FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Catholic Church must do more to regain faith

Catholic Church must do more to regain faith

‘Tools of Satan’, the Pope calls paedophiles within the clergy, yet this scourge will be a devil not easily cast out

Heart-sickening revelations about the extent of child sexual abuse among Roman Catholic Church clergy are alarming. Perhaps even more disturbingly, no one of any faith can be at all surprised. There were too many indications already that the worst had happened. The headlines are acknowledged with sadness, there is muted hope that exposure will somehow put an end to it, and we are prepared to move on. We are prepared to place our trust in the stated commitment of Pope Francis, who seems to be a good man, a conscientious and genuinely pious church leader, to rid us of this endless horror. 
Cynicism lingers, however, rooted deeply in centuries of ignoble, cruel and secretive intentions on the part of the Church of Rome, compelling us darkly to suspect that the Catholic hierarchy will maintain its self-serving status quo.
The current face of Roman Catholic abuse of authority, of society, of childhood innocence, of what many would call God’s pure grace, is Australian Cardinal George Pell, 77. A Melbourne court in December found him guilty of multiple sexual offences against children, the nature of which was only last week revealed. Pell was the Vatican’s treasurer and a close adviser to the Pope. He is almost certainly bound for prison for the despicable, lustful behaviour with which he accosted at least five children in the late 1990s.
A distraught Francis, at the end of an historic Vatican summit he’d convened on clergy sex abuse, called all such offenders “tools of Satan”. But he proposed no practical measures to curb abuses that have continued despite revelations dating back decades. How is it possible to evoke the evil of Satan and yet give innocent followers no shield against the demons?
Organised religions – and Thai Buddhism is no exception despite having neither a god nor a Satan – are verifiably rife with corruption, crime, ill-gotten wealth, quasi-mystical opaqueness, tendencies to social conservatism and repression and intentions that are far from devout in the true sense of their origins.
The unavoidable truth is that modern organised religions copy all the worst traits of modern business corporations, to the point where the absurd “too big to fail” argument that sheltered multinational financial institutions from prosecution in the wake of the 2007 global economic crisis is commonly used in their defence. Billions of people do derive benefit from religious faith, granted, but this is hardly an excuse for not owning up to culpability in abetting war crimes and the atrocities of colonialism or the grievous harm done to each and every one of those choirboys and other young innocents. Confession is one thing. Abjuration of further sin entirely another.
In holding the feet of the Catholic Church to the fire, we are not engaged in an exercise in political correctness. There is no conspiracy against good men here, no effort to entrap. This is entirely a matter of a venerable institution that should deserve our trust, if only its prelates, who present themselves as moral models and ethical guides to the laity, can live up to the Church’s fundamental premise to not yield to mortal temptation.

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