Why Have We Allowed The Pope And The Curia Subvert Our Constitution

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Sunday April 18, 2010 21:05 by donkylemore

The Curia has protected the Pope with a venal beguile The defence of their errant priests and bishops is to launch an attack of a tripartite nature ; the church as victim; the blame lies with the victims; the problem was one of incipient homosexuality . The three factors were advanced separately over the past 10 days by the pope and 2 different theologians . Not just ordinary Curia sycophants , but doctrinaire heavy hitters.

The change of direction which the church has taken in defence of paedophilia should not come as a surprise . Fintan O Tooole - Irish Times Sat - addresses this ''tripartite'' attack against the victims of child abuse .

This is a monstrous and deceptive defense and it should be regarded as heinous and abusive in itself .

The defence as advanced would suggest that the pope and his curia are engaging in a ‘tridental’ pincer movement in defence of its criminal priests .The attack is tendentious . It blames the faithful and the victim , and throws in the mores of modern day living to contextualise and excuse this new evil.
It ignores the fact that church theologians and moralists have been cautioning against paedophilia for 2 millennia.
When we look at this in the context of the church ’s response to the Murphy commission - first arguing that documents were s not ought and as they should t have been sought; ie hey had been sought with regard to diplomatic protocols - then refusing to submit them when they were sought through the Nunciature the picture of an authoritarian fundamentalist church becomes clear.
In other words Rome has flagrantly defied societal legislature
This was posited by Ratzinger’s contemporary theologian Hans Kung in an open letter to all bishops last week. Here Kung implores the bishops to turn away from the absolutist position of obedience to the Pope where there has been an infraction of moral law. He reminds the bishops that there can be no absolute obedience other than to God.
Kung further makes several accusations against Ratzinger ranging from the imminent canonisation of his predecessor Pius X11 , when Pious who collaborated with the Nazis in handing Jews over to the Nazis during WW2 .
He accuses Benedict of alienating the Roman Church from Islam , the Judaism and of shunning ecumenism.
But while Kung and Benedict were once classmates and later both professors of theology they have been arch enemies for over 30 years .

Kung’s appeal to the bishops is heartfelt . He beseeches them to take heed . But reading this impassioned open letter you get the feeling that he already acknowledges defeat.
If the bishops were to be truthful and were to be as honest with their own consciences
as they expect of the priests who prostrate themselves publicly before them ( bishops) on ordination , then we would already have had many more convictions of paedophiles - male and females in the Irish courts.
But as long as the Law Library allows a church ceremony to open the legal term our courts will be as supplicant to the orthodoxy of Rome as the bishops.
There was a time when a surgeon could have his hands blessed by a pope , for a stipend - I wonder if the same pertained to the Judge’s gavel.
As a society .with a moral and legal code , a constitution which purports to cherish all its citizens equally we have an obligation to treat the Vatican as a State and not an institution which supersedes our constitution .
We must recognise the State of the Vatican is run by a closed and undemocratic body of people who act in a manner which subverts our laws and codes .

We must address these inequalities in our society whereby garbed criminals can evade the judicial system before God before we can aspire to redressing the greater and more expansive constitutional reform which FG and Labour are talking about.
But that will incur the wrath of Rome and all the predictable sequelae that will stem therefrom .
And as for the victims. Well they are now the culprits .
And the mores of society at large represent a conspiracy ; one which is intent on demeaning Rome .
More of that old Diktat - Roma Loquitor ; Causa Fineta est