This Week in Church Perversity., Yonah Ward Grossman, November 21, 2011

This Week in Church Perversity.

Yonah Ward Grossman
November 21, 2011

http://www.ywgrossman.com/photoblog/?p=2165

-In Chile a judge threw out four counts of child rape against Rev. Fernando Karadima, once one of Chile’s most prominent and respected priests (of course). Was Rev. Karadima innocent? Not according to the court which found in an 84-page verdict that the accusations against him were “truthful and reliable” and described in detail how the priest “psychologically manipulated his followers and selected his victims based on their emotional vulnerability.” Trouble was, the victims only reported the abuse after Chile’s 5-year statute of limitations had expired, forcing the court’s hand. The Vatican has now moved Rev. Karadima to a convent where he will retire to a life of “prayer and penitence.” Four more victims of the priest have recently come forward.

-In Kansas City, Mo., our old friend Robert W. Finn cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid a second round of criminal charges and possible jail time in connection with his cover-up of priest Shawn Rattigan’s unholy habit of taking photographs of prepubescent girls’ private parts which he stored on the Church’s computer. Bishop Finn will have to report weekly to said prosecutor to detail every suspicious episode involving abuse of a child in his diocese for the next 5-years, although Bishop Finn had already agreed to do this in writing, but failed, leaving his shutterbug priest to abuse more children after the photographs were discovered. So far bishops of Catholic diocese have cut deals to avoid similar prosecution in Manchester, N.H., Phoenix, Az, Santa Rosa, Ca, and Boston, Mass.

-In Baltimore this week bishops opened a “Religious Liberty Drive” to ensure gay people remain free from the onerousness of being able to legally marry and women remain free from being forced to decide whether or not to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. They also gleefully sited the Penn State sex scandal as proof that pederasty is a universal problem that effects most institutions. (Among cults, perhaps, as college football is as much a phallocentric hierarchy as the R.C. Church.) These medieval culture warriors speak in hushed tones when it comes to poverty or economic issues, but turn the megaphone to 11 when it comes to abortion, gay rights, and religious liberty.

-In Brooklyn, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio is petitioning the Brooklyn Museum of Art to remove a film from a large group show called “Hide/Seek” calling it “deeply offensive”. The film by artist David Wojnarowicz depicts a crucifix with ants crawling over it and had already been successfully removed from the show by the Catholic League last year during it’s run at the D.C. Smithsonian. The church certainly has a very strange sense of what it finds offensive: ants, reporters, and police investigating sex abuse. They may not know much about art, but they know what they don’t like. The Museum, to it’s credit, says it will not remove the work.

-And finally, on my enchanted isle of Manhattan, George Carlin’s catholic primary school continues it’s fight to stop a street being named for their famous alum. At the last meeting between the two sides it was reported that a guest speaker for the church asked, “What can I tell my two young daughters good about George Carlin?” Well, you could tell them that he never molested any children, or covered up any molestation; he never shielded child abusers or paid hundreds of millions of dollars to psychologically damaged victims; but most of all I think you could say that unlike the members of the clergy he wasn’t an arch-hypocrite.

Oh yes, and besides making millions of people laugh, he also made them think. I suspect that last part is the one the Catholic Church has such a big problem with.

Lord have mercy on us all.