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	Vatican't Is Finished but True Believers Can Still Save Faith Irish Independent December 19, 2010 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/vaticant-is-finished-but-true-believers-can-still-save-faith-2466641.html AS the two-thousand-and-tenth birthday of Christ approaches, it seems worthwhile to examine the spiritual condition and worthiness of those who claim to represent Christ on our behalf, though they know well Christ doesn't need a representative. Early in the year we were scandalised by the Bishop of Ferns, who, in a suicidal act of luminous offence, actually dared to declare in a public statement that in the five years since the publication of the Ferns Report (which was our first real inkling of the horror), the diocese had had to fork out so much money to victims and lawyers that it was broke and the Irish people had "a God-given responsibility" to help pay. He actually dared to suggest that if we told him "go fuck yourself", that would not be true Christian behaviour! As if he had a right to talk about Christian behaviour. His house had to be re-mortgaged, he said to reporters. When the whole shagging country was in the same boat. Poor Diddums. There is not a chance on earth that "The Vatican't" (as I prefer to call it), so rich from little old ladies giving their last frightened pence, did not know of this plan. That was when we decided to stand up for ourselves. And I decided to stand up and fight for the honour of the Holy Spirit. It has been the annus horribilis of the Vatican't. Repeatedly since the publication of the Murphy Report, she has displayed disrespectful, snide and snooty and downright dishonest behaviour regarding the commission's findings, and the findings of reports this year all over Europe and America. She strives to make herself seem a fellow victim, blasphemously stating that the Vatican't is "being persecuted as the Jews were by the Nazis". The Pope tried to place himself as a fellow victim in his letter -- which, by the way, was not addressed to the Irish people, it was addressed only to mass-goers; you could only get it if you went to mass -- saying he could "share" mass-goers' sense of shock and sorrow at the revelations. As if he only just found out! We all know he was aware 20 years ago. "Drunk on the wine of her abominations" (the Book of Revelation), the Vatican't has spewed out lie after lie and continues to do so, regarding, not the actual abuse, but the criminal covering up of it and the subsequent reckless endangerment of children. In canon law, paedophilia becomes a defence as insanity does in civil law. This was highlighted in the Murphy Report and also in an interview with Monsignor Alex Stenson for The Irish Catholic. Stenson is the common denominator in most cases covered in the report, not as an abuser, but as the church's chosen man who victims would first meet on deciding to make an allegation. In that interview, he says: "If someone is a paedophile, it can have a bearing on their culpability. In church law, culpability may be reduced depending on the severity of the pathology" (Murphy Report 4.93). In other words, abusers are mentally ill -- not criminals. But even if we allow that, which we should not, then what do we call the supposedly sane ones who covered up and endangered thousands of children across the globe? Surely they are criminal if they are sane. Not once have the Irish bishops or the Vatican't cried when discussing the Murphy Report with Irish media. Respect goes out to Bishop Tutu, who cried his head off at the truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa; and to the victims of childhood rape or abuse who have cried oceans and still do. And to those victims who have committed suicide for not being heard or helped. Instead they were treated by the Vatican't as though they were nothing. The Irish hierarchy stopped placing themselves in situations where they would be questioned after Vincent Browne and Patsy McGarry in the summer, cornered three bishops, including the Bishop of Ferns, and reduced them to stupefied silence at a hastily thrown together Maynooth press conference. They appeared to search each other's faces for answers they didn't have, like a trio of gombeens. Instead, the mass has been blasphemised by being used as a platform to spout denial in the house of the Holy Spirit that has become a haven for criminals. One has a sense from their behaviour that they are in fact holding the Holy Spirit hostage. God and religion, I tell my daughter, are two different things. The difference? God loves unconditionally. Religion loves conditionally. When we study the gospels, we see that Jesus in fact was an anti-religious character. "The kingdom of God is in your hands," he said. Let's remember, it was religion that killed him. Often I see the Vatican't as not Christ, but Judas. Kissing him in order to kill him. When we study the Books of the Prophets, we see God himself despises religion. "Your new moons and fixed seasons fill me with loathing," he says. "They are a burden to me, I cannot endure them. Even though you say many prayers, I will hide my eyes from you and I will not hear: your hands are full of blood." (Isaiah) In fact, God's very reason for sending Jesus was to rescue us from religion. Personally, I also feel He should be rescued from religious music. In the 21st century, one of the biggest shifts in human thinking is that we don't need religion in order to get to God. Indeed, religion needs us way more than we ever needed it. There is a place for religion yes. But it doesn't have a right to a place if it's behaving in a manner which suggests no belief in nor respect for the Holy Spirit at all. Nor God. Nor the Body of Christ. We, along with the Holy Spirit, deserve a church run by people who actually believe in God. No one who felt God was watching could have allowed such evil as rape and abuse of children go on for so long, and only tell some of the story when it was dragged out of them like blood from a stone. Cardinal Brady shut his mouth on the oath of secrecy that abused children were required to take. Yet last week, he rushed out to state the European Court of Human Right's ruling on the rights of Irish mothers to have their lives protected does not in his opinion have to be made Irish law. This from a man who, despite his silence and inaction over these secret oaths, has the gall to refer to himself as "a wounded healer". No Mr Brady, you're not a wounded healer. You're an asshole. And that church is ours. Some day, Mr Brady, we will take the church away from those who have brought Catholicism into utter disrepute. If you'd believed at all in your Breviary, you would not be surprised to find the Holy Spirit now telling you your Vatican't is running out of batteries. We will do without her very well. We will boot you all out who hold God hostage, and create a new church -- just as Ireland will be made a new republic. And our church will honour Christ. My earnest prayer this Christmas, Mr Brady, and your colleagues (in which I include the Vatican't) is that you will all make note of the fact that your days are numbered unless you tell the truth and step down and give the church over to us. We deserve better. The church deserves better. The Holy Spirit deserves better and Christ deserves better. As for the Vatican't -- she will get what she richly deserves.
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