You choose
Sex Abuse Critic to Pope: Swap White Cassock for Black, Lose the Red Shoes
Before this year, when Pope Benedict XVI became best-known for his questionable record in dealing with the sexual abuse of children by priests, the pontiff often made headlines for his fastidious attention to high-end clerical fashion.
Soon after his election in 2005, for example, Benedict rummaged through the papal attic for ornate gold vestments last worn during the Renaissance, and he resurrected a 19th-century liturgical cape so wide is must be held up by two attendants. Benedict has taken to wearing ermine-trimmed capes and hats, as well -- to the chagrin of animal rights activists -- and he even commissioned a set of 30 new vestments modeled on those worn by the notorious Medici pope, Leo X, who at his election famously declared, "Let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us." . . .
Let's note a couple of things here:
1) Benedict's "questionable record in dealing with the sexual abuse of children by priests" should actually be attributed to the questionable record of any very old, huge, creaking bureaucracy, such as that of the government of the Roman Catholic Church, in dealing with any serious, entrenched problems. Ask anyone who has ever worked for the US federal government: you can't just walk in and demand drastic change in such an institution and get it instantly unless you nuke the place and start over, which just doesn't happen. Laws, including canon law, procedures, and what might be called bureaucratic culture all have their say in how quickly and how well any change in a bureaucracy can be done. The older and crankier the bureaucracy (try 1,500+ years and extremely cranky, in this case) is, the longer it takes and the harder it is to make a real, substantive, significant change in it. Benedict has one hard uphill fight to wage in changing the situation so this doesn't happen again, and it will go on for years, probably through three more Popes. The fault isn't his. Bureaucracies are step-up transformers for human evil. They are necessary if anything that has to be done for everyone's sake gets done, but they are necessary evils. If you think otherwise, you are a walking signboard saying "Sell me the Brooklyn Bridge! Right here! Right now! I'm easy!"
2) "Benedict has taken to wearing ermine-trimmed capes and hats, as well -- to the chagrin of animal rights activists . . ." You have got to be kidding me! Those are the people who want to make honeybees extinct, something that would mean the utter extinction not just of human food crops, but of a tremendous number of wild plants, which, in turn, could crash the biosphere. Their motto seems to be "We had to destroy Gaia to save her!" Since when are we to take their criticisms of anyone for any reasons seriously?
Time to go back to the drawing board, liberals -- otherwise you run a grave risk of being laughed out of court. Go pick on Scientology for a change -- they deserve it, in spades! God knows, the Roman Catholic Church does have its serious sins to account for, but they're doing that. So far, Scientology has refused to admit that its sins even exist -- and they swear that anyway, it's the victims who deserve punishment for them, because they're just working out their past-life karma . . .
Before this year, when Pope Benedict XVI became best-known for his questionable record in dealing with the sexual abuse of children by priests, the pontiff often made headlines for his fastidious attention to high-end clerical fashion.
Soon after his election in 2005, for example, Benedict rummaged through the papal attic for ornate gold vestments last worn during the Renaissance, and he resurrected a 19th-century liturgical cape so wide is must be held up by two attendants. Benedict has taken to wearing ermine-trimmed capes and hats, as well -- to the chagrin of animal rights activists -- and he even commissioned a set of 30 new vestments modeled on those worn by the notorious Medici pope, Leo X, who at his election famously declared, "Let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us." . . .
Let's note a couple of things here:
1) Benedict's "questionable record in dealing with the sexual abuse of children by priests" should actually be attributed to the questionable record of any very old, huge, creaking bureaucracy, such as that of the government of the Roman Catholic Church, in dealing with any serious, entrenched problems. Ask anyone who has ever worked for the US federal government: you can't just walk in and demand drastic change in such an institution and get it instantly unless you nuke the place and start over, which just doesn't happen. Laws, including canon law, procedures, and what might be called bureaucratic culture all have their say in how quickly and how well any change in a bureaucracy can be done. The older and crankier the bureaucracy (try 1,500+ years and extremely cranky, in this case) is, the longer it takes and the harder it is to make a real, substantive, significant change in it. Benedict has one hard uphill fight to wage in changing the situation so this doesn't happen again, and it will go on for years, probably through three more Popes. The fault isn't his. Bureaucracies are step-up transformers for human evil. They are necessary if anything that has to be done for everyone's sake gets done, but they are necessary evils. If you think otherwise, you are a walking signboard saying "Sell me the Brooklyn Bridge! Right here! Right now! I'm easy!"
2) "Benedict has taken to wearing ermine-trimmed capes and hats, as well -- to the chagrin of animal rights activists . . ." You have got to be kidding me! Those are the people who want to make honeybees extinct, something that would mean the utter extinction not just of human food crops, but of a tremendous number of wild plants, which, in turn, could crash the biosphere. Their motto seems to be "We had to destroy Gaia to save her!" Since when are we to take their criticisms of anyone for any reasons seriously?
Time to go back to the drawing board, liberals -- otherwise you run a grave risk of being laughed out of court. Go pick on Scientology for a change -- they deserve it, in spades! God knows, the Roman Catholic Church does have its serious sins to account for, but they're doing that. So far, Scientology has refused to admit that its sins even exist -- and they swear that anyway, it's the victims who deserve punishment for them, because they're just working out their past-life karma . . .