Monday, March 29, 2010

The authority is gone!

This morning, before listening to MLK’s speech on my I-pod, I was woken to further news about the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. There is a chance it goes all the way up to the top, to the “Vicar of Christ.”
Well, this “Vicar of St. John’s” was none too impressed by the Pope’s response. Essentially, “aren’t those Bishops of mine naughty”… and, “man, there are a lot of rumors out there.”
I mean we’re talking about rape, rape of children!
It feels like people in authority just don’t care. It’s like this “too big to fail” mentality has been taken up by people we genuinely trust. It’s like authority means never having to say you’re sorry. I mean I don’t like “the Pope’s bulldog” turned Pope, but I figure if you’ve got a bulldog the least you can do with it is use it to protect children!
I know half a generation turned counter-culture after Nixon’s breach of trust was revealed, and the war in Vietnam was called into question. I wonder if we’re at another such moment.
My generation has seen some pretty big shifts in the world, and they definitely don’t make those in charge, or those institutions that put them there, look very good.
There was the dot-com bust and the impeachment of President Clinton. Then we had democracy called into question with a close election in 2000 that some claimed was rigged. Then the myth of America being a safe place was stripped from us on 9/11. Then there was the half-truths that got us into Iraq. Then there was the abuses of Abu Ghraib. Then there was a more popularized understanding of how our actions affect the environment. Then there was the giant economic downturn. Then there has been the response to the 2008 election of America’s first African American president—people have been throwing more and more partisan, and sometimes racist, vitriol out there and people are actually turning violent!
And now the most recognized figure of global Christianity may be directly involved in a cover up of child rape in his home country and indirectly involved in such actions throughout Europe, and perhaps the world.
I mean… I mean… I mean, I was raised by fairly non-conformist parents—I affectionately refer to them as a biker and a hippie—I listen to Alice’s Restaurant every Thanksgiving—because I wanted to end the war and stuff… but you know!
You know! I kinda held out hope that those people and systems that had been given authority would at least use them wisely. In fact, I would go so far as to say I had some affection for authority figures—my way of rebelling against the morals and norms of my parents I suppose—but I think its getting pretty hard to do…
…You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I think you are right in that 'too big to fail'. They have enough money to shut most people up. And they are, after all, the CATHOLIC CHURCH (thunder in the distance)... and why not rape children? They rape women everyday - in the literal and metaphorical sense. A woman sins when she is raped. How f*ed up is that?

I know that it sounds strange, but I am not nearly as angry that children have had their safety and their GOD ravaged and torn asunder. There are pedophiles in every walk of life... it happens. What boils my blood and drives me even further from the Christian religion is that THEY PUT THEM BACK. The Catholic bureaucracy KNEW that children were being harmed and they put the people BACK!!!! Not into seclusion... not into an abbey away from those they could harm. The pillar of Christianity... the longest running scam in the world put them back to harm again. That... THAT is why I think that they should all, from the top bastard Pope on down should be roped and stripped and flogged in public until the last child who was harmed doesn't wake in terror anymore.

pass said...
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