{"id":397,"date":"2007-02-02T21:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T21:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2007\/02\/02\/397\/"},"modified":"2007-02-02T21:35:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T21:35:00","slug":"397","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=397","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently watched a PBS Frontline TV show about a guy from the Boston area who was molested by a Catholic priest as a young teenager (\u201cThe Hand of God\u201d)<\/a>. I\u2019m about the same age as the guy in question (Paul Cutela), and I also had a rather traditional Roman Catholic upbringing. Luckily, I wasn\u2019t molested. Actually, I never heard of anyone else being molested in Catholic-land. But that\u2019s not to deny the magnitude of the problem. I\u2019m a northern New Jerseyite, and I\u2019ve heard about some priests in the area who allegedly did abuse children. But I never knew any of them. So, I can\u2019t directly relate to the very unfortunate experience that Mr. Cutela went through. But I can relate to the general attitude and atmosphere of Catholicism which Mr. Cutela\u2019s brother, the producer of the Frontline show, depicts as the ultimate cause of the problem.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have anything to do with the Roman Catholic Church anymore. I wouldn\u2019t call myself a \u201cfallen-away Catholic\u201d. I\u2019m just not a Catholic at all. Catholicism is a world that I don\u2019t want to be part of. I\u2019d just as soon join the Communist Party or the Polar Bear Club (at 130 lbs, I wouldn\u2019t do very well in those icy waters), as I would a Roman Catholic parish. I don\u2019t hope to see it change someday, so that I could \u201cgo home\u201d again. [However, I do know a variety of Roman Catholics who use their faith in positive ways, and I am fully willing to continue associating with such people and respecting their continued relationships with Catholicism.]<\/p>\n

My aversion to Catholicism stems from something very \u201cyucky\u201d<\/span> about Roman Catholicism, as I have known it. And that \u201cyuck\u201d factor extends all the way to the top, right up to Pope Ratzinger (or whatever they\u2019re calling him these days). It\u2019s a certain breed of mental unhealthiness, a form of closed-mindedness, an extreme form of institutional sclerosis. <\/p>\n

Back when I was a kid, the winds of change seemed to be blowing in the Church, following the lead of Pope John 23rd and the Vatican Council. There were young priests who didn\u2019t need a church to say mass, who relished guitar accompaniment, who worked for social justice and who talked about bigger changes yet to come (perhaps women priests and married priests and real power being given to the laity in church affairs). It reminded me of those books we read in grammar school about space exploration, promising that we\u2019d all be journeying to the moon by the time we reached middle age. The bees-wax-yellow yuckiness of Roman Catholicism was finally being washed away. But that all got shut down, in due course. So it\u2019s back to pay, pray and obey, back to condescending forms of charity in lieu of social activism, back to philosophies that were crafted in the middle ages. Back to yuck.<\/p>\n

I think that the Cutela brothers are right; that sort of thinking does inspire unhealthiness on the part of those who work for the Church, and child abuse is an integral (albeit extreme) aspect of it. The Church fathers have done their best to stop the immediate problem, but won\u2019t \u2013 actually can\u2019t \u2013 think about changing the underlying sociology. The \u201cyuck\u201d factor remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently watched a PBS Frontline TV show about a guy from the Boston area who was molested by a Catholic priest as a young teenager (\u201cThe Hand of God\u201d). I\u2019m about the same age as the guy in question (Paul Cutela), and I also had a rather traditional Roman Catholic upbringing. Luckily, I wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}