The Pope Did What?

So, we all know about the many cases of Catholic priests sexually molesting and abusing their church members, in most cases young boys. According to this AlterNet article there's been nearly 5000 priests officially accused of abusing children. When I first read that figure I wasn't sure I believed it, but this study commissioned by the US Catholic Church confirms it. While the number of cases investigated, and successfully prosecuted, is much lower that figure of 5000 accused priests is still pretty resounding. Imagine it: thousands of kids sexually abused by their only link with their God: a priest. And, lest we forget and the report points out, that abuse wasn't limited to inappropriately suggestive conversation or the viewing of pornographer. There was actual forced penetration being done against these children and some of them were younger than 7 years of age! And out of all those priests accused none of them have been excommunicated by the Pope. Some voluntarily went to counseling, some went to jail, some quietly retired from their posts and some just went on to find a new batch of victims in a different parish. But NONE of them were ever kicked out of the Church. Now, keep those facts in your head while I go on to the next bit.

From the AlterNet article:

"Nearly 5,000 Catholic priests [in the U.S.] have sexually abused over 12,000 Catholic children…but they were not excommunicated," says Father Roy Bourgeois, who faced the latter scenario after helping celebrate what the Vatican considers to be an illegitimate ordination mass in August 2008. Bourgeois, a Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart who became a prominent peace activist, stood with the trailblazers of the female ordination movement in Lexington, Ky., to make Janice Sevre-Duszynska a Catholic priest.

For thumbing his nose at one of the most sacred tenets of the conservative hierarchy -- that only men are worthy of the priesthood -- Bourgeois was swiftly rebuked by the Vatican in a letter two months later, telling him he had 30 days to renounce his actions or face excommunication.

Yep, you read that right the first time. I had to read it a few times myself. It's apparently okay to willfully abuse a sacred trust by molesting and raping small children but if you place a woman, A FEMALE, on the same level as a man then you're out of the Church! Can you believe this shit? Perhaps I'm oversimplifying in an explicit way but what the Catholic Church is essentially saying is this: if you are a male, and a priest, it's perfectly okay to take a five-year-old boy into the confessional, strip his clothes off, hold him down, ignore his cries and pleas and purposely insert your penis into his anus with bloody force but if you dare to ordain a woman as a priest(ess) of the Church you will go to Hell and suffer eternal damnation. But go on permanently and irrevocably destroying the minds and bodies of children cuz that's just fine. Humiliate the kids, abuse them, dehumanize them, warp their developing minds, scar them physically and psychologically and as long as you keep women out of the Church it's just fine and dandy.

Obviously, it makes absolutely no sense at all. And so I have come to a perhaps radical conclusion: the Pope is trying to destroy his own Church. Think about it: Church attendance is in the toilet, churches are closing down left and right and the country, the world, is becoming more secular every day. So what does the Pope do? Why, give the child molesters and rapists a slap on the wrist and denounce with holy fervor a priest who dares include women. According to the AlterNet article well over 60% of American Catholics favor the ordination of women as priests so I guess the Pope is also getting the extra benefit of alienating the remaining faithful. So, what gives? What's the answer, the reason? Well, I figure there's only one of two possible answers for this craziness. One: the Pope is trying to destroy his own Church. Or, two: the Pope is batshiat insane. Or both.