P is for... Pope ain't Dope.


So, the Pope resigned. Did you hear? Oh, he's tired and poorly (from blessing Ferraris, denying women birth control and carrying all that gold around his neck)? How awful!

No.

This was one headline I read: "World Reacts with Shock and Grief as Pope Resigns”... For real?

When he leaves at the end of this month, Pope Benedict XVI will be leaving behind a Church broken by sex abuse scandals and a personal legacy dirtied by his cover-ups of that abuse. He'll just walk away from it. Am I shocked and grieving? Are you?


Sure, he was the first pope to meet personally with victims, and he did offer repeated public apologies for the Vatican's decades of inaction against priests who abused their congregants. So, everyone's just meant to accept that his PR campaign lip-service was sincere regret?

"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention." - that whole last sentence creeps me (the funk) out.

He could have stopped it.

For 25 YEARS, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican office RESPONSIBLE for investigating claims of sex abuse.

In 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger approved plans for a priest to move to a different German parish and return to pastoral work only days after the priest began therapy for paedophilia. The priest was later convicted of sexually abusing boys.

In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger became head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office once known as the Inquisition - making him responsible for upholding church doctrine, and for investigating claims of sexual abuse against clergy. THOUSANDS of letters detailing allegations of abuse were forwarded to Ratzinger's office. Nothing was done.

In the 1990s, former members of the Legion of Christ sent a letter to Ratzinger alleging that the founder and head of the Catholic order, Father Marcial Maciel, had molested them while they were teen seminarians. Maciel was allowed to continue as head of the order. (Later, after becoming pope, Benedict did order Maciel to do penance and removed him from the active priesthood; but he had been instrumental in the cover-up previously?!)

In 1996, Ratzinger didn't respond to letters from Milwaukee's archbishop about a priest accused of abusing students at a Wisconsin school for the deaf.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a letter urging the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to pursue allegations of child abuse in response to calls from bishops around the world. Ratzinger wrote a letter asserting the church's authority to investigate claims of abuse and emphasising that church investigators had the right to KEEP EVIDENCE CONFIDENTIAL for up to 10 YEARS AFTER the alleged victims reached adulthood.

In April 2010, Benedict and other officials were accused by members of BishopAccountability.org of covering up alleged child abuse by 19 bishops.

At the time, the Pope told reporters he was "deeply ashamed" of the allegations of sex abuse by his subordinates and reportedly said, "We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry."

Several other accusations followed from alleged victims around the world, prompting Benedict to make a public statement later that month from St. Peter's Square in the Vatican. In his speech, he said the Catholic Church would take action against alleged sexual abusers.

In 2010, he personally apologised to Irish victims of abuse. And that was pretty much the last we heard of it.

So, Benedict covers everything up and then when he's FORCED to acknowledge the problem, he apologises and gets credit for talking publicly about the crisis?

The whole time, he only ever addressed the crimes and NEVER the cover-ups.

Also, he spoke of it in the past tense? Sex crimes and cover-ups within the Catholic church are STILL happening.

So, is the whole world shocked and grieving that the pope has resigned? Well, I for one am not grieving. I am shocked. But only that he isn't in prison.

In view of fair argument, I will say this for him: He was outspoken in his support of universal access to health care, for stronger anti-poverty programs, against the death penalty and for more open immigration policies. I’ll give credit where credit is due on those things (even whilst slating him for nearly everything else).

I still think he should be in prison.

But religion loves a good sex abuse scandal, right? Recently I heard about this guy:


Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the founder and Abbot of Rinzai-ji is now 105 years old!! According to a recent investigation by an independent council of Buddhist leaders — and many of his former disciples who've tried to speak out for decades but were shushed up — he's used his stature as a famous roshi (master) to get away with groping and sexually harassing countless female students.

In the council's report, three members wrote of "Sasaki asking women to show him their breasts, as part of ‘answering' a koan" (a Zen riddle) "or to demonstrate ‘non-attachment.'"

One former student said Mr. Sasaki would fondle her breasts during sanzen, or private meeting; he also asked her to massage his penis. She would wonder, she said, "Was this teaching?"

Susanna Stewart began studying with Mr. Sasaki about 40 years ago. Within six months, she said, Mr. Sasaki began to touch her during sanzen. This sexualizing of their relationship "led to years of confusion and pain," Ms. Stewart said, "eventually resulting in my becoming unable to practice Zen." And when she married one of his priests, Mr. Sasaki tried to break them up, she said, even encouraging her husband to have an affair.

It would seem that sexual harassment in the Zen community is complicated by the relationship between Buddhist teachers and students, which they believe transcends (or at least can't always be judged by) Western standards of appropriate behavior, making the boundaries blurred. "Outside the sexual things that happened," one woman said, "my relationship with him was one of the most important I have had with anyone."

Can I understand it? No, not when one of the excuses Sasaki allegedly used to coerce women into touching him and being touched was that "true love is giving yourself to everything"! PLEASE. I think I heard that one back in sixth form.

Anyway, it's the dangerous perception that religion is above the law, and especially that religious leaders are completely infallible that allows for this abuse of power. These people are completely deplorable. I've made this point before in my previous post about religious cult leaders (G is for... "God told me to rape your daughter!"), so I won't rant about how I feel about it again.

In reality, the pope resigning, the Catholic sex abuse crisis being revealed and people finding out about Sasaki's harrassment will make no difference to anything. Whilst religion still holds the influence it does in the world, we will still have that inbalance of power and transcendence of law; and there will be sects and cults that will exploit that.

I will leave you with this link, which is funny, if you're into black comedy:

"I see your Tampa sex offender map, I raise you a Vatican."


...and now I'm going to get back to hating on the pope. It's been a long day...

L.