Paedophile Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe

 Pope Shocked. Shocked!

I wish I had written this, because I agree wholeheartedly with what she says. I wish I had written what she wrote but thank goodness she did. Joan Smith’s whole article in the Independent is more than worth a read, it’s almost compulsory.

“ I’d be happy never to write another word about Christianity, Islam or any other supernatural belief system if their leaders didn’t keep telling me that their ethics are better than mine.

I wish she didn’t need to write it, because as much as I wish the whole appalling human waste of time, money and human effort that is religion would go away so that I didn’t feel the need to talk about it; much as I wish the whole lying, damaging, dangerous, manipulative, greedy, exploitative, self-serving, illusory, entirely man-made pretence would disappear,.. it doesn’t.

The other day in Britain Ratzinger said,

“ I express my deep sorrow to ze innocent victims of zese unspeakable crimes, along viss my hope zat ze power of Christ’s grace … vill bring deep healing and peace to zeir lives,” acknowledging “ze shame and humiliation vich all of us haf suffered because of zese sins”. He expressed his deep sorrow but did not, of course, as he never has been able to, apologise on behalf of the church.

You would have to think, hearing or reading this, that the church was moving heaven and earth swiftly, deliberately and remorselessly to repair the damage, to bring the perpetrators to justice and to bring recompense to the victims. But no. The utter bankruptcy of his crocodile tears is obvious. at the very moment he was weeping for victims of these unspeakable crimes one perpetrators former <strong>Bishop of Bruges

At the very moment he was weeping for the victims of these “unspeakable crimes”, one of the perpetrators, the former Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who repeatedly abused his nephew for 13 years – starting when the boy was just 5 years old and Vangheluwe was a priest and continuing after he was made a bishop – was comfortably untouched by the church.

Even five months after he was exposed and resigned.

Indeed he had been protected by the church in Westvleteren Abbey. It is reported that on 12 September he announced that he would leave the abbey and “as of today, I will contemplate my life and future somewhere hidden”.

Of course he will.

Somewhere safe from accountability.

The church takes no action. It just expresses its deep sorrow. And Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Inquisition, always allowed this as policy.

The church is morally bankrupt. And it lies. Specifically, Ratzinger lies (breaking the commandment against bearing false witness).

As Joan Smith says,

“ “The revelations for me were a great shock and sadness,” he told journalists during his flight from Rome to London. I couldn’t help wondering why he was shocked; after all, in his previous job, he was the Vatican official responsible for investigating allegations of sex abuse. Indeed, he’s been accused of a cover-up after writing a letter in 2001 to every Catholic bishop, asserting the church’s right to hold its inquiries in secret.

Sir Roger, with all his faults, is more moral and ethical than the pope. He, an atheist, is more christian than Ratz is and cares more about human beings than he does. Sir Roger, for example, is not complicit in the deaths of millions in Africa because of some hocus pocus about birth control and condoms – he is not complacent about massive suffering for the sake of some wacky, untestable theory about “saving people’s ‘souls’”. (And all right, he admits he may be slightly less humble than Ratz.)

So, as Joan Smith says, don’t lecture us on morals, Ratzinger.

Here’s a taste of a fresh (and mercifully short) Hitchens piece in Slate which is worth reading in full:

“ As we have recently been forcibly reminded, the Roman Catholic Church holds it better for the cries of raped and violated children to be ignored, and for the excuses and alibis of their rapists and torturers indulged, and for a host of dirty and wilful untruths to be manufactured wholesale, and for the funds raised ostensibly for the poor to be paid out in hush money and shameful bribery, rather than that one tiny indignity or inconvenience be visited on the robed majesty of a man-made church or any limit set to its self-proclaimed right to be judge in its own cause.

 

r’Amen !