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.
SIC: II/IE