Seriously?? This is your response?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i6T2FZuW588xFahgyr8KUJFK1TJAD9FH00GO2

This article reports the RIDICULOUS opinion of Archbishop Dadeus Grings of Brazil on the Church sex scandals. I do not usually like to go into politics or religion on this blog because this is not one of those blogs, but life has been boring lately and this article was just too horrendous to pass up.

Basically the Archbishop believes that the recent (I guess he means over the past 50 years) flood of sex and pedophilia cases involving the Catholic clergy are due to the evolving pedophile-nature of society as a whole and the underlining homosexual nature of adolescent kids. You know, because "boys play with boys and girls play with girls." Duh!

The clergy really has no shame. I mean, I know that it is the common defense for offenders to blame the victims for "wearing revealing clothing" or "wanting it," but now it is the spontaneous (assuming temporary, too) lapses into homosexuality of the children for the immoral actions of the adult priests? Maybe I am reading this wrong, but do the priests have no responsibility for their actions? Are they really so weak willed as to not resist the "sexual" advances of a pre-teen?

Grings denounced the abuse within the church, but he said internal punishment of priests guilty of abuse was sufficient and that police should not be involved.

Apparently, yes. They are that weak willed. This is not the 16th century anymore. The clergy is not above the law. The church and the state are, at least in theory, separated. Why should they not stand trial for their crimes? If this were a public school math teacher that touched 200 some odd children over the course of decades he/she would be in prison for a long, long time. There is a fundamental hypocrisy in the way that people think about religion and religious figures. People think that because they are devoted wholly to God/Jesus/Allah (whomever) that they are flawless, holy people that can be trusted. Wrong. They are people, just like you or me. We all have the same propensity for good and bad, so why do we trust religious figures more than we trust homeless people with our children? Is it the hats? If I saw a robed man in a pointy hat kneeling down touching my fictional child, I would be just as frightened as if he were are ragged man with a scruffy beard sitting in front of the supermarket doing the same thing. Maybe it has to do with the fact that religious people listen to these men talk about God every Sunday and they think that they know this man because he works for the "man upstairs." Wrong. He is a sexually frustrated man bound by guilt and frustrated by celibacy.

I remember when I was in high school there was a convicted, tried, and reformed sex offender who was an assistant coach for a sports team to which I belonged. When word came out that he was in prison for having sex with a 16 year old girl over a decade before, everyone went berserk. I think rightfully so, too. There are plenty of other things reformed sex offenders can do, one thing the should not do is hang around with children. People went so crazy that the official coach and the assistant coach were fired from their positions. Ironically this happened at a Catholic school. Why do people not get this outraged when a priest does something equally or more horrendous? Why do we as post-Enlightenment humans not see that the Church is a harborer of sex offenders and pedophiles?

"The question is — how are we going to educate our children to use a sexuality that is human and suitable?"

Hint: How about not raping them? That would go a long way to helping them avoid unnecessary trauma and sexual frustrations in their own lives.

And this is the most frightening part of this article:

"When sexuality is trivialized, it's clear that this is going to affect all cases. Homosexuality is such a case. Before, the homosexual wasn't spoken of. He was discriminated against.

"When we begin to say they have rights, rights to demonstrate publicly, pretty soon, we'll find the rights of pedophiles," he said.

This guy really is a 16th century nutjob. I really hate when people make the argument that homosexuals are as bad as pedophiles. It is horrible. So far, the most prominent pedophiles I have seen have been priests.

I think I should just add a little post script here. I was led to this article by www.thegoodatheist.net blog.

Feel free to comment or not. I do not particularly care, I just really wanted to vent my frustration after reading the quotes from Pointy Hat Bigot Bishop.