I know, it’s the most cynical interpretation of religion there is, but sometimes religions do things that just point so strongly to the money aspect that you can’t help but be cynical. Here’s a NYTimes article about religious leaders battling a bill in New York that would remove the statute of limitations on child sex abuse. The primary opposition to the bill is religious leaders, in particular, the Catholic Church. Why? They say it would bankrupt them. Frankly, IMO, they went bankrupt decades ago when the leaders allowed pedophile priests to sexually abuse children. I hope the legislation passes and the Catholic Church does go bankrupt in New York. It would serve them right for their past actions. What’s the phrase for this (that I don’t actually believe)…? Oh, yeah, “Karma is a bitch!”
religion = $$$
At some level, I can understand the child abuse. There are abusers in every organization.
What’s inexcusable is the cover up and the refusal to protect parishioners from priests who were accused of child abuse.
Of course, the principle of innocent until proven guilty applies to accused child abusers as well. But that is no excuse for failing to report and investigate allegations of child abuse.
Fundamentally, the Catholic Church suffers from the same deficiency as Mormonism. The authoritarian theology delegitimizes self-corrective institutional arrangements that would hold the powerful accountable.
I agree that the victims deserve financial support and compensation. It would be even better, however, if bishops who enabled continued child abuse went to jail.
If not financially bankrupted by pedophile priests, it’s looking like the whole of the Christian tradition is morally bankrupt.
A new interpretation of the moral teachings of Christ, of Faith and the Resurrection opens the dark question of origins for all Christian traditions.
“Using a synthesis of scriptural material from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha , The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Nag Hammadi Library, and some of the worlds great poetry, it describes and teaches a single moral LAW, a single moral principle offering the promise of its own proof; one in which the reality of God responds to an act of perfect faith with a direct, individual intervention into the natural world; correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Intended to be understood metaphorically, where ‘death’ is ignorance and ‘LIfe’ is knowledge, this experience, personal encounter and liberation by transcendent power and moral purpose is the ‘Resurrection’ ,the justification of faith and foundation of righteousness.”
Such a proof for faith isn’t suppose to be possible, but now it is! Revolutionary stuff?
http://energon.org.uk
Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe we have our first self-proclaimed prophet visiting MSP. Welcome Robert Landbeck… Sort of…
You’re proposing a “new revelation”? What’s the basis for this “new revelation”? And why should we care?
There is no statute of limitations in Australia, and to this day Catholic priests are still going to jail, even for offences committed in the 1970s. I suppose they’re getting a clue from this.