By Odeisel

On this Easter Sunday, Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus(Joshua, Yeshua) of Nazareth, the central figure of their religion. That resurrection was the signing of a new covenant between God and man signed with the blood of Jesus; payment for the sins of man. In the age of bunnies and eggs, what is lost among all of this is the true nature of payment: death, without which, there is no resurrection. As scandals rock the very foundation of the Catholic strain of Christianity, the result is a crisis of organization, and ultimately faith. Maybe it’s time for the Church to die.

The current state of affairs has been a long time coming. With the idea of family slowly relegated to the periphery, and with outmoded rituals that fail to connect with a growing number of people, Catholicism, even devoid of the plague it has brought on itself, is in dire straits. But this problem goes far beyond connectivity at this point. There is no iPod fix for this. There is a raging problem of sexual abuse that is becoming so endemic in the church’s structure that every defense of it raises the level of arrogance to mythic levels. Most recently, during a Good Friday sermon, the Reverend Raniero Cantalamessa, who has held the title of preacher to the papal household (the only man allowed to preach TO the Pope) for the last three decades, likened the justifiable outrage at these sex crimes to the persecution of Jews. I can’t imagine something more inappropriate. As recent as this morning’s Easter Mass Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals responded to the current firestorm with defiance:

“Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers…”

Their hubris is boundless. This is not Keisha and Tasha talking about which girl in homeroom has the worst weave.

The most recent stream of outrage derives from reports of molestation and sex abuse at a school for the deaf; because using your station to prey on children was apparently not base enough, you need to prey on physically disabled children. This is not a witch hunt, nor a result of an unfortunate scapegoating. These are the crimes perpetrated by the denizens of what amounts to a theocracy which is connected to a nation currently headed by one (Pope Benedict) who was formerly in charge of protecting its believers from these demons.

The Vatican’s status as a freestanding sovereign state is tantamount to giving these monsters diplomatic immunity. As more children are preyed on, creating perpetual cycles of crime and abuse* to others, priests, who are supposed to carry the work of Jesus, are protected and transferred to take up their evil in unsuspecting parishes. It’s like peeing in the guest bed, waking before everyone in the house, and washing the sheets, but not telling the next guest that it’s a pissy mattress.

People need to believe, because the hell on Earth is getting hotter by the moment. In a period of 50 hours this weekend, 41people were shot in the streets of Chicago, more than Afghanistan and Iraq. In Trenton, 27 people are in the process of being charged for the rape and sexual assault of a seven year old, set up by her own 15 year old step sister. People look for a higher power for salvation. When they choose to protect monsters, rather than protect their own children, that is cancer; slowly eroding any hope that the church will exist in any legitimate form other than statehood in as little as a generation.

If this system is allowed to continue, people will choose other paths or even worse, decide that there IS no salvation; that it is illogical for a god to exist who would have representatives on earth who deliver his message with wine while delivering sin in secrecy. That’s the true tragedy.  People understand what they relate to and the ephemeral is hard from some to grasp. People depend on the interpretation of man, and this rupture will certainly forestall their place in the rapture. The church is cutting people off from God to protect priests and their leader is directly complicit.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe this IS exactly what the church needs: a slow agonizing death paid for by the pain of its flock and the culling and eventual destruction of a system that protects predators. On this Easter Sunday where we celebrate the return, let’s not forget the death that made that return possible. It is time for the Catholic Church, or at least its leadership structure and practices, to die so that the Word may be allowed to live for future generations who would like to choose Catholicism as their path to salvation. Right now the door to heaven is guarded by wolves, not angels. It’s time to exact our pound of flesh for the good of the church and the people that believe in the risen Christ.

Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.–Luke 6:28

*Children who are abused or neglected are more likely to become criminal offenders as adults. A National Institute of Justice study found “that childhood abuse increased the odds of future delinquency and adult criminality overall by 40 percent” (Widom, 1992). Child sexual abuse victims are also at risk of becoming ensnared in this cycle of violence. One expert estimates that forty percent of sexual abusers were sexually abused as children (Vanderbilt, 1992). In addition, victims of child sexual abuse are 27.7 times more likely to be arrested for prostitution as adults than non-victims. (Widom, 1995). Some victims become sexual abusers or prostitutes because they have a difficult time relating to others except on sexual terms.

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