The Former Cardinal Ratzinger says he's ashamed; ashamed of the pederasty scandals that have drained Church coffers. Of course he is, but I have to wonder whether the public confession made at 40,000 feet above the Atlantic in an Alitalia jet wasn't more of a strategic apology; more of a business decision than a plea for sympathy or absolution. Such speculation can come to nothing, but indeed the opportunities for shame for the infallible moral arbiter who is the latest in the long line of shameful predecessors are almost countless. The heritability of Sin, unless it can be decoupled from guilt and shame by suitable ecclesiastical babble, would suggest that the persecution, the torture, the murder, the kidnapping , the wars, looting and destruction waged against the world for millennia must in turn have wages as deadly as they are shameful and guilt laden.
How ashamed is he about the mass murders and torture and persecution of scientists, Albigensees, Protestants, dissenters, free thinkers, Freemasons and advocates of democracy? When he talks of Jews as "older brothers in faith" is he ashamed of the seventeen centuries of fratricide? Is he ashamed of being a Hitler supporter? Sure, he was quite young, but if a fertilized egg can have sin; can have inherited it from an unidentifiable ancestor many thousands of generations ago, can he ever be free of his own misdeeds? If every sin weighed an ounce, his airliner would never have lifted off the runway.
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6 comments:
I don't really understand why he feels the need to note his shame over whatever other people did in the past.
The Catholic church wasn't the only institution that didn't actively oppose Hitler. The Rockefellers/Standard Oil made Hitler's efforts possible; and we all know about Prescott Bush.
I don't see GW or Jay Rockefeller on their knees begging for forgiveness and their families were far more responsible for Hitler than the Church was.
He may not on a personal basis, other than for having been himself a Nazi, but the irony of teaching that one inherits sin from mythical sources, but not from actual deeds is what I'm talking about.
The irony of being ashamed of what priests have done and what the Church covered up, but not for other, far more egregious things is what I'm talking about.
We don't need Hitler to discuss the sins of the Church, but if Papa Benny wants to talk shame about buggering altar boys, all the other shame becomes fair game -- if you'll pardon the rhyme.
If we're supposed to remember Eve and the talking snake, I think it's only fair to ask him to remember 1492 or 1209; to remember Jaques DeMolay or Giordano Bruno roasting like chestnuts over an open fire -- or even the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.
Just as I don't often admire a man who claims never to have been wrong, I don't feel differently about an organization -- besides, by his own admission, confession would be a good thing and a good start toward forgiveness.
another irony re "original sin":
the eden story isn't about that at all. it's an attempt 2 xplain how we acquired conscience.
forbidden fruit is knowledge o gud n bad. when eaten it bcomes inner knowledge o gud n bad: the definition o conscience.
But we weren't sposed to know! So by having a conscience we sinned.
Of course it makes no sense to me, but I didn't think it up. Wasn't original sin all about St. Augustine having an erection looking at naked men in a bath house and deciding that we're all evil because eve at the fruit?
wdn' b sprised. augustine did start that intrprtation.
o, btw. we were sposed 2 kno. god tricked us. if he didn' want fruit eaten, why put it in garden?
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