The Pope covering up

And whosoever receiveth such a child in my name receiveth me. But whosoever offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe be unto the world because of offences! Howbeit it cannot be avoided that the offences shall be given; Nevertheless woe be to the man by whom the offence cometh! Matthew 18: 6 (Tyndale trans. 1534)

If Jesus hated anything during his brief life it was churches. And if he hated anything more than churches it was priests -  “whited sepulchres” he called them. When you look at the actions of the present Pope you can see why.

Last week Irish bishops were called to the Vatican to discuss the rape sodomy and buggery of little children by priests. Among the general junketing, the blushing, the curtseying in robes, the eating of expensive food, the kissing of rings and the mutual flattery, one group of people was significantly absent and that was the victims who have struggled for decades to make their voices heard. Apparently they are not be received or heard by the Vatican.

The pope has attempted to contain the Irish scandal by bemoaning the general breakdown in social moral authority – in other words it’s our fault – and on the other hand containing it as a specifically “Irish” problem. He conveniently forgets that the Catholic church is catholic. That is universal, not national, and that what is happening in Ireland is happening everywhere – and will surface in due course – in Italy for example, and in Spain.

The pope’s moral inadequacy  in dealing with these crimes can best be understood by examining his career:

On 25 November 1981, the then Pope John Paul II named the present pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, as Prefect of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of faith”, formerly known as the Inquisition.

In office, Ratzinger defended and reaffirmed Catholic doctrine on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and inter-religious dialogue. This “Congregation” also has jurisdiction over cases involving the secrecy of the confessional and on clerical sexual misconduct.

Like the inquisition, it functions as a court.

During this period Ratzinger made sure that all complaints of childhood sexual abuse were “fast tracked” directly to the Vatican. It was a move both to inform the vatican of trouble on the horizon, control the response and to bring the full force of the institution of the church down on the necks of potential trouble makers.

In his capacity as Prefect, Ratzinger wrote a notorious letter in 2001 called “Crimen Sollicitationis” which said that all Church investigations concerning accusations made against priests such as the sexual abuse of minors, should be dealt with in secret. This action became controversial during the Irish sexual abuse scandal. Subsequently Ratzinger, now the Pope, was accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys in Texas, but he sought and obtained diplomatic immunity from prosecution.

Someone should tell him that there is nothing natural about law, or about justice. These things are unnatural and are what make us better than the dumb animals the pope would like us to be. Britain is rotton with religious apologists who claim that modern democracy is based on christian principals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Law and justice based on reason was gained through the sacrifice of decent people who in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were burned at the stake , and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were deprived of liberty, employment, social position and family life by the christian establishment for their sincerely held freethinking convictions.

Of course the lack of freedom which the Rat laments refers to the fact that the law will limit Catholic bigotry towards gay people. In his opposition, the pope is out of step with his priests, who largely understand and sympathise with same sex sexuality. They like it,  even find it irresisible – especially when the partner is under age.

The pope as a nazi youth

transformed by the love of Jesus

So. Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Alois Ratzinger,  known by those who dislike him as “the Rat”,  is up to his old tricks. On the face of it, this issue is about abortion. Of course  in Spain women get around their draconian abortion laws as they used to in the UK during the 1950′s – they find a doctor who’ll plead psychological damage, they’ll risk back street remedies or they pay a lot of money – the rich, as usual, get away with it.

Although the single issue is extremely important, these bishops go way beyond it. They are attempting to spiritually criminalise a voting public. The Rat is once again inducing his acolytes to interfere with Spanish Democracy. Not only are the voting representatives in the Cortes to be damned if they disagree with his holiness, but all of those who supported or voted for them are likewise damned.

As an Englishman, I can hardly claim superiority for my country. As I write, there are up to twenty-six hilariously named “Lords Spiritual” nancing around the Upper House in surpluses, suspenders and other items of womens’ clothing. They are not, of course, allowed to do anything beyond making the odd eccentric speech and saying prayers. Nevertheless they are an affront to a modern european democracy and the sooner they are got rid of the better.

The Spanish catholic church on the other hand has power. It is a study in barefaced evil. I will not rehearse its traditional support for wealth and privilege against the needs of the poor, its opposition to literacy, its support for fascism. I will not even observe that it is a blasphemy against the life, words and teachings of Jesus Christ.

One of the reasons why the Republic foundered in the 1930′s was that the voting population expected that all the medieval oppressions that bore down upon it could be swept away by a democratically elected government without the benefit of a guillotine. It proved not to be possible. Action against privilege, shattering centuries of custom, can only be achieved by revolution. Anti democratic power centres were as always the church, the armed forces and the aristocracy. The republic failed to contain their  disproportionateprivileges and therefore failed its voting public. But the issue was always time. It could not achieve revolutionary objectives to a time scale that would convince the population that it was in charge of the country. So in ’36 Franco could begin to cultivate the pernicious lie that the Spanish people are “ungovernable”.

Forty years of repression that held Spain in cultural suspension were followed by thirty years of “forgetting” . A collusion of unconsciousness to allow the combatants of the Civil War to grow old and die before the issues of the war could be addressed.  This means that the bigotry and superstition of the church continues to create obstacles to rational government, keeping alive issues that were current in the 1930′s.

Prime minister Zapatero however, has time. And time is a great weapon. He knows how to select those  issues on which he can  make a stand. He knows for example, that in education, good decent Spanish catholics want their children to be discursive informed citizens, able to hold their own with any other bright young citizen of any other country. They want to inculcate moral values too, as all of us do in our children.

So Zapatero has a real chance to grind away at this evil edifice like water dripping on a rock. Good luck to him!

It can’t be because of the Holy Father’s odd attitude to AIDS or his sympathy for fascists, so I guess it’s just that Spaniards distrust authority at a distance.  Andalucians find the authority of Madrid pretty distant, let alone the authority of Rome.

On the other hand no village shop would dream of opening without a version of the crucified Jesus or the interceding Madonna on the wall, or more usually, of the local saint – San Roque for Cutar, or Santo Christo del Bande Verde for Almachar. These gods, nature deities reinvented as versions of Jesus or Mary, are  particular to the pueblo, and are part of that community of gods who preside over the fortune of each village. Could it be that Spanish villagers are superstitious rather than religious? Could these versions of Jesus, Mary and the Saints hark back to the Roman and Greek societies of nature Gods?

Today is holy Saturday. Tomorrow will be Easter Sunday. In Cutar the village square is being prepared for a fiesta. The square is covered in earth moulded in ridges.  Into the ridges are stuck carrots, turnips, cabbages and other vegetables and at the the head is placed a figure of the Christ child. Libations of wine are poured onto the earth. The villagers dance. Vegetables from local plots are sold for fundraising purposes. The whole event is staged in the hope and trust that God will smile upon the vegetable raising activities of local people. This religious activity tries to maximise the chance that the people will eat. It is powerful sympathetic magic that significantly predates the time when Jesus was no more than a twinkle in his father’s eye.

Somewhere or other, somewhere else, Christ is apparently rising from the dead . . . .

Baby jesus of the fruit and veg