BeneDickShun

So the Pope is going to give a speech addressing the rampant child abuse scandal brewing in his worldwide religious ponzi scheme. Or, rather, he's likely going to do a George Bush style whitewash on all of it, because too many media outlets, while willing to play ball with their Corporate Masters over American Political Hegemonic aspirations, cannot resist (Thank Gawd) the lure of tabloid journalism that ensues When Religious Hypocrites Attack!

Gee, I wonder what pablum he's gonna spew? What could he possibly say? I mean, it's awfully telling that the situation has gotten so much bad press that His Hypocriticalness Himself will even acknowledge it -- but what can he say about something that has been an endemic, institutionalized and methodically protected part of Church history for over a thousand years?

My guess is that he's going to go the 'few bad apples' approach, and announce that the Church is 'actively purging itself of these wayward individuals' or something like that. Blah blah blah. More Scooter Libbys. More Wide Stances. Same old bullshit. Can't tell whether the Neocons learned from the Bishops or vice-versa. Or maybe they're all the same guys. Probably drink the blood of Jew babies together while dining on Endangered-Species-Kabobs every Friday.

What His LuckyMotherFuckerness SHOULD be saying is that many factors have contributed to this scourge, and the blame for ALL of them should be placed squarely at the Church's feet. A Pope denouncing child molestation is tantamount to denouncing the robe he's wearing -- it's part and parcel an integral element in the history of the organization, and it goes back to the very beginnings, stemming partially from adopted Pagan practices and largely encouraged by the absurdity of forced celibacy AND the rush to cover up every incident that gets leaked, instead of publicly and thoroughly castigating those responsible. After all, they were probably themselves originally young 'proteges' of the very clergy who end up quietly sending them where they can do their molesting in less public surroundings. It's been the Church's Dirty Little Secret since the Middle Ages at least.

So what Ol' Eggs Benedict SHOULD be saying is 'This is all our fault and we've virtually encouraged this behavior because it has served our interests (keeping 'celibate' priests from 'straying', keeping the abused victims forever secretly bonded and beholden to the institution -- many of them grow up to be priests, and abusive ones at that; it's a form of Stockholm Syndrome), BUT we are now adopting a zero-tolerance policy whereby all priests accused of such behavior will be handed over immediately to secular authorities for trial, with those convicted being stripped of their connection to the Church and handed on a platter to the mercy of the secular courts.' He should be saying that 'We are establishing a joint Church-secular task force which will have as its sole purpose to root out all of the perpetrators regardless of their rank, and NO ONE will be protected from accusations that the task force determines are legitimate. It's time for this sorry legacy of our ancient past to be put to an end, as was the Inquisition and having to memorize Latin and such other horrors. In the name of God I will not tolerate one more child abused under my watch, and I vow to destroy this insidious infection at its very core, whatever it takes.' If I were Catholic, I would accept nothing less, and I would back up that expectation with my quickly moving feet out the gilded door, slurping a dixiecup of holy water along the way, rinsing and spitting. But alas, anything short of that is complete spin and utter bullshit. And the Pope is a politician, so I expect nothing but drivel from Him. Luckily I'm not Catholic. If He's supposed to be God on Earth, then God's got a helluva lot to learn about consistency, integrity, and other such quaint ethics that some of us mere humans inexplicably value. Luckily I don't believe in God either. If I did, I might be inclined to be a complete bastard and emulate Him.

And hey -- while he's on a roll, Das Pope might as well publicly apologize for Catholic complicity with the Third Reich and its horrors (yes, it's true -- look it up), as well as the disaster that the One True Church's anti-birth-control stance hath wrought upon the so-called Third World. And that's not even taking into account all the other abominations throughout the millennia, such as heretic/witch burning, the ethnic cleansing of the so-called New World, and the alarming proliferation of plastic dashboard Jesuses.

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