It seems, from stories that have come out about the members of the RC clergy that sexually abused children, that it was more important for the church to save face than to protect its children. When there should have been outrage among the princes of the church at the perverse and deviant nature of these men, there were, instead, shuffles, secrecy and cover-ups. Not until the shame of this heinous behavior was outed by some brave victims has the church offered any kind of apology, recompense or even a response.
HOWEVER, while the men in Roman collars practiced their predilictions on the innocent, the RC church was busy pointing the finger of shame at the unmarried mother. We were seen as deviant, psychologically unsound and morally stunted for the simple fact that we loved, maybe not wisely but too well, and dared to be fertile. Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up Little Suzie" chronicles this attitude, beautifully.
Catholic Charities has a dark history of their treatment of the unmarried mom. They join all the other Christian churches from the era of mass surrenders in treating us as harlots, not worthy to parent our own offspring. Let's see, now..adult, male priest sexually molesting children...young girl in love becoming pregnant. Forgive me if I see "sin" only behind door number one.
I guess, reading the story this AM of the Pope praying over the actions of the RC church in Ireland covering up their sticky messes, the hypocricy of the "Christian" establishment really hit me the wrong way...again. The constant attempts by the patriarchial system to make women the villians in all things sexual grates on my sensibilities, more and more, the older I get. I wonder at the society that cannot see the obvious disparity in this equation.
I keep hoping that women, united and brave, will stand up and protest this double standard. I will probably keep hoping until I die. I keep hoping that anti-mother laws like the state regulation that would make miscarriage a crime in Utah and the open records bills that require deeply personal information from the mother under the guise of "medical information" will be protested by women in defense of themselves and their sisters. I keep hoping........
Meanwhile, we can all rest a bit easier (sarcasm intended) knowing that the RC church is apologizing for and praying about the perverted priests who ruined quite a few childhoods. This is too little, too late, but it is better than what we have received from anyone, so far. Millions of young women, mostly white, mostly middle class, had their motherhood sacrificed on the altar of a prurient society more concerned with the assumed sins of the bedroom than the horrors of war. Who prays about our pain and suffering and the suffering of our children? Who admits that we were badly mistreated and opens up the secret vaults for public appraisal?
No one....YET.
4 comments:
It is interesting to me, too, that the priests have come under the gun, but so far some of the worst perps of all, the nuns, have skated. How many childhoods and young motherhoods were scarred by the brides of christ's cruelty, and they were the ones in charge of the trapped young mothers in the homes! These terrorists need to be exposed as well, in my thinking!
I accidentally hit "reject" rather than "approve" on this comment from Maryanne. My apologies and here is her comment;p
maryanne has left a new comment on your post "Wake Up Little Suzie and Smell the Inequality":
The Church's response to the pedophile scandals has not been applauded by the victims, as is chronicled by groups like SNAP, a survivor's group, or Voice of the Faihtful, an international organization advocating for accountability and honesty in the Church hierarchy. I am a member of VOTF and have read quite a bit about the pedophile problem and the Church's lame response.
So no, sexual abuse survivors have not really gotten any more from the Pope and Cardinals than we did as unwed mothers.
I once spoke to an activist priest abuse survivor and he immediately got it that the same secrets, lies, and cover-ups surround adoption in the Catholic Church as those that surround sexual abuse. It is not a contest, we were all victims of a rotten system that has not really been made accountable in the higher administrative realms for either kind of abuse.
The Catholic Church, like all institutions, either formal brick and mortar or ideological, are always more important than the people they supposedly serve. The institution must be protecteod at all cost because they are so fragile and weak that the least wil-of-the-wisp can blow them over and destroy them. It's "amusing" to watch
the CC commit suicide to keep itself "safe" from scrutiny and accountability. Just like adoption. Really. Come on. If both are so weak, then don't deserve to be propped up and propagated. I'd think that if the Church would just own up, kick out the pedos and take on full responsibility for its cover-ups people might have some respect for it.Same for adoption. Crimes and unethical behavior is bad enough, but covering it up is worse. That's what makes people mad.
It's a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes." Very few people have the nerve to go against the mythology of both the church and adoption to note that the emperor is naked.
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