Sound & Fury
rang@theguidon.com

It’s a bad time to be the Catholic Church. You’ve got believers questioning your insistence on a reproductive health-free education. You’ve got the government finally fulfilling the long-claimed separation of church and state, launching a no glove, no love movement for the sake of HIV and the population boom. Plus, you’ve got more and more Catholics converting out of the Church.

It’s a new generation out there—one that the Church seems to have no idea how to be a part of. They say we’ve got our Internet, sex, drugs, and alcohol, and the only thing we care about is instant gratification. They say the only reason people are turning against the Church on issues like RH Bill is to concede to the call of our loins. But this stand is one produced from careful examination. We are beginning to doubt not because we want to get off, rather because the evidence is so undeniable, the alternative so clearly irrational.

If there’s anything the Internet has taught us, it’s to never trust a source. There are no sacred cows; everything should be evaluated, from news articles to graduation speeches. There will be no blind believers in a generation of information, a constantly Googling, real-time updated youth.

Arguably the biggest,  most damning piece of evidence against believing, of course, is the recent child abuse scandal. Cases of child abuse have been bubbling beneath the Catholic surface for a while now but this new issue takes front and center because it involves the Pope.

In the weeks leading up to the Pope’s Easter sermon, a sexual abuse scandal spread throughout Europe, with hundreds of accusations coming out of the woodwork. To address this, the Pope issued an eight-page pastoral letter, apologizing to the victims and their families and expressing “pain and remorse.” Any concrete actions towards justice, however, were left out. Moreover, on April 9, reports accused Pope Benedict of involvement in putting off the punishment of an abusive priest because “the good of the Universal Church” was to be considered in the final decision. This is how, in May 1988, a convicted child molester served as youth ministry coordinator at St. Joseph’s parish in Pinole. In most cases, an action as reckless as that would have a lot of answering to do. The Pope? He gets the support of the Church.

At least one bishop in Spain doesn’t think child abuse is such a heavy crime. In fact, the Bishop of Tenerife blames child abuse on the children, saying that there are actually children who want to be abused and, “if you are careless, they will provoke you.”

It’s baffling that the Church knew about these cases and still ignored them. How do you believe in a Church that prioritizes its well-being before anything else? How do you believe in a Church that thinks it’s above the law?

If an ordinary citizen commits a similar offense, he is severely penalized and left with the rest of his life to live down the reputation of a child molester. A priest? He gets re-assigned, practically given the freedom to continue feeling up pre-pubescent crotches all he wants.

With all that, how do we believe again? The answer isn’t so hard, really, at least not if they pay attention to the world around them, to what the people need, to the changing times.

Remember when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples? It was called humility.