For nearly two decades, a small nonprofit group called Opus Bono Sacerdotii has operated out of unmarked buildings in rural Michigan, providing money, shelter, transport, legal help and other support to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse.
And while powerful clerics have publicly pledged to hold the church accountable for the crimes of its clergy and help survivors heal, some of them arranged meetings, offered blessings or quietly sent checks to this organization that backed the abusers, The Associated Press has found.
Over the years, Opus Bono brought on as employees or advisers at least three clergymen accused of sexual abuse, and offered sympathizers a tax-deductible, anonymous method of sending money to specific accused priests.Well, it makes sense. These holy men don't deserve the ill treatment they have received. Just ask Judge Steven Sword, who gave a light sentence to a Church of God pastor who repeatedly raped his own daughter, because the perpetrator "is a good Christian man."
When serial pedophile Jason Sigler, a former priest, was sent to jail for abusing dozens of minors, Opus Bono was there for him, with regular visits and commissary cash, said a former employee. When another priest, Gregory Ingels, was criminally charged with abusing a teen, Opus Bono made him a legal adviser.
Jesus wants you to rape children.
4 comments:
In Frederick Douglass's "Narrative" (his first autobiography), he remarks that abusive slave owners usually became much worse after they became Christian, because they could cite passages in the Bible that they interpreted to justify their abuse.
In general, I would say that organized religion does a lot more harm than good. And I'd say that Christianity in general is a really awful religion that has caused more abuse and murder in the world than any other religion. It's based on pagan bullshit and ripped off from Judaism too, and its followers, who are so often racist, are supposed to be worshiping a small brown man whom they would no doubt immediately re-crucify if he appeared again. So I'd be fine if it disappeared. I'm sure the human world would be much better off without Christianity.
As repulsive as this is, and as useful as churches have proven in providing apologia for horrors, we simply could not have developed organized society without them. Morality has been with us for so long that we tend to assume it is natural and universal, but contact with the remaining neolithic societies has shown otherwise. Morality as we know it was invented so that we could live in large, non-related groups (i.e. states) but it's fundamentally irrational and needed a greater irrationality to carry it. In brief, morality is a virus, religion its vector, and god the immortal patient zero.
Holy schmoly. Hard to argue with ... I see the point. Religion is a construct necessary for society to function.
We need a new construct!
I've been thinking on that for some years without result. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that I do my best thinking in conversation and few people are interested in the dialogue. Almost everyone either denies the linkage and insist that morality is natural or clutch their crucifix and tell me I need to get right with god.
What many forget is that christianity, like islam, was founded on some pretty revolutionary principles. If you boil it down, Christ only left us one law: love thy neighbor as thyself. Everything beyond that comes from the Torah, essentially ongoing punishments for original sin. Christians talk about forgiveness in the blood of the lamb but they keep looking in the wrong direction. Christians are forgiven ONLY the original sin and thus no longer bound by the n-thousand rules of the Covenant of Abraham.
Perhaps re-convene the Council of Nicea and excise large parts of the cannon. Dump the entire old testament along with revelations, then go through the remaining text and cut out anything not written by Christ's intimates. Then we take a long, hard look at Paul who clearly had an axe to grind. That's the best I can come up with. It leaves us with a pretty good construct but, well... Eh, like I said, not my strong suit.
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