Screw the Pope

"A Vatican official was asked this week that if allowing priests to marry would solve the problem. He said, 'That’s ridiculous, you can’t marry an eight-year-old.'" — Bill Maher, March 26, 2010.

Now that Pope Benedict XVI has been directly linked to the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, we can all act shocked. But is anybody honestly surprised? Anybody following the steady stream of abuse stories over the last decade should have concluded that the church was a bit evil, obviously hypocritical, and a major disgrace.

According to a comprehensive 2004 study of clerical sexual abuse in the United States, 10,667 individuals had made allegations of child sexual abuse between 1950 to 2002. The dioceses was able to substantiate 6,700 of those accusations.

In response, the Holy See argued that sexual abuse is not unique to the Catholic church. Well, that's no defense, and they're kind of missing the point!

The crimes are absolutely despicable. But now, the scandal is over the cover-up, the complicity, and the inexcusable failure to protect children while Catholic bishops only asked one question: "will this damage the church?"

So, in a recently revealed story more predictable than shocking, top Vatican officials -- including the future Pope Benedict -- allowed a priest, Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who molested as many as 200 deaf boys to walk free. Murphy was never put on trial, never defrocked, never disciplined, and instead, allowed to continue his work with children until he died.

In all the macabre fascination and angry hand-wringing over this story, I've only seen one writer attempt to explain the Catholic mindset behind this scandal. Andrew Sullivan explained the religious notion of child rape as a sin rather than a crime. He's not offering excuses, of course, but for the non-religious like me, it's an understandable explanation about why priests are so screwed up over sex:

So they use these children to express themselves sexually. They barely see these children as young and vulnerable human beings, incapable of true consent. Because they have never had a real sexual relationship, have never had to deal with the core issue of human equality and dignity in sex, they don't see the children as victims. Like the tortured gay man, Michael Jackson, they see them as friends. They are even gifted at interacting with them in non-sexual ways. One theme you find in many of these stories is that until these screwed up priests' abuse and molestation is revealed, they often have a great reputation as pastors. As emotionally developed as your average fourteen year old wanting to be loved, they sublimate a lot of their lives into clerical service. But they also act out sexually all the time.

However, I'm not convinced that an end to priestly celibacy will solve the problems of the Catholic church. But if you want to see the Pope "screwed," you can hope that he gets arrested. Some may still call him the "Vicar of Christ," but he is just a man. He does not define what's right and wrong. We do.

However, realistically, I think Pope Benedict will simply resign for his moral failings, and the Catholic church will continue on with business as usual.

Father Polanski

In 1977, a 44-year-old man plied a 13-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol and then raped and sodomized her. The man was charged with several crimes including lewd and lascivious acts upon a child under 14. The charges were dismissed when he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. When the man learned he might face imprisonment instead of probation, he fled to France, where he held citizenship and could therefore be protected from extradition to the U.S. Thirty-something years later, the man may finally do time behind bars.

If this man were a Catholic priest, a Father Polanski let's say, do you think so many celebrities would be spinning wild explanations and doublespeak in his defense? Of course not. But the real man is not a priest. He is Roman Polanski, a good-looking, talented artist! His famous friends (mostly European actors, writers, and whatever) demand that we unsophisticated Americans free Polanski out of "good sense and honor." This petition certainly is a masterpiece of arrogance:

Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.

He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.

Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.

We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.

Bernard-Henri Lévy
Salman Rushdie
Milan Kundera
Pascal Bruckner
Neil Jordan
Isabelle Adjani
Arielle Dombasle
Isabelle Huppert
William Shawcross
Yamina Benguigui
Mike Nichols
Danièle Thompson
Diane von Furstenberg
Claude Lanzmann
Paul Auster

Polanski wasn't apprehended like a terrorist. He was apprehended like a child rapist. And so the crime was committed a long time ago? It's still rape. You think there is some kind of statute of limitation? Not for sex crimes in the state of California. Not for failure to appear in court. And certainly not for a crime the man already pleaded guilty to!

And let's not forget the most absurd defense: he is an artist! A genius even! Of course, I'm only hearing this crap defense from other so-called artists. Why is that? Defending their own? They're better than lowly nobodies? Or they just don't care that a girl was raped?

I'm tired of the rich and famous getting away with crimes. No award winning filmmaker nor high-ranking government official can ever be given a free pass for egregious acts. We are a nation of laws... I hope?

World's Worst Teacher

The mother of an autistic boy says her son's teacher let his classmates vote him out of class. Should this woman be allowed to teach?

Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex -- who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism -- out of the class.

Wow. An adult leads a bunch of five year olds in the psychological lynching of a disabled boy.

Ms. Portillo, you are a bully and should not be allowed to teach! Even If you have a problem with a child in your class, it is your job to get him under control through proper, mature, and sensitive means. Instead, you lead the whole classroom in a lesson on how to bully a weaker child. You emotionally abused him and every single child in the room that day.

Alex's mother claims he screams every time he is brought near the school. Is this enough evidence that you have psychologically scarred him?

Ms. Portillo, what makes matters worse is that you knew Alex most likely had a disability affecting his ability to communicate and socialize, and yet you still put him through this outrageous form of public humiliation. You allowed mere children to make the decision to exclude Alex from education. Education is something every child has a right to in this country, and you were trusted with this responsibility.

And while I'm dishing out shame, a fair amount also goes to the Florida state attorney's office which concluded the matter did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse! Insanity. Just think about your child going through such humiliation, and then try to tell me it's not abuse!

Hat tip to the Thinking In Metaphors blog that has an excellent legal analysis of the case.

How Did This Happen?

You might have heard today about the 73-year-old Austrian man who imprisoned and sexually abused his own daughter for 24 years. Josef Fritzl admits to locking up his daughter and fathering seven children with her. The Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard said in an editorial: "The whole country must ask itself just what is really, fundamentally going wrong."

First of all, I'm not even certain they can find an answer to what is going wrong. I know I'm being cynical (and also hopeless), but there will always be sick people. Not just sick... but sociopathic... people who can devote hours to planning and building a basement to imprison a victim. People able to hide their crimes from their own neighbors and friends. People who can carry on their lives like nothing is wrong. People who say that they know what they did was wrong yet still have no social conscience.

We have more than our share of these people in the U.S. just ask Texas where, in case you haven't heard, 462 children have been taken from the “Yearning for Zion” ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Later Day Saints. Right now the media is caught up in the curiosity of the hairdos and prairie style dresses of the women caught in this polygamist sect. However, when we get past the fashion show, we'll find there are many other issues to talk about. This Alternet post by Sara Robinson offers More Clarity About Abuse, Intermarriage, Child Breeders, and the Fundamentalist Church of Later Day Saints.

One of the things we need to understand is just how the FLDS managed to stay so far under the radar for so long -- and what twisted consequences were allowed to follow from that lack of oversight. Bramham shows that they did a stunningly effective job of building their own self-sufficient infrastructure of community institutions -- hospitals, police forces, courts, financial trusts, schools, and employers -- that allowed the church to function without interacting with the outside world any more than necessary. Most of the group's institutions were designed to mimic and supplant outside authority well enough to keep the group (and especially its treatment of women and children) hidden from the prying eyes of outsiders. And, for 60 years, those who were responsible for providing higher-level oversight for all these institutions have almost always been somehow induced to look the other way.

The article goes on to explain how the women and children often get their health care from FLDS doctors who feel no responsibility to report abuse and are quite willing to declare unhappy women crazy. The FLDS cops and courts will catch women who try to run and return them to their husbands for punishment. The FLDS cemeteries will hide their dead without anybody ever asking questions.

Yet some people still want to believe that these women are making a lifestyle choice, but it's not a choice if they are born into it and then have to figure out how to escape. FLDS communities do not maintain the "three girls for every boy" ratio by recruiting new sign-ups -- they maintain it by throwing out the boys.

So while Austria does some soul searching, I think we in the U.S. should do the same. Freedom of worship does not mean total freedom of action. Nobody has a right to imprison, enslave or abuse their wives or children. Not even magic underpants can give you a free pass.

Really Bad Parents

Is this a trend? Or is this article Pretty Babies a total con? It's a six page article, so let me offer this substantial quote regarding the spa treatment of an 8 year old girl:

After sweating through the kid’s eyebrow wax, Engle, today an aesthetician at the Adolf Biecker Salon/Spa outposts in the Rittenhouse Hotel and Strafford — and, it should be noted, one of the most sought-after eyebrow specialists in the region — was directed to give her pint-size client a … bikini wax.

Engle was, predictably, extremely uncomfortable with the idea. But she sent the girl next door to the spa to have it done anyway. “It was clear that this girl was getting a bikini wax no matter what,” she says. “Better for her that we did it, instead of her mother dragging her off somewhere else to get it done.”

Engle is sharing this tale with me one afternoon over my own eyebrow session, after I’ve remarked on another young girl — no more than 10 or 11 years old — ­sitting nearby, thumbing through a magazine and obviously waiting for some sort of spa service. As Engle talks, my head floods with images of breaking this poor young munchkin out of the clutches of her surely nipped-and-tucked mother, to let her grow old and hairy under my prudish wing. “But … there’s nothing there, right?” I ask Engle. “I mean, at eight? Am I forgetting something?”

“Nope,” she says. “There’s not. Doesn’t matter. That’s when the mothers are starting them these days.”

...

Engle’s anecdote might be one of the scariest, but it’s not her only one. She’s seen a pair of sisters — one nine, the other 10 — brought in for microdermabrasion. (Note: Microdermabrasion sloughs off dead cells to reveal glowing “younger” skin beneath. Which is awesome if you’re, say, 45.) And at Adolf Biecker, it’s normal to see 12-year-olds coming in for their first eyebrow jobs.

My first reaction is "Eeewwww!" My second reaction is "Eww! Eww! EWWW!" My third reaction, after a little thought and some breathing exercises, is that this is abuse. It's physical abuse (waxes hurt even if there is no hair), and I think maybe it's even sexual abuse. Why tell a child that a very normal part of her body is not right and needs to be fixed? Does it set the kid on a path to an eating disorder? Or maybe just a narcissistic personality disorder?

But I know people. I know people with kids. They don't do this to their little girls. My friends care about the emotional development of their children, and pretty much want them to have childhoods similar to our own. Ahhh... I know... this article is about OTHER people's kids!

It's about a minority of parents who indulge their kids in the stupidest ways possible. We all pay the price. I predict in a few years this child will be auditioning for American Idol, we'll suffer through her rendition of Dancing Queen, and finally Simon Cowell will be the first person to tell her how spoiled she really is.