Catholic Church shouldn't cast stones

Over time I have noticed some literature and many plays referencing the paedophilic Catholic priest. I always assumed this to be a cliche; the singular, terrible instance through repetition in fiction becoming universal. The events, press stories and eventual apologies of recent years say otherwise – this was not singular; it was perhaps almost universal. Children in parishes in Ireland and throughout the Catholic diaspora were in fact being abused, by priests. The frightening figure of the abusing priest was not a cliche. It was and is a truth.

I remember one of the victims and survivors of this truth standing in front of the Irish parliament and accusing it of betraying him and the many other victims of this cruelty. He spoke with great dignity and even more amazing candour about the repeated rape he suffered as a child, and the terror that gave him. Heartbreakingly he spoke about the nightmares he still has, despite now being an old man.

Compounding these crimes has been the Catholic Church’s attitude to those who have come forward. Children who were brave enough to speak of sexual matters at all, never mind to accuse a respected representative of God of such a heinous, unspeakable, unspoken and unimaginable crime were at best ignored. In many cases the priest was ‘re-educated’ and shipped to another parish, where of course he was free to abuse again. Horrible. But I can almost understand the sweeping under the carpet, the hoping it would go away, the just not knowing what to do with this terrible information. Maybe even the deliberate cover up. But that was not all. Children were brought in front of large groups of men, representatives of the Church just like their abusers, and made to swear secrecy, were told it had never happened, that they had lied and they were wrong, that God would punish them for what they said. Some say there were even abused as a punishment for speaking of their abuse and to prevent them speaking of it again.

So far so very, very bad.

This week we have the Catholic Adoption Agency pursuing their case against lesbians and gay men adopting children. Why do I mind? Well I wonder what possible moral right the Catholic establishment thinks it has to pontificate on who is fit to bring up children. I am not aware of a lesbian or gay organisation which has systematically abused children in its care, nor attempted to cover this up, nor compounded the crime by ordering children’s silence. I and others would be stupid and would rightly be seen as bigots if we suggested that Catholics should not be able to adopt because of what some powerful Catholic men have done or because of what the Catholic Church did as an institution. So why is the Catholic Church pursuing its own bigotry? It just doesn’t seem very Christian to me.

[Via http://petarabbit.wordpress.com]