Priests Are Not Gods

Hi, guys!

*yawn* It's the last day before we're back in school again, and I'm in a pretty blah, tired move. Apologies if this isn't the most mind blowing post ever. Today, I'm going to try to find some meaning in the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, and explain why the hand in that picture is not the hand of God or another higher power of your choice.

Imagine, if you'll allow it for a minute, that you're a soldier in the Spartan army, one of 300 remaining. You're on your way to the Thermopylae pass, about to guard it from an army of thousands of armed Persians. This, most likely, will be the most important battle of your life, and could be (HISTORY SPOILER FUN TIME! It will be.) the one that kills you. You're on the way to defend your country, sharpening your sword, ready to slaughter some Persian bahookey, when....

BAMF!

This man walks out of the bushes, smack in front of you. He's wearing some sort of wind-resistant armor, and some furry gauntlets that shield him from the cold. There's odd things around his feet that look so light, like they're made from clouds, with a strange plant running through them, a vine or weed of some sort. There's an inscription on them, N-I-K-E, which you assume may be the name of the cloud-god that made these things. He's yelling something at you, in a strange language, but you can't understand him. To make matters worse, he's armed with some sort of hand held weapon, emblazoned with the glyph of an apple, which he keeps pecking at, no doubt sending a bevy of spells and curses your way. The question is: what are you going to do? In my book, you've got three options: take him back to your camp and anoint this strange man with magical powers to be your king, just keep going, or stick a sword through his guts and out his back right then and there, magical weapon be darned. Take a minute to decide, I'll wait.

Done? OK.

Now, it doesn't matter to me what you chose. Rather, it matters why you chose it. I'd venture to guess the reason why your choice varies from another reader's choice is because you perceived the man differently. If you chose to stab the man, you probably thought he was the Devil. If you chose to spare him and make him your king, you most likely thought the magical man was God. If your army moved on, you thought he was one insane dude.

You're probably scratching your head now, wondering what the point of this little social experiment was. The point here, folks, is that anyone who wields a strange new power can easily be seen in a multitude of different ways. It's all about something called perspective. And, in recent weeks, the public's perspective of the Catholic church has been blown wide open and clear into next Thursday.

I'm not going to waste time explaining the long-building and now-boiling news of the Catholic church sex abuse scandal! Instead, how about we head TO WIKIPEDIA!

The report determined that, between 1950 and 2002, 10,667 people had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, 3300 were not investigated because the allegations were made after the accused priest had died.^{[citation needed]} After investigating the remaining 7700 allegations, the dioceses were able to substantiate 6,700 accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA, about 4% of all 109,694 priests who served during the time period covered by the study. The number of abuses increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s and by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s.^[13]

Of the 4,392 priests against whom the accusations were deemed to be credible, 3,300 were not investigated because the allegations were made after the accused priest had died. Police were contacted regarding 1,021 of the remaining 1092 priests. 384 of these priests were prosecuted, resulting in 252 convictions and 100 prison sentences. Thus, 6% of all priests against whom allegations were made were convicted and about 2% received prison sentences to date.^[14]

According to the John Jay report, one-third of the accusations were made in the years 2002 and 2003, and another third between 1993 and 2001.^[13]

An overwhelming majority of the victims, 81 percent, were males. A majority of the victims were post-pubescent adolescents, with a small percentage of pre-pubescent children.^[15]

Some sources have asserted that most of the victims were between the ages of 16 and 17, making the sexual abuse instances of hebephilia rather than pedophilia. These sources argue that, by failing to make this distinction, the media has fostered a misconception of the problem. In fact, 15% of the victims were 16 or 17 years of age, while 51% were between the ages of 11 and 14.^[13] The John Jay Report determined that just under 6% of victims were 7 years of age or younger. 16% were between 8 and 10.^[13] The vast majority of the victims (78%) were aged between 11 and 17.

In the United States, half of the 4392 priests who were found to have been credibly accused of abusing minors were 35 years of age or younger at the time of the first instance of abuse. Fewer than 7% of the priests were reported to have themselves been victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children. Although 19% of the accused priests had alcohol or substance abuse problems, only 9% were reported to have been using drugs or alcohol during the instances of abuse. Almost 70% of the abusive priests were ordained before 1970.^[13]

Based on a database of 3000 priests accused of sexual abuse that it had compiled, the group BishopAccountability.org said in 2009 that one-third of the abusive priests in the United States had links to Ireland.^[16]

Of the priests in the United States who were accused of sexual abuse, 59% were accused of a single allegation. Just under 3% of the priests were the subject of ten or more allegations. The 149 priests who had more than 10 allegations against them accounted for 2,960 of the total number of allegations.^[13]

The John Jay report identified the following factors contributing to the sexual abuse problem:^[17] 1. Failure by the hierarchy to grasp the seriousness of the problem, 2. Overemphasis on the need to avoid a scandal, 3. Use of unqualified treatment centers, 4. Misguided willingness to forgive, 5. Insufficient accountability.

This has been a Wikipedia Moment TM.

Pretty disturbing statistic there, right? Now, just to be clear here, I am Christian, but I do not regularly attend church. This post is not meant to be an attack against religion, the Christian faith, the Catholic church or any specific person who is a member. This post is just a wake-up call. The Bible teaches us that no person on this Earth, no matter who they are, is immune to sin or evil. I have no doubt that at least a good 70% of people who work at a Church are generally good people. Even so, there are staff at the Catholic Church this very moment, and no doubt a great number of other churches, who do horrible things and get away with them by riding the coattails of God. That's not the God I know, and that's certainly not the one I follow. Your priests, your pastor, the Pope, are usually good people. But nobody on this Earth, once again, is immune to sin. Immune to lying. Immune to doing horrible, awful things.

And all it takes for the triumph of evil like this is for the good people to be silent.

Leave a comment below! Also, you may not have noticed I have a Twitter, for my more random, piece meal-ish thoughts, which you can either see

right over there>>>>

or follow at http://twitter.com/TomatoSurprise!

I'll see you next weekend!
Tomato

This Post Will Be Bear Bones

No false advertising at Tomato's Ripe Thoughts!
Tomato

EDIT: Zombie Bear says to check out my post on other bloggy things if you haven't already!

Shameless Plugging Time!

Hey, guys!

I won't have another post ready until this weekend, (and if you still haven't checked out my foray into ping-pong and education that's over here!) But, until then, you can check out my review of Astonishing X-Men: Gifted over at the excellent comic review blog Collected Editions! While you're there, leave a few comments, read more reviews, or add them to your blogroll. It's a site best read over morning waffles, just so you know. :)

See you soon!
Tomato

Teaching...WITH BALLS!

To the three of you that just left, I apologize for your lack of humour. To the rest of you, I'm done with Annie, it's Friday, and I'm rearing to dust off my soapbox.

So, how do we do this whole "blogging" thing again? Oh, yeah! I complain about stupid people or rave about smart ones, throw in a few anecdotes, and try to make it sound like I actually have a point. Hmm, anecdotes. Well, I had a jalapeno today, but that wouldn't make a good anecdote unless it'd worked its way through the system, which I'm sure you're all dying to hear about. I'll keep you posted. What else could I write about?

Maybe I could write about how a few weeks ago, I took an exam in gym class, over the exhilarating history of ping-pong. The history of ping-pong. We'll go with that, with one caveat. Since I realize how extremely boring my ranting about standardized testing is going to be, I thought I'd serve you a few tidbits of ping-pongery facts. (FACT: OVER THREE MILLION PEOPLE ARE "REGISTERED" PLAYERS OF PING PONG!)

So, I go into gym class on Thursday. Our teacher says that tomorrow, we'd take a test on ping-pong about the rules and origins of the game. Granted, we'd played ping-pong in class for about two weeks, but playing ping-pong does not a table tennis historian make. (FACT: PING PONG WAS DESIGNATED AS AN OFFICIAL OLYMPIC SPORT IN 1988! TAKE THAT, LONG-STANDING HISTORICAL TRADITION!) She'd certainly not taught us anything about the history, and little about the rules. We just played, and had a blast.

Y'know, the way it's supposed to be in a physical education class, where you educate physically. (FACT: AN OFFICIAL PING PONG BALL'S DIAMETER, OVER THE YEARS, HAS INCREASED FROM 38mm TO 40mm.)

Look, before some of you come after me with verbal pitchforks and torches, I realize that teachers themselves have little to no control of how, when, and where students are tested. It's a state-mandated thing. I'm all for having some sort of universal measure of a district's progress. But, who I am mad at are the people who thought this system was a good idea. (FACT: PING-PONG WAS ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS "WIFF-WAFF", AND PLAYED BY RICH, ARISTOCRATIC BRITISH PEOPLE AFTER DINNER IN THE 1800s, ON THE DINING TABLE. ROWS OF BOOKS OR KNICK-KNACKS SERVED AS "NETS". SIDENOTE A: RICH PEOPLE STINK AT NAMING SPORTS. SIDENOTE B: AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO'D FIND IT HILARIOUS IF ONE OF THE BOOKS IN THE "NET" WAS THE GREAT GATSBY?)

The problem here is that these tests are the end-all-be-all of education. It's not a hyperbole when I say that every single second of the class time students spend today is laser-guided towards the OAT. This has caused a shift in curriculum. A shift from learning to memorization. (FACT: PARKER BROTHERS, THE BOARD GAME COMPANY, OWNS THE RIGHTS TO THE NAME PING-PONG, SO OTHER COMPANIES AND ORGANIZATIONS HAVE TO CALL IT TABLE TENNIS.)

To me, there's a difference between the two. I've memorized my library card number. If somebody came up to me and asked me my library card number, I could tell them, because I've memorized it. If somebody came up to me and and asked me what impact my library card has

on the world, or asked how library cards work with computer systems, I couldn't answer. (FACT: FROM 1979 TO 1983, PING-PONG HAD IT'S OWN KIND OF STEROID CRISIS. EVERYONE WAS USING "SPEED GLUE" TO INCREASE THE BOUNCINESS OF THEIR PADDLES. YOU CAN'T LEGALLY USE IT IN A PRO GAME NOW!)

Because that, my friends, would require me to learn about library cards. Learning is being able

to apply and connect things you hear and see to the world around you. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE, STANDARDIZED TESTING AND STATE STANDARDS PEOPLE, BETWEEN MEMORIZING AND LEARNING!

Ahem. Angry outburst there. Moving on...

Y'know these facts I've been sprinkling through the post? I didn't memorize them. We got the study guide the day of the test, and I've had to Google all of these just to recall them. Being that we were allowed to use the test study guide during the test, the whole thing became less about actually know the history of ping-pong, and more about searching and copying. Which makes the entire thing, by my teacher's own admission, pointless. (FACT: THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COMMONLY-USED GRIPS FOR A PING-PONG PADDLE, THE "SHAKEHOLD", WHICH SOUNDS LIKE AN AWFUL POP SONG, AND THE "PENHOLD", WHICH I'M PRETTY SURE IS A EUPHEMISM.)

And it's no big secret, either. Ask any teacher these days, and they'll tell you they've had to nix a lesson because they've skipped over some obscure test concept. It's kind of like if I gave you a book of matches and a pile of logs, and then breathed down your neck watching you make the fire. If the teachers are good, and love what they do, grades will follow. (FACT: PRESIDENT NIXON USED PING-PONG AS A MEANS OF DIPLOMACY BETWEEN THE US AND THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA. Seriously.)

So, now the ball's in your court, local and national government. What will you do with these standardized tests? Will you cherry-bomb the ball back to already exhausted teachers, or will you finally accept it that the ball is in your court?

I'll see you tomorrow.

Tomato

EDIT: GAAAH SPACING!

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck has always been somebody I've wanted to talk about here, and someday I probably will, in detail. The problem is that I can't find a way to write about him in a polite manner, and I'm never going to resort to impolite personal attacks. So, I'll just use his words, from today's edition of his newsletter. The words are unchanged, save for my bolding.

--------

He played on our fears!

The RNC did a PowerPoint presentation that just hacked Glenn off because the big strategy they came up with was to play on people's fears. Does that mean the RNC doesn't really think our country is sliding into socialism? Or going broke? Glenn talks with Marco Rubio from Florida, who is doing well in the polls precisely because he doesn't listen to the RNC, about the latest nonsense from Republicans.

-------------------

Does anyone see a contradiction here?

Me, too.

Tomato

Roy Harper and the Severed Arm of Decency (CFJ Spoilers)

Why yes, that is a talking humanoid gorilla, thanks for asking!

Hey, guys!

I'm not making my technical grand return until next weekend, after Annie, but something that I read this weekend irked me, and I thought I'd throw it out there to the wolves, so to speak.

Last Wednesday, Justice League: Cry for Justice #7 came out. I realize those words probably mean nothing to a good 70% of you, so if you'll allow me to detour into a lecture for a couple minutes, it'd be much obliged. You comics aficionados can skip the next few paragraphs, by the way.

About 90 percent of the comics DC publishes are in the same continuity. This means that Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and so on exist in the same universe and can appear in books together. You follow?

Some of you may have already deduced that all of these characters, in addition to starring in their own book, appear in one together, as a team. This team is called the Justice League of America. I can't think of a gig in comics harder than being a JLA writer, as what you do in that book pretty much constitutes the tone and atmosphere of the rest of DC's comics.

Diverting for a few minutes, we've got to talk about another team before we dig into this mess.

The Teen Titans are another DC superhero team, composed of (generally) the sidekicks of the JLA members. At first, it didn't sell well at all, but under the pen of noted comics genius George Perez, it sold like hotcakes. If JLA is the map for the current feel of the DCU, then Titans is its spirit. I love the Titans dearly, and in terms of comics I'd give almost anything to write, they're up there. Granted, they're extremely difficult to write.

See, most writers of the Titans remember to include tons of teenage angst, but forget that teens have fun, too. For some strange reason, Titans writers who've gotten that basic principal have been few and far between.

Namely, James Robinson, the guy who thought it'd be a swell idea to take Roy Harper, a founding Titan, kill his six-year-old child, and rip his arm off.

Roy Harper, sidekick of Green Arrow (think Robin Hood, with a huge liberal bent), was usually one of the lightest and most kiddish Titans, in my opinion. Over time, he grew up and took a different codename, first Arsenal, then Red Arrow. In that time, he had a one-night-stand with the supervillian known as Cheshire, and she had a child, Liam. She didn't want Liam, so Roy raised her. During this time, she progressed without any angst, and Roy had a happy family.

In Cry For Justice #5, Roy, now part of the Justice League, gets his arm ripped off. In #7, his kid is killed.

In recent years, we've had two kids killed, Beast Boy's and Donna Troy's, who, I might add, were both former Titans. We've also had the deaths of countless current Titans, including Superboy, Kid Devil, and Wendy and Marvin, who were mauled by their animal sidekick, Wonder Dog, We've also had the storyline Identity Crisis, in which the Elongated Man's wife, whom he was in a happy marriage with. is raped by C-list villain Dr. Light, and the JLA covers it up. In the OMAC Project a few years ago, Wonder Woman snaps a man's neck.

This grittiness isn't fooling anyone, DC. If you want comics to be a legitimate medium, the way is not to murder kids and splatter gore left and right. Here's what you need to do: respect your audience's intelligence.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the secret to writing anywhere, not just in comics, and that's my mantra. I won't ever have a "no drugs, no sex, no language, no violence" policy in my writing, despite some people urging me to do so. What I will do, however, is respect my audience's intelligence. If I put any of those subjects in my writing, they're there for a reason, and it's not just to be "edgy". If I do that, my audience will smell it a mile away.

DC's not fooling anyone if they think we don't know that one day, this series will be ignored, retconned out of Roy's history, and avoided like the plague. It happened with Countdown to Final Crisis a while back, and I can guarantee that it'll happen here. If there's anything that this series shows, it's not maturity, it's immaturity. And it doesn't just happen in comics, either. Look how many characters have died by Newbery Medal. Killing of characters and having excessive themes that serve no plot-based purpose does not make your story good, mature, or intellectual.

It just makes it stupid.

Agree? Disagree? Sound off in comments! I'll see you next Friday!

Tomato

EDIT: Grrr. Blogger's doing the spacing wrong. I can't fix it, as of right now. Sorry!

EDIT 2: Check out Linkara's post about CFJ here.