this blog entry of Dolan’s, the Times would come out with another story indicating that the current Pope, then a Cardinal named Joseph Ratzinger, seems to have quashed an effort to bring a serial child abuser named Lawrence Murphy to a church trial. The inaction of Ratzinger’s office resulted in Murphy being allowed to die “in the dignity of the priesthood,” which was his wish as expressed in a letter to then-Cardinal Ratzinger in January 1998.

So while schools, parole officers, judges, lawyers and therapists may have been deficient in their understanding of child abuse back in 1962 (although I’m sorry — it could have been 1562, if someone molested my child and was allowed back in the priesthood, I’d be reaching for an axe), the Catholic church is alone among all of them in continuing to not get it since then. Despite massive public scandal over the course of what now is decades, they continue to deflect and shield child molesters as a matter of institutional routine.

From Archbishop Dalton's blog:

What causes us Catholics to bristle is not only the latest revelations of sickening sexual abuse by priests, and blindness on the part of some who wrongly reassigned them — such stories, unending though they appear to be, are fair enough, — but also that the sexual abuse of minors is presented as a tragedy unique to the Church alone.

That, of course, is malarkey.

Okay. It's malarkey. It's also a straw man, because no one has ever said it. I would defy Archbishop Dolan to find a single example anywhere of anyone claiming that sex abuse is the exclusive province of the Catholic Church. But it does fit the narrative of Catholic Church as unfairly persecuted victim very well.

What Archbishop Dolan and the Pontiff are bristling at is the media storm, which continues to gather momentum. There is a unique scrutiny of the Catholic Church, largely due to the scope of the problem, the church's role as a moral arbiter, but increasingly to its remarkable tone-deafness. The more the church deflects criticism, erects straw men, and blames others for its woes, the worse it will get. Pope Benedict signaled on Palm Sunday that he and his church are resorting to a siege mentality. Unless and until he shows more willingness to listen to critics, genuine contrition, and interest in meaningful reform, the siege will continue.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Pope Starts Off Holy Week on Wrong Foot

Buy at AllPosters.com

Pope Benedict did not directly address the escalating abuse scandal in his Palm Sunday homily. But his oblique reference could not have been more offensive or inappropriate.

Jesus Christ, Benedict said in his homily, guides the faithful "toward the courage that doesn't let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others."

I have little doubt his Holiness is feeling besieged from all sides but make no mistake. It's the clergy that's under the gun; not the laity. So it can only be the clergy he exhorts not to be "intimidated;" not the people. Once again, it's very clear where his sympathies lie. With church officials, including pedophile priests who have been sheltered and protected for decades. Not with the children, nor with the adult survivors of child abuse. Not with Catholic parishioners whose faith is being rattled daily by new revelations.

I cannot imagine a worse tone to set at the start of Holy Week. He would have done better to ignore the scandal than to use his pulpit to bash the church's critics, many of whom are good Catholics. Such divisiveness has no place in a sermon, let alone on one of the most important days of the church calendar.

Yesterday I read about Bernie McDaid who met with Pope Benedict two years ago to discuss the sexual abuse that had so affected his life.

McDaid left afterward believing Benedict was beginning to understand the scope of his church's corruption. He doesn't believe that today.

"Was it a PR move? Looking back at that now, I have to say it was," McDaid said of the meeting. "Everything they do is not about the children. It's about the church. It's always the church first."

If McDaid had any doubt about where Pope Benedict's loyalties lie and what his intentions are towards those who have raised issues with the church's handling of abusive priests, this open display of contempt towards Vatican critics make it abundantly clear they're going to get nowhere. He's positioned those with unfavorable "opinions" as an enemy he will continue to ignore.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Is Sex Abuse a Christian Value?

Buy at AllPosters.com

I've been watching, with growing horror, the unfolding drama in the Catholic Church. The ongoing scandal over child abuse by clergy and attempts to conceal these crimes has again erupted dramatically into daily headlines. The furor now threatens to engulf even the Pope who has been personally implicated. This issue has plagued the church for years now. But the whole mess seems to be reaching a kind of critical mass.

While the Catholic Church is not alone in harboring abusers, the sheer numbers are disproportionate. New York Times contributor Peter Schneider is not the first to suggest that the church's celibacy rules provide cover to sexual deviants.

I would go further and suggest that an institution that lays claim to the moral high ground is inclined to bury its improprieties which causes them to fester. Many organized religions have been guilty of extending their benevolence more to offenders than to their victims in an attempt to hide their toxic secrets and maintain their positions of social leadership. Stealing attention from the Catholic Church's problems, allegations recently came to light of similar incidents within the Boy Scouts of America under the patronage of the Church of Latter Day Saints (aka the Mormons). The Catholic and Mormon churches are two of the most vociferous arbiters of morality. Both invested heavily in promoting the passage of Proposition 8 which rescinded the law allowing gay marriage in California. Both are sponsors of Boy Scouts of America and have campaigned against allowing gays and atheists to participate. The Mormons threatened to pull their memberships if the Scouts changed their rules, which would have devastated the bottom line for the organization.

When it comes to sexual abuse in their own midst, these moral authorities have been strangely silent. Mormon Bishop Gordon McKewn withheld the identities of 17 boys, who Scoutmaster Timur Dykes admitted molesting, from police investigators. The "morally straight" Boy Scouts now stand accused of secreting away at least 1000 such "perversion files."

The crimes are horrible, but it's the cover-ups that impugn the integrity of entire institutions and effectively make their leaders co-conspirators. Had allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children and adolescents been immediately reported to the authorities, many of these serial predators could have been stopped. Instead they have been enabled by hierarchies more interested in protecting their reputations than children.

Cardinal Sean Brady could have put a stop to Rev. Brendan Smyth as early as 1975. Instead, Smyth went on raping children for nearly 20 more years.  

[Cardinal Sean] Brady, as a priest and Vatican-trained canon lawyer in 1975, said he interviewed two children about the abuse they suffered at the hands of the Rev. Brendan Smyth. He said both children were required to sign oaths promising not to tell anyone outside the church of their allegations.

. . .


Brady said it was the responsibility of his diocesan bishop, as well as the leader of Smyth's separate Catholic order of priests, to tell police. But he said the church didn't do this because of "a culture of silence about this, a culture of secrecy."

"Yes, I knew that these were crimes," Brady said. "But I did not feel that it was my responsibility to denounce the actions of Brendan Smyth to the police. Now I know with hindsight that I should have done more, but I thought at the time I was doing what I was required to do."

Smyth abused at least 90 children in Ireland, Britain and in U.S. parishes in Rhode Island and North Dakota from 1948 to 1993.

Brady was not alone in sheltering an abuser. Skeletons are clattering out of church closets all over Europe, including the German archdiocese where a pedophile priest was transferred and protected under the leadership of Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger. What he knew and when he knew it remains unclear, but it also appears that the Pontiff was one of the architects of the wall of secrecy that Brady and others maintained.  Ratzinger has operated under a cloud from the time he became Pope Benedict  XVI. A letter he wrote to bishops in 2001 was widely interpreted as a call for secrecy. Probably because it claimed the church had jurisdiction, that all cases of suspected abuse be reported to then Cardinal Ratzinger's office, and that such claims were "subject to the pontifical secret."

Church officials have argued that nothing in the letter precluded bishops from reporting incidents to police but it would seem that was not how many of those bishops read it.

Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has cited the document as evidence that the Vatican created a "wall of silence" around abuse cases that prevented prosecution. Irish bishops have said the document had been "widely misunderstood" by the bishops themselves to mean they shouldn't go to police. And lawyers for abuse victims in the United States have cited the document in arguing that the Catholic Church tried to obstruct justice.

. . .

The letter doesn't tell bishops to also report the crimes to police.

But the Rev. John Coughlin, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said it didn't need to. A general principle of moral theology to which every bishop should adhere is that church officials are obliged to follow civil laws where they live, he said.

Yet Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore in Northern Ireland, told a news conference this week that Irish bishops "widely misinterpreted" the directive and couldn't get a clear reading from Rome on how to proceed.

But in at least one instance, a case of a sexually abusive priest was reported to then Cardinal Ratzinger  and was ignored.

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

. . .

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.

“I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood,” Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. “I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.

A recent letter from Pope Benedict to the Irish church has utterly failed to dampen the flames that threaten to consume the papacy.

No one really imagined that Benedict XVI’s pastoral letter to the Irish church, released Saturday would begin to reconcile the people of Ireland to the church that abused 15,000 children over decades. It did not.

. . .

Benedict’s letter was harsh. It called for discipline and self-reflection. But it did not take personal, or even Papal, responsibility for the scandal now mushrooming across the Atlantic. Nor did it make real recommendations about how to earn back the trust of the church in the West.

Those most effected by this abuse of trust, the survivors, expressed bitter disappointment in the letter.

Ireland's main group of clerical-abuse victims, One in Four, said it was deeply disappointed by the letter because it failed to lay blame with the Vatican for what it called a "deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children."

"If the church cannot acknowledge this fundamental truth, it is still in denial," the group said.

The major problem with the Pope's letter is that in it he puts the responsibility on everyone but himself. While he rightly takes the Irish church to task for secrecy and being overly concerned with its reputation, he takes no responsibility for confusion created by his 2001 letter, let alone for his own inaction on cases that fell directly under his purview. He blames the secularization of society and Catholics for worldliness and a lack of piety. With an irony he clearly misses he even blames "a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures." It is an exercise in blame throwing or what Jung called shadow projection. In fairness, he has no choice but to delegate the blame because of the doctrine of Papal infallibility.  As Andrew Sullivan said recently, he can't admit the enormity of the errors because he would have to resign.

In the opinion of many of his critics, he has also not gone nearly far enough in assigning responsibility to other church officials. He has called for no resignations for those who participated in a cover-up he concedes was misguided. As for the bishops, they are also engaged in shadow projection.

Conservative Catholic bishops go further, saying that the sexual abuse committed by their priests is a general social problem, traceable not to the church but to the sexualization of society, to the zeitgeist, to the sins of the 1968 generation. The truth, they suggest, was that the evil had struck in all sectors of society. Others have warned of the dangers of a witch hunt, and some have even highlighted a new form of political correctness.

There are a few obvious flaws with this analysis. At least one of the church's prolific serial abusers, started committing these crimes well before the flower children corrupted us all so horribly. Brendan Smyth, referenced above, has admitted to crimes going back to 1948. Numerous accounts show a very long history of these abuses. As these charges continue to mount, it will get harder and harder for the church to blame society for its crimes.

Rome's chief exorcist made headlines recently when he projected blame onto the devil himself. Satan is running amok in the Vatican.

Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".

He added: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia."

From a Jungian perspective this could well be a case of shadow possession. This is when the disowned shadow erupts and overtakes the conscious mind. It could reasonably be argued that the Catholic Church has succumbed to a collective madness. It is definitely operating in a bubble and has lost all perspective. The pastoral letter and other signals from the Vatican all indicate that they think the answer to this crisis is more piety. Reinforcing the veneer of moral superiority will do nothing to disguise the rot that has now been graphically exposed.

For all its "secularity" and "sexualization," the modern world is far less tolerant of sexual assault. There is nothing new about sexual abuse, nor about it occurring in environments of apparent moral rectitude. As Louise DeSalvo explains in Virginia Woolf:  The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work, Victorian England was rife with incest. As we have rebelled against such repression and embraced a freer sexual expressiveness, we have begun to openly address the theft of our sexual energy that occurs in sexual abuse and rape. Religious authorities seem more interested in turning back the clock on these advances and maintaining the sexual repression that invites sexual oppression and abuse.

I think it's very difficult for anyone who sets themselves up to be above reproach, let alone "infallible." It's a ridiculously high bar and forces exactly the kind of shadow repression that is doomed to erupt in scandal. It creates a very schismized world view. Such a black and white conception of the world literally invites evil... or even, say, demonic possession.

The Motherpeace Tarot recognizes this dark nature of moral authority in its description of the major arcana card, the Hierophant. In most decks the Hierophant is a positive card, but not in Motherpeace. It represents the repression of a more vibrant spirituality (and sexuality) and the rigidity of organized, patriarchal religion.

At its root, the word "hierophant" means bringer to light of sacred things. In the traditional Tarot, the Hierophant represents a priest or Pope, the paternal religious authority.... Representing a hierarchical view of religion, the Hierophant stands on a pedestal, raised up from the earth, above the common person. In the Motherpeace image, he has taken over the robes and skirt of the High Priestess, along with her breasts which symbolize her sacred power, but he has forsaken her "Sophia" or wisdom.... The authority of the Hierophant is based, in large part, on repression of women and the natural instincts that women symbolize.

That Hierophant archetype isn't too hot on children either. They're impulse driven and chaotic. "Spare the rod, spoil the child." Much of the abuse of children that has been revealed in the Catholic Church has been corporal punishment; some of it outright torture.

I am of the belief that these hierarchies are crumbling. The Catholic Church, in particular, will have to restructure into something both more humane and more achievable or continue to destroy itself in one revelation of hypocrisy after another.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

St. Patrick and the Snakes

Buy at AllPosters.com

I'm a always a little ambivalent about St. Patrick's Day. Being of largely Irish descent, I enjoy the day as a celebration of the culture, people, and spirit of Ireland. But St. Patrick's legendary conversion of the country's people to Christianity is not something I get terribly excited about. It has been suggested by many sources that his miracle, driving the snakes out of Ireland, is a metaphor for driving the indigenous, pagan practices from Irish culture. There is no way to know for certain, because St. Patrick's life is more mythologized than the legend of the leprechaun.

Today we raise a glass of warm green beer to a fine fellow, the Irishman who didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish. St. Patrick, who died 1,507, 1,539, or 1,540 years ago today—depending on which unreliable source you want to believe—has been adorned with centuries of Irish blarney. Innumerable folk tales recount how he faced down kings, negotiated with God, tricked and slaughtered Ireland's reptiles.

The facts about St. Patrick are few. Most derive from the two documents he probably wrote, the autobiographical Confession and the indignant Letter to a slave-taking marauder named Coroticus. Patrick was born in Britain, probably in Wales, around 385 A.D. His father was a Roman official. When Patrick was 16, seafaring raiders captured him, carried him to Ireland, and sold him into slavery. The Christian Patrick spent six lonely years herding sheep and, according to him, praying 100 times a day. In a dream, God told him to escape. He returned home, where he had another vision in which the Irish people begged him to return and minister to them: "We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more," he recalls in the Confession. He studied for the priesthood in France, then made his way back to Ireland.

He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland. (He did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism. Nor did he invent the Shamrock Trinity. That was an 18^th-century fabrication.)

There is some evidence that serpent worship was practiced by the Druids; one of the ancient religious orders replaced by Catholicism.

It will probably be a matter of surprise to many, but it is a fact that even in Britain in ancient times Ophiolatreia largely prevailed. Deane says: "Our British ancestors, under the tuition of the venerable Druids, were not only worshippers of the solar deity, symbolized by the serpent, but held the serpent, independent of his relation to the sun, in peculiar veneration. Cut off from all intercourse with the civilized world, partly by their remoteness and partly by their national character, the Britons retained their primitive idolatry long after it yielded in the neighbouring countries to the polytheistic corruptions of Greece and Egypt. In process of time, however, the gods of the Gaulish Druids penetrated into the sacred mythology of the British and furnished personifications for the different attributes of the dracontic god Hu. This deity was called "The Dragon Ruler of the World" and his car was drawn by serpents. His priests in accomadation with the general custom of the Ophite god, were called after him "Adders." 1

In a poem of Taliessin, translated by Davies, in his Appendix No. 6, is the following enumeration of a Druid's titles:---

"I am a Druid; I am an architect; I am a prophet;

I am a serpent" (Gnadr).

From the word "Gnadr" is derived "adder," the name of a species of snake. Gnadr was probably pronounced like "adder" with a nasal aspirate.

This would place the Druids in good company. Great serpents weave their way through numerous world traditions; the Chinese Lung, the Naga serpents of Hindu and Buddhism, the Pythia channeled by Greek oracles, the serpent mounds of Native Americans, the feathered serpents such as Quetzalcoatl throughout Latin America and in the hieroglyphs of Egypt, where serpent power also emerges from the foreheads of pharaohs as the Uraeus cobra goddess Wadjet... The list goes on and on. The serpent is the original mother goddess and divine creatrix. That the pagans of Ireland would have revered the serpent simply puts them in context with the rest of the pre-Christian world.

From the Book of the Kells

Across Ireland there are hundreds of crosses, many of which can be proven to have pre-Christian origins, and many are entwined with images of serpents. The same is true of other locations, such as Malta we have just mentioned - although here the snakes are found upon ancient megalithic monuments. These are remnants of a pre-existent serpent-worshipping cult that we discovered existed across the known world in ancient times. In fact, the very reason that Ireland was said to be infested with serpents, was in reality a Christian code word for serpent worshippers. And Ireland has not been the only place infested and eradicated of serpent worshippers. Malta, Rhodes, India, Greece and many more have all at one time or another been laid waste of the serpent cult, so often misread as solar worshippers. The truth of the solar worship becomes obvious once one understands the beliefs of the serpent cults. They worshipped the esoteric or inner light of themselves or wisdom which was manifested in the sky as the sun and this light came about via methods pertaining to the inner serpent energies, [1] as they perceived them. These inner serpentine and solar linked visions were then manifested or physically represented in megalithic monuments, oral folktales and art.

The existence of this universal cult can also be discovered in other elements of the Irish and Celtic tradition. It is my view that Celtic Knotwork is entirely derived from the image of the serpent and this is prevalent across the Celtic world and especially Ireland. We can see influences of this in the spirals and other serpent shapes seen upon many of the world’s ancient monuments. In Scandinavian literature and stone art we can also see how the serpent appears, looking remarkably like Celtic Knotwork. In Roman and Greek wall paintings there are running spirals thought to be symbolic of the protective snake and emerging later on as Ivy or Vine, the symbols of the serpentine Bacchus and Dionysus.

A Neolithic vessel, now in the museum of Henan in China, shows a distinct correlation between the idea of the snake and the Knotwork. The idea of the Knotwork coming from the snake was probably discontinued due to Christian influence. The proof is simple; there is scarcely a design or ornament in Ireland from ages past that does not show the serpent or the dragon. There is scarcely a myth, a folk tale or a legend, which does not include the serpent. And these are not just pagan ornaments or myths - they also bled into the Christian world, or more simply, the Christians could not keep them out. So deep was the culture of the snake in the mind of the people and so entangled within the folds of the snake was the story of Christianity itself that no amount of tinkering could tear them apart.

All over the "civilized" world, people are reclaiming their serpent power and wearing it proudly.  Patti Wigington of About.com explains how to make a "Spring Snake Wreath" to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. To celebrate my Irish heritage I wear green; a pair of handmade snake earrings made of green glass that I bought at a craft fair years ago.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Mr. Deity and the Awkwardness

Mr. Deity and Larry lunch with a very disgruntled John the Baptist.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Mr. Deity Tries To Find Time To Make Time

Mr. Deity discovers the whole physics, time, space, location thing... kind of complicated.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Could Religion Survive First Contact?

Buy at AllPosters.com

One could argue that shamanism has been surviving the discovery of Grey-like aliens going all the way back to the paleolithic era. But I don't think shamanism was what Ted Peters of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary had in mind when he conducted a survey on how religious people would weather the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Study participants were mostly Buddhists and Christians of various denominations.

None of the 70 Buddhists questioned thought that the discovery of ET would undercut their belief systems, although 40 per cent thought it could pose problems for other religions.

More Roman Catholics believed ET could pose a problem for their faith. Only 8 per cent of the 120 surveyed thought that their individual beliefs would be shaken, but nearly a quarter – 22 per cent – said it could adversely affect their religion. Even more – 30 per cent – thought it could threaten the beliefs of other religious people.

I should point out that the Vatican has already weighed in on this issue, and determined belief in aliens to be no threat to Catholicism.

The patterns were similar for the other Christian sects surveyed, including evangelical and mainline Protestants, but there was not enough data to draw firm conclusions about people of other religions, such as Hindus and Muslims.

What I find far more interesting than the question of how religion would withstand proof of alien life, is the total disconnect between what people can accept and what they think other people can accept. This disconnect becomes even more pronounced when we look at the next group; the non-religious.

Of the 205 people who identified themselves as non-religious (either atheists or those who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious), only 1 per cent thought it would affect their atheist or spiritual outlooks. But 69 per cent thought the discovery of ET could cause a crisis for other world religions. An average of only 34 per cent of religious people shared that belief.

That atheists and others who have rejected organized religion would perceive churchgoers as fairly close-minded and resistant to dramatic change, shouldn't really come as a shock, I guess. But the whole thing is a fascinating commentary on the nature of tribal behavior or "group think." We are always either rejecting or bending to the collective will of our communities; and few of us seem comfortable rejecting it, outright. Most people choose conformity, because it makes them feel safe. One of the things I hear a lot from my clients is that they can't talk to their friends or neighbors about their spiritual beliefs -- or God forbid, that they consult a psychic -- because people would think they were crazy. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't. I decided a long time ago not to get too invested in what other people think. It's exhausting. But a lot of people are controlled by it. This study is not the first evidence I've seen that suggests that people are capable of much greater flexibility, in their thinking, than we give them credit for. Many of them are probably just too scared to admit it.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Air Force Greenlights Pagan Temple

A couple of years ago, I was able to report major strides in the acknowledgment of Wiccan service members, when the Veterans Administration finally authorized the use of pentacles on tombstones. It is with no small degree of glee that I am able, now, to report a major development in religious freedom in the armed services. The Air Force is providing a ritual space for Wiccans, and other pagans, at its Colorado Springs base.

The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado will set aside a worship space for followers of "Earth-centered" religions such as Wicca and Druidism, according to an Air Force news release.

A stone circle atop a hill on the base in Colorado Springs will likely be dedicated in a ceremony March 10, according to the release, and be available to cadets and other service members who live in the area. The base already has worship spaces for Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Buddhist, the release said.

I visited this base and the surrounding area -- including the legendary Garden of the Gods -- some years ago. It's a beautiful place to put what I hope will be only the first of such temples.

Buy at AllPosters.com

I'm glad to see the Air Force taking such a proactive step, not only in the acknowledgment of its pagan members, but of religious diversity, in general. The armed services, and the Air Force, in particular, have come under sharp scrutiny for religious intolerance and Christian proselytizing.

The subject of religious bias came to the forefront for the Air Force five years ago when non-Christian cadets at the Air Force Academy reported being harassed by Christian counterparts and feeling ostracized because they were not religious.

Last month, the academy superintendent, Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, issued a positive progress report — endorsed by one of its most vocal critics — citing the creation of a Cadet Interfaith Council, which helps identify upcoming religious holidays so scheduling conflicts can be avoided and meets with chaplains monthly to discuss the religious climate.

“This is the first time we feel positive about things there,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which battled the academy in court over claims that evangelicals at the school were imposing their views on others.

Weinstein's book With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military provided a wake-up call, about the increasingly religious bent of the what is supposed to be a secular, government institution. It is a particularly serious problem as we wage wars in Muslim countries and major political figures bandy about words like "crusade."

I was somewhat surprised to learn that Wicca is well represented in the Air Force. It is, in fact, the largest non-Christian faith, in that branch of the military.

In the Air Force, Wicca — witchcraft — is the largest non-Christian faith, with 1,434 followers. The breakdown of other religious minorities: 1,271 Buddhists, 1,148 Jews, 678 Muslims and 190 Hindus.

So, I guess it's about time they acknowledged the pagans in their ranks. I suppose one could argue that they, like so many protective forces, already do,  whether they realize it or not.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Mr. Deity's Crazy Logic

Some very biting satire from the folks at Mr. Deity, addressing the violence and total absurdity of the Old Testament God. Watching this episode, I can't help but think of John Lash's correlation of Jehovah with the deluded, psychotic Demiurge Yaldabaoth described by the Gnostics. Look at it through that lens and the whole thing starts make a crazy sort of sense.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Mr. Deity Takes On NBC Fracas

And deals with the devil.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Mr. Deity: More Fun with Gender Roles

Shortly after getting pounded for trafficking in female stereotypes, Mr. Deity is back and exploiting gender role humor to its fullest. I note that Brian Dalton preemptively apologizes for his hatred of women, in the commentary. Very, very funny.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Of Avatar and Catholics... and Other Christian Arrogance

Buy at AllPosters.com

As I said here,  I've been, over the past couple of weeks, noting incidents of jaw-dropping arrogance, in the name of Christianity. Having been raised in the Episcopal Church, with its emphasis on ecumenicism and tolerance, I always find this kind of thing rather jarring. So, as promised, here's a quick round-up. Sadly, I think this could be a regular feature.

The Vatican vs. Avatar:

The Vatican has weighed in on mega-blockbuster "Avatar" and given it the thumbs down. Some of the criticism is fair. The story is a little "simplistic." It is a James Cameron vehicle, after all, so it's somewhat formulaic. Anyone who expected otherwise from "Avatar" would be disappointed. It is still wildly entertaining and cinematically spectacular. (See it in Imax 3D, if you can. You won't regret it.)

Of course the chief criticisms from the Vatican newspaper and radio are ideological, not artistic.

L'Osservatore said the film "gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature." Similarly, Vatican Radio said it "cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium."

"Nature is no longer a creation to defend, but a divinity to worship," the radio said.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said that while the movie reviews are just that - film criticism, with no theological weight - they do reflect Pope Benedict XVI's views on the dangers of turning nature into a "new divinity."

. . .

In a recent World Day of Peace message, the pontiff warned against any notions that equate human person and other living things. He said such notions "open the way to a new pantheism tinged with neo-paganism, which would see the source of man's salvation in nature alone."

Oh, where to begin... Firstly, how does a movie become 'bogged down" in the screenwriter's choice of spiritual belief system? Getting "bogged down" is a problem of style, not theme; excessive detail, poor plotting, leaden dialogue... These things will bog a story down; not pantheism.

Secondly, both L'Osservatore and his holiness misunderstand the nature of pantheistic religions. While I will grant you that these belief systems vary, even from person to person, having spent a good deal of my life studying and practicing pagan and shamanic systems, I feel fairly comfortable dismissing their interpretation, in toto. Pagans and pantheists don't "worship" nature, in the sense that Christians worship God. (Nor, do the natives, or Na'Vi, in "Avatar." Something quite obvious to anyone who actually paid attention to the movie.) They do not put nature spirits above themselves. They honor them as part of the same divinity that expresses itself through all manifest reality. They pay respect to all living things as their relations. They do not look to nature for salvation, because they don't think their souls need saving.

I'm not surprised the Vatican is threatened by the record breaking success of a movie that extols the virtues of a pantheistic lifestyle. After all, early Catholics worked very hard to convert pagans, by successfully coopting their symbols and holidays. They gave them their mother goddess in the form of the blessed virgin. They gave them their Saturnalia, by renaming it Christmas. They adapted to the indigenous beliefs of all the "savage lands" they conquered. But, these pagan beliefs have proven very difficult to stamp out completely. They keep re-emerging. And, according to some conservative critics, Hollywood is having a love affair with them.

Douthat & Goldberg vs. Avatar:

New York Times  columnist Ross Douthat also pounded Avatar for its pantheistic themes:

It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message. It’s at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and the Gospel According to James.

But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.

In Cameron’s sci-fi universe, this communion is embodied by the blue-skinned, enviably slender Na’Vi, an alien race whose idyllic existence on the planet Pandora is threatened by rapacious human invaders. The Na’Vi are saved by the movie’s hero, a turncoat Marine, but they’re also saved by their faith in Eywa, the “All Mother,” described variously as a network of energy and the sum total of every living thing.

If this narrative arc sounds familiar, that’s because pantheism has been Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now...

Why pantheism needs defendng by Cameron, or anyone else, I don't know. Ironically, Douthat goes on to write a fairly decent apologia for pantheism, but dismisses his own argument.

Over at the Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg picked up Douthat's ball and ran with it, crafting his own apologia, for the oh so unfairly maligned Catholicism.

What would have been controversial is if -- somehow -- Cameron had made a movie in which the good guys accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts.

Of course, that sounds outlandish and absurd, but that's the point, isn't it? We live in an age in which it's the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion. If the Na'Vi were Roman Catholics, there would be boycotts and protests. Make the oversized Smurfs Rousseauian noble savages and everyone nods along, save for a few cranky right-wingers.

Goldberg goes on to expound on the theory that human beings are hard-wired to experience some form of spirituality, even as he mocks this particular expression of that spirituality. What Goldberg seems to miss is that the rebellion against imperialism (as in the mercenary enforced take-over of a fictional planet's resources) and what he calls "traditional religion" are of a piece. Hollywood's fascination with pantheism is just so much pandering to a ground-swell of rebellion against the hierarchical systems that have crushed civilizations and individuals, throughout recorded history. People are turning to more pantheistic, pagan, shamanic, and mystical beliefs, because we are taking our spirituality back.

Brit Hume vs. Buddhism:

Meanwhile, Brit Hume used his pulpit at Fox News to lambast Buddhism. In hopes of saving Tiger Woods's beleaguered soul, he offered the following:

The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be: Tiger, turn your faith, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.

A good round-up of the responses to Hume's proselytizing, from across the political and religious spectrum, comes from David Gibson at Politics Daily. Gibson also offers the fairly obvious point that Christianity's track record on reforming behavior isn't so hot.

The other problem with Hume's comments is that they are contradicted by so much evidence. Anecdotally, one need look no further than the sanctimonious Christian pols-turned-philanderers, or the many high-profile pastors who turn out to have feet of clay. Statistics also show that Christians are as likely to divorce or abort as everyone else, and Bible Belt states often have much higher rates of marital breakdown and teen pregnancy than other regions.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Pat Robertson on Haiti's Pact with the Devil

I've been cataloging a number of recent, arrogant, public pronouncements, offered in the name of Christianity. More to come on that, but Pat Robertson's latest hateful outburst requires a stand alone post.

In the aftermath of this horrific tragedy in Haiti, one which may have caused as many as 100,000 deaths, Pat Robertson is, once again, blaming the victims, and citing their sinful nature. What's the problem in Haiti? A pact with the devil, according to Robertson. Citing no source for the information -- perhaps God has been bending his ear again -- he announces that Haiti turned to Satan, in hopes of ending the tyranny of French Imperialsm. He's not so certain about what French leader was oppressing the Haitians, but he's quite certain about the whole deal with the devil thing.

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

In Pat Robertson's world view, it's God's curse that's causing Haiti's poverty, oppression, and what most of us call a natural disaster. Proof? The Dominican Republic: No pact with the devil and today a thriving resort area. Haiti: Pact with the devil and today under a pile of rubble. So there ya go.

This is what we call the just world fallacy. Bad things just don't happen to good people. They only happen to the bad people, so when bad things happen, we should always look to see what they've done wrong, and know that as long as we stay in God's good books, nothing bad will happen to us. Versions can be found in our underlying cultural belief that poverty is a result of moral failure, The Secret (wherein our positive thoughts bring positive experiences and our negative thoughts bring negative experiences), and the belief that causes many women to find for the defendent in rape cases. The just world fallacy allows people an illusion of safety in an uncertain world, but I just call it blame the victim idiocy.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Review: Battlestar Galactia -- The Plan

The following review contains spoilers. Previous posts on the new "Battlestar Galactica" can be found here.

The makers of the makers fall before the child.
Accessing defense system.
Handshake. Handshake. Second level clear.
(It's begun.)
Accepting scan.
Love outlasts death.
(Been a long time coming.)
Apotheosis was the beginning before the beginning.
Devices on alert. Observe the procedures of a general alert.
The base and the pinnacle.
The flower inside the fruit that is both its parent and its child.
Jump.

~ The Hybrid

"The center holds. The falcon hears the falconer," intones the hybrid, as she coordinates the attack that would annihilate the 12 colonies of Kobol. But, of course, the center does not hold, and the plan begins to unravel almost immediately.

This is not a prequel. "The Plan" does for "Battlestar Galactica" what Orson Scott Card's Shadow Series did for Ender's Game; tells the same story from the perspective of a different character. Cavil is the architect of the plan to destroy humanity. There are many copies, but this is primarily the story of two Cavils; the one on Galactica and the one on Caprica.

I had rather high hopes for "The Plan," having become very fascinated with Cavil by the end of "Battlestar Galactica,"  and I was not disappointed. The two hour movie explores, in more depth, the central conflict of the series; that between pure rationalism and the non-rational nature of spirituality and intuition. As I wrote in my review of the finale:

In the final season, the division between the spiritual and purely analytical came into sharp relief. The show's lone atheist, Cavil, is revealed to be hostile, not only to humans, but to his own humanoid form. Cavil: The name means "to quibble." But, it derives from the Latin calvi, which means "deception," as in "calumny." I would not be surprised if it is this darker aspect that the writers were alluding to, with the name. Dean Stockwell has done some of the finest work of his career in "Battlestar Galactica." Cavil is a perfectly drawn character; his rage cool, measured, and methodical. Only in flickers do we see the petulant, disappointed child, driven by hatred for the mommy who has doomed him to a life he thinks imperfect and foolish.

"The Plan" expands on this theme. Like the "Battlestar Galactica" series, it could easily be read as an indictment of atheism. Or, at least, of that strain of atheism that has so completely merged with scientism it has become as soul crushing a dogma as the religious authorities it condemns. Not surprisingly a lot of hard SF people don't get it. The Plan has been received with much of the same utter mystification that the spiritual tone of the finale was.

Cavil is a Satanesque figure; rebelling against his creators and turning his rage on humanity. Ultimately, we find him to be both epically tragic and pathetically small. To understand a key element of his backstory, see the previously discussed write-up by Mike Ragogna. Bear in mind that Cavil's given name was John.

Then there was the "angels" plot line from the old series that still needs resolution. Is it possible that when Ellen created "John," her first successful, human-looking cylon, that she named him in tribute to "John," the angel from the first series?

Could explain Cavil's twisted relationship with a displaced child named John, who, curiously, only he ever seems to see, and with whom he shares that classic Satanic symbol, an apple.

As we ultimately learned in the Battlestar Galactica series, there is a plan, but it's not Cavil's. He is merely a pawn in the unfolding scheme of some overarching and incomprehensible intelligence. Like the Architect in The Matrix Trilogy, Cavil learns that a purely rational construct is doomed to fail. Creation itself is irrational. It is dependent, after all, on the irrational mathematics of Phi. 

In "The Plan," however, we learn the backstory of Cavil of Caprica's epiphany, and break from his own plan. This plot arc actually articulates one of my favorite, classic arguments against atheism. A central tenant of atheism says that "God" cannot be proved empirically, and therefore cannot be believed in. This, of course, is scientism; "the view that natural science has authority over all other interpretations of life, such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations." The classic rebuttal is simply this: Can love be proved? Cavil of Caprica learns something which alters his perceptions and moves him to endorse a truce with humanity; that "love outlasts death." Love is inexplicable, powerful, eternal, and undeniable, when experienced, but cannot be proved empirically.

"The Plan," while drawing heavily from old footage and artful splicing, is a very worthwhle addition to the critically acclaimed new "Battlestar Galactica" series. It's smart, literate, and replete with fascinating visual allusions and symbols. (Watch, in particular, for the baby carriages, on Caprica, that look like some bizarre hybrid of ziggurats and mummies.) Highly recommended.

The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"The Plan" made its television debut on the SyFy Channel, Sunday, February 10th, and will reair Fri. 1/15, 8:00am, Tue. 1/19, 11:30pm, and Fri. 1/22, 4:30pm. It is also available in the bookstore.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |

Mr. Deity and the Apology

The last episode of Mr. Deity introduced Eve. I posted it here. I thought it was cute, but I thought, at the time, it might tweak some people. Apparently, it did. In fact, it seems to have really pissed some viewers off enough that Brian Keith Dalton has come out with an apology. It's at the end of this most recent episode, "Mr. Deity and the Wrong Number." Like all things Mr. Deity, the apology is quite amusing, and straddles that fine line between the satirical and the offensive. Dalton makes the rather significant point that Mr. Deity lampoons a variety of stereotypes, and yet, it is only when a stereotype of a woman comes in to play, that all hell breaks loose. And, like so many stereotypes, there is some truth in Mr. Deity's Eve, and in the communication breakdown that ensues. I say this as a woman and a feminist. There are differences between men and women. There are differences in the way we communicate. Women can be indirect and, even, passive aggressive. Men can be obtuse and oblivious to metacommunication. John Gray built an entire cottage industry around these differences, and the trouble they can cause in male/female relationships. So, I thought Mr. Deity's depictions of an extremely yin Eve, and yang Adam, were clever. His conversation with Pat Robertson is also amusing, so enjoy!

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Share |