Cartman Elected Pope
In this week's episode of South Park, a group of organized child molesters elect a Hitler Youth as their spiritual leader. Wait a minute – that's not South Park, that's the Catholic Church!
Update: Once again, MandT over at Adgita Diaries writes something much more in-depth and profound on the subject than anything I could. Take a close look at the bold text at the end of the post (emphasis mine):
Ratzinger, who is considered a leading contender for Popehood, has a rather abysmal record when it comes to civil rights, human rights, women's rights and democratic government--like his bud, the now finally gone J.P. II. Ratzinger hates 'gays' (homosexuals), as he sneers them . Ratzinger declared that "homosexuals are intrinscally disordered" causing absolute havoc among populations of sentient faithful.
He went further, saying that homosexuality is an 'objective disorder." Basically, what that means to Catholics is 'born in mortal sin' and destined to be 'burned in mortal sin.' Objective disorder implies that 'God made ya that way' (even though God doesn't make mistakes). Blame it Mother Nature, after all she's a woman and in the eyes of this 'would-be-Pope', all gay Catholics better get their luggage, goats and tents and cross the Red Sea before the Vatican's army rends, rants, and wraths.
Most appaling in Ratzinger's letter on the above subject was advocating the 'understandable' violence directed against gays and the idea that gays are a threat to the family. This notion is so nuts that somewhere along the line in a kiss-ass Opeus Dei blog-site somewhere, a faithful dim bulb offered that the union of same-sex couples would produce progeny prone to homosexuality.
What? Doesn't that sound like something a bigoted old Vatican eunuch would say? The fact that Vatican theologians vast knowledge of sexual matters becomes the word of God has always impressed us as loony tones. The biology escapes us. It is particularly disturbing that the Vatican, so worried about 'gay marriage', is virtually silent and willfully in denial about undertaking real reforms concerning child abuse by its own all male wizards.
The Church is still dragging its feet on the issue, hiring aggressive attornys to blame the victims, and elevates its worst 'look-the-other-way' offender, Cardinal Bernard Law, to the post of archpriest at Rome's Basilica St. Mary Major. Oh, Mary, don't ya know? Abuse victims were incensed when Law was given major billing in the funeral showtime.
The idea that the Church's ruler is divinely ordained and answerable only to God (How Convenient!), long outdated in the secular realm (until Bush), is extended by the Vatican even to criminal matters. One particular case involving Ratzinger, concerned nine former members of the traditional Legion of Christ, who struggled in vain throughout John Paul's papacy to get Rome to take seriously their accusations that the legion's founder, Father Marcial Degollado, had sexually abused them as seminarians. Cardinal Ratzinger personally intervened in a canonical proceeding against Marciel in late 1999 and the whole unpleasantness was swept under the Vatican piera dura, while Degollado was promoted.
So, one asks, who gives a Ratzinger's ass? Well, figure that if the corruption and fascistic attitude of the Vatican continues-- particularly if Ratzinger is elected to the Throne of Saint Peter's, it will affect life all over the globe where minorities living under hate directed moral teachings in obedient communities will be threatened and victimized by holy sanction.
Ratzinger agrees that it is understandable to direct violence against gays, abortion clinics, family planning clinics, penguins and heathen chimps. The man is a nut case, and an enemy of what Thomas Jefferson called "the illimitable freedom of the human mind" (Richard Rosendall). I recall a Jesuit seminary friend, who a decade ago managed through 'in connections' to tape a declaration of human and civil rights on Ratzinger's outer-office door before being hauled off and deported. He also died of HIV a few months later. Bless him.
While Ratzinger might say out loud "served him right", we would remind his eminence to read Romans, 2 1-2: "Therefore, you are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgement. For by the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the very same things." Is our Jesuit friend condemed because of HIV? Are we to judge how he got it, and is it a damnable sin? How about his infallible holiness John Paul, who in agreement with Ratzinger, wrote that "even if one married partner has AIDS the other may not use condoms under penalty of sin." Is one tragic death damnable and a million other excusable because they followed Church teaching? If you think so I can almost guarantee with an infallible hunch that you'ld better dress lite 'cuz yer going to the other place after Saint Peter throws you out of the Pearly Gates.
I'm watching MSNBC and quite surprisingly they are covering NONE of this. Once again, organized religion gets a free pass on its politics. Way to go with the meaningful investigative reporting, guys. You say your rating are in the shitter? Well, that's a mystery.
Update: I have to take it back, Mr. Yell-o-vision has been covering the controversy, and Bloggermann is, of course, a stud.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 4/19/2005 11:17:00 AM
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