Category: Catholicism

Persiflage

August 9, 2016 • 2:15 pm

I am back from Poznan, had dinner and cherry pie, and now can’t brain. You will have to be satisfied with persiflage today. The good news is that there are two bits of it here.

It seems to be not unusual (at least if you look at YouTube) for a squirrel to steal a GoPro camera, take it up a tree, and then drop it, with the camera filming the entire event. (I’m sure the photographers plan on this, maybe even baiting the camera with noms.)

I posted one of these a long while ago, and of course someone cried that the film was faked. Well, I won’t rule it out entirely here, as that’s not scientific, but this one looks real to me:

And this, which I find hilarious:

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More perfidy from the Catholic Church: Lobbying against laws to prevent child abuse

May 31, 2016 • 1:15 pm

Before you dismiss this as dubious because it came from the New York Daily News, remember that unsubstantiated accusations against the Catholic Church are dangerous, as they have fancy lawyers, and the story has also been reported by other sources (e.g., Gawker). And this time the Church’s naked venality exposes it for the horrid and insensitive institution it is.

According to both articles, the Church has spent over $2 million dollars hiring lobbyists to fight the passage of the Child Victims Act, which would make it easier for victims of sexual child abuse to get justice from their predators. Among other things, that Act would open a one-year window for people older than 23 to file charges against sexual abusers—something that they can’t do now.

Why on Earth would the Church lobby against an act that protects the victims for which it now shows contrition? Yep, you guessed it:

 

Figure_01_04_01Gawker:

State records show that the [New York Catholic conference], a group representing the bishops of the state’s eight dioceses, retained lobbyists to work on a number of issues associated with “statute of limitations” and “timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses.”

“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church,” Catholic Conference spokesman Dennis Poust told the New York Times in 2009.
That conference is led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, who himself has been accused of delaying discussion of on Church reform.  I really don’t know why anyone still belongs to the Church. Were I part of an institution that had an organized coverup of endemic child rape, and also fought against birth control on scriptural grounds, I’d be deeply ashamed of myself, and get the hell out as soon as possible. This latest act shows that it cares far more about its coffers, which are well full, than about the rape of children.


h/t: Barry

Vatican decides it doesn’t “necessarily” have to report clerical child abuse

February 14, 2016 • 12:12 pm

by Grania

When I left religion behind me, I had no intention of ever looking back. I don’t care what the pope’s opinion is on anything, whether I agree or disagree with him or not. But I realised over the years that the institution I had turned away from still had enormous effect on people’s lives; even those who had nothing at all to do with the Church. Women can  find themselves without access to birth control or abortion; same sex couples can find themselves denied access to marry or adopt children. So the Church becomes impossible to ignore when it negatively impacts on the daily lives of people all over the world.

After the relentless avalanche of reports of rape and abuse of children by Catholic clergy all over the world, and the subsequent revelation that the highest ranking officials in the church had done everything in their power to conceal  the crimes and silence the witnesses; the world has come to expect cooperation from the church in ensuring that this does not happen again, in safeguarding children in its care, and making sure that priests involved are brought swiftly to justice.

However, this turns out to not be the case. In spite of a Commission for the Protection of Minors supposedly laying out new guidelines and practices for the clergy; training guidelines for priests state:

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds”.

The guidelines were written by one Monsignor Tony Anatrella, described by Catholic new site Crux Now as “controversial for his views on homosexuality and ‘gender theory’ ” which can understand as vehemently misogynistic and homophobic (read those links at your own peril).

Crux Now continues:

Anatrella argued that bishops have no duty to report allegations to the police, which he says is up to victims and their families. It’s a legalistic take on a critical issue, one which has brought only trouble for the Church and its leaders. Why, one wonders, was it part of a training session?

Most basically, canonical procedures kick in only after abuse has been alleged. Presumably the goal ought to be to stop those crimes from happening, and in that regard it’s striking that Anatrella devoted just a few paragraphs to abuse prevention, using abstract language without concrete examples.

This is a good example to those of you have have blessedly lived lives entirely outside of the Catholic Church of liberal, progressive Catholics who are frequently at odds with the Vatican and Rome.

The spin doctors of the Vatican are now claiming that it is not what it appears to be; although their argument seems to be only that this isn’t “new” but is consistent with previous statements on the subject.

Some countries now have legislation that requires clergy to report any such crimes they are aware of, and presumably that is exactly what will be done in some cases. But this seems to indicate that the core is still rotten, and those among the clergy and the Vatican who still wish to ignore or conceal these crimes will continue to do so and encourage their peers to do likewise.

Carnie sideshow: the bizarre Catholic tradition that won’t die out

February 9, 2016 • 11:00 am

by Grania Spingies

Once upon a time there was a roaring trade in Christian relics: bits of bones and chopped up mummified body parts and scraps of clothing of purported saints did the rounds in Europe. Many were sold for enormous amounts of money, some became treasured property of local royal families, many became the focus of lucrative pilgrimages for religious centers that housed these relics. Almost all of the relics were endowed with dubious miraculous powers ranging from healing ailments to more spiritual rewards. Certainly, the financial rewards for hosting the body parts was substantial and demand for them was always at a premium. As Andrew Butterfield notes in his New Republic article What Remains:

Such was the desire for the miracle-working bodies of saints that occasionally guards had to watch over mortally ill holy men and women to prevent the unauthorized dismemberment of their corpses as soon as they died.

You’d probably think, well, that was fine for the Late Medieval era. That was then, but Christianity has moved on. People are far more educated these days. Even the most fundamentalist Christians are far removed from the grisly superstitions of the past. Right?

Well, no. The Church after much careful consideration and introspection has decided to straddle rank superstitious hocus pokery and modern rationality at the same time. In a masterful display of the seemingly impossible, they have decided to have their cake and eat it at the same time. As a result the exhumed corpse of Padre Pio (he of the verified-by-Church-Investigators-but-not-scientists stigmata fame) is leaving his home village of San Giovanni Rotondo going on a tour around Italy. He isn’t the first dead body on tour, and he probably (depressingly) won’t be the last.

Why are they doing this? Interestingly, the same reason as back in the Middle Ages. Tourism is down. The Irish Times reports:

Roman hoteliers … claim that, in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks in November, the sector has been hit by a wave of cancellations.
At the beginning of this month, ADA, the hotel managers association for Lazio, claimed that Christmas and New Year had seen a 10 per cent drop in tourist numbers.

On the other hand, the Vatican’s financial gain is San Giovanni Rotondo’s financial loss. The HuffPo reports:

But not all of the locals in this small town whose economy revolves around the pilgrim trade were happy that the saint was going on the road.

One feature that is widely reported as true, but isn’t in fact true at all is the exhumed body’s incorruptibility. The corpse when exhumed was reported partially skeletal, but he is nevertheless claimed as an incorruptibile all over the internet despite the contrary being well-known amongst the faithful, it’s even included on the Wikipedia page on Incorruptibility. Of course, his body is no such thing (mind you, neither are any of the other mummified corpses on that page – do take a look, especially if you are the type to not flinch while watching Tales From The Crypt or similar horror stories). HuffPo points out:

His body was partially reconstructed with a life-like silicone mask and preserved in a large, temperature-controlled glass reliquary so the faithful could view it.

If you ask a Catholic person whether they really believe that there is something to be gained (other than money, of course) in visiting, touching or owning the dead body of a famous holy person; they will probably frown and tell you that they are not required to venerate saints. It’s true, they are not. Perhaps a more important question would be why they think the Church endorses and promotes this so relentlessly when they know that it embarrasses the majority of their more educated and enlightened members.

There’s not a lot of sophisticated theology here. This is just a fairly mercenary bilking of the credulous, with a cynical mollifying aside to its members who have grown too sophisticated to be taken in by the carnival-style exhibits. Those amongst the faithful who are not attracted to the idea of exhuming and displaying dead bodies will just pretend that it isn’t happening. That’s kind of a miracle all by itself.

 

 

 

A new must-see movie on the Vatican’s coverup of child abuse

September 20, 2015 • 10:15 am

I haven’t yet seen the movie “Spotlight,” but reader Tom C. sent me an email headed “Sockless in Toronto”, which said this:

I’m in Toronto at the Toronto International Film Festival sans socks because they have been blown off by a movie I felt I should give you a heads-up about as it doesn’t open in the states until Nov. 6.  “Spotlight” is the story of six Boston Globe reporters who uncovered the cover-up of child molestation by the Archdiocese of Boston.  To say the movie is powerful is to damn it with faint praise.  Beautifully understated with great acting, particularly by Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams, I emerged furious at the mendacity of the church and heartbroken for the victims.  I look forward to seeing Bill Donohue’s (Catholic League head goon) head explode when this film opens nationally.  I’ve linked (I hope) a review from the Toronto Star. [JAC: I lost the link, but here’s one review from the Star.]

Here’s the official trailer:

With a 97% critics’ rating from Rotten Tomatoes, this is surely a must-see movie. I haven’t found reviews in the New York Times or The New Yorker. If you’ve seen the film, weigh in below.

 

The Pope continues to reform the Church: the annulment process gets simplified

September 8, 2015 • 11:00 am

I have mixed feelings about Pope Francis’s reforms of the Church’s attitudes towards gays, abortion (discussed a few days ago) and now the anullment of marriages, which of course gets around the stricture of “no divorce” by pretending that the marriage was never valid in the first place. Previously annulments were laborious processes, which required applications, often years of waiting, and (of course) lots of dosh paid to the church.

As announced on CNN this morning, and now in The New York Times, here are the changes (my words)

  • A shorter waiting period: only 30 days before a case is heard if it’s uncontested.
  • Judgments from only one church tribunal instead of two.
  • Tribunals can be established by bishops and will consist of three members. Two of these can be lay Catholics rather than Church officials.
  • As the New York Times notes: “Francis is also instructing Catholic bishops to be more welcoming to divorced or separated Catholics ‘who have abandoned the church.’ Local dioceses will be asked to establish commissions to reach out to couples seeking annulments.”

If you’re a Catholic and want to remain in the Church, this is a good thing. For previously Church law prohibited you from getting remarried or even cohabiting without an annulment; civil divorces weren’t recognized. That put many Catholics in a bind. The response of many, however, was to leave the Church, either formally or informally (by stopping going to services), and, as we know, membership in the Catholic church is dropping precipitiously.

That, in fact, is why Francis is doing this, and to pretend otherwise is foolish. By fixing the Church’s retrograde attitudes and catching them up to modernity, he’s hoping to retain believers. I don’t think for a moment that this strategy comes from the Pope recognizing that Catholic dogma was hurtful; but perhaps I’m being overly cynical.

Apropos, there’s a new article in The Atlantic (brought to my attention by reader Don) that describes the attrition of fully-believing Catholics and the growth of a phenomenon I thought was limited to Jews: “Secular Catholicism.” An excerpt:

There is a basic assumption about religion at work in the claims cultural Catholics make about their identity. Even though about 13 percent of them occasionally attend Mass, they do not consider that practice sufficient for them to claim Catholicism as their religion. Instead they say they are Catholic “because of their Catholic background,” which mostly means that they were raised in Catholicism as children. They feel they have inherited a Catholic identity, but have made a conscious choice not to embrace Catholicism as their religion.

When asked what it means to be a Catholic, some people say that it is “a matter of religion,” others that it is a matter of “ancestry or culture.” Religion and religious identity are seen as distinct from the cultural identity.

Well, if they want to eat fish on Friday, just as I like to eat corned-beef sandwiches and pickles, more power to them—so long as they don’t try to enforce Catholic-derived beliefs (such as the prohibition of abortion and assisted suicide) on others.

Meanwhile the attrition continues, at least in the US. As a Pew Survey taken this May showed:

A report released Tuesday by the Pew Forum finds that the total number of Catholics in the United States dropped by 3 million since 2007, now comprising about 20 percent – or one-fifth – of the total population.

And perhaps more troubling for the church, for every one Catholic convert, more than six Catholics leave the church. Taken a step further, Catholicism loses more members than it gains at a higher rate than any other denomination, with nearly 13 percent of all Americans describing themselves as “former Catholics.”

Here are the data in graphic form. Check out the “unaffiliated” (“nones”) growing rapidly in the first box!

pew

PF_15.05.05_RLS2_catholic200px-1

Is it any wonder that Francis is desperate to keep the sheep from leaving the flock?