I Think Someone Needs To Reconsider Their Analogies

So yesterday was the inaptly-named Good Friday (as in the day when Jesus was crucified according to Christian texts). Many Christians celebrated it by going to church. At the Vatican, there was the yearly mass. This year, at the Pope's mass, one of the homilies was given by Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa.

Rev. Cantalamesssa stood up and gave a talk about the problem which has been dogging the Catholic Church for years now: pedophile priests. Now, not all priests are pedophiles. Not the entire Catholic Church is evil. However, the evidence shows that the Catholic Church knew about the problem and did not do nearly enough to protect those at risk from the danger posed by those garbed in liturgical cloth.

For that, many Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals, and even the sitting Pope should be held accountable.

But the Catholic Church does not do well with criticism. They like to appear as though they are always innocent. And always right. And they never, ever, ever like to admit that they were at fault, especially in this mess.

So doe Rev. Cantalamesssa say? Does he say the Church should apologize? Does he say that the Church should adopt new guidelines for dealing with these priests? Does he call for the excommunication of those who are pedophiles within the ranks of the Catholocism or the Church?

Nope, he plays the victim card. Which is kind of rich seeing as how the Catholic Church, over the centuries has been the oppressors of many other groups.

Problem is... I think that Catholic Church, and Rev. Cantalamesssa in particular, need to take some classes on how to do it. Why?

Well, his homily essentially said that criticism of the Church for the pedorphile priests was the same as Anti-Semitism.

Let's think about this for a minute. Anti-semitism essentially arises from a couple of things. When it comes from Christians, it usually stems from the old blood libel claims. These include that:

• Jews killed Christ. (We didn't. The Romans did. Furthermore, the biblical account of the alleged Sanhedrin arrest and trial of Jesus bares little relationship to how the Sanhedrin operated. For starters, it was illegal for the Sanhedrin to hold a trial at night, as the Bible states.)
• As part of our Passover seder, we would sprinkle the blood of murdered Christian babies/virgins on our matzoh. (Simply put, eating blood is not Kosher)

Now, criticism of the Catholic Church stems from a policy condoned at high levels of the Church by Archbishops. These bureaucracies knew of the predatory nature of some of the pedophiles. Yet they continued to put these priests in contact with children, allowing them to be alone with them.

One set of criticism stems from fantasy and propoganda. The other from fact.

Try again Rev. Cantalamesssa. Maybe you can liken yourself and the Church to Blacks because this scandal is like slavery for you....