The moral perversion of Roman Catholicism.

I hadn’t intended to comment on the situation in Fresno, California where a priest denounced Proposition 8, the antigay initiative the Catholics and Mormons are pushing. While I thought Father Geoffrey Farrow was brave in standing up to the Bishops, who the Catholic version of the Mafia (which may be redundant).

Farrow said that he thought the church was wrong and told his congregation that he was gay. There was no indication that Farrow had violated his vow of celibacy (though I hope he does-- he could use the relief). Farrow did it because the Bishops were using their tax-exempt empire as a political recruiting ground for their campaign on Prop. 8. Farrow had received a letter ordering him to speak out against gay marriage in church. He couldn’t do that.

The forgiving, loving Church immediately took action. Farrow lost his parish, he was denied any salary and benefits and ordered to stay away from any parish where he had been a priest -- lest he influence the people who know him best. He was also ordered by the Church to have no Internet connection with anyone from the congregations. So basically they threw him out on ears.

I ignored all of that because they have a right to be assholes -- a right they indulge in frequently. They have the right to deny the priesthood to gay men (though they actually practice a policy of don’t ask, don’t tell). They have the right to decide who shall be a priest in their little ritual games and who can’t be. And while I have nothing but contempt for this Bishops and their Papa in Rome, I acknowledge their right to do what they have done.

I do think that they have no right to act as a political campaign using tax-exempt funds. If campaigning is going to be tax exempt then it should be tax exempt for everyone. Any group that engages in politics should have the same tax privileges that this Church enjoys. But that is a different matter.

What really got to me was the utter hypocrisy of the Catholic Church in this matter. The local Catholic hierarchy issued a letter attacking Farrows and said he had to be removed because he “had contradicted the teachings of the Catholic Church and had brought scandal to the parish, as well as the Catholic Church.”

Get that! He brought scandal to the Church by advocate legal equality for gay people. This is the same Church that has actively covered-up for child rapists for decades, probably centuries. In parish after parish there were priests who sexually assaulted young children, using Church authority to force children into acts they did not wish to commit. That’s rape! And when these incidents came to light, in hundreds of cases, the Catholic Church merely hid these priests in other parishes allowing them to do it all over again.

We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of priests, in virtually every parish, in dozens of countries. We are talking about tens of thousands of rape victims. And we can’t find a handful of cases where the Church thought this “brought scandal” to the parish and took action. No, they covered up and left the priest in good standing. If things got hot they simply moved him to a new batch of kiddies to prey upon. They didn’t find such actions scandalous at all. They made virtually no moves to stop it for decades. But they moved damn fast when a priest opposed them on the bigoted campaign against gay couples.

Adolph Hitler died a Catholic and the Church never took action against him for anything he did. He was never excommunicated. He was never chastised publicly for bringing scandal to the Church to which he belonged. But then old Adolph only killed people who weren’t Christians, and that is something the Church had been doing for centuries. He was never disciplined but Father Farrows has been.

Once again the Catholic Church has shown the world what it’s moral priorities are. If there is anything around this campaign that is perverted it is the Catholic Church’s sense of morality. They are truly, deeply, madly perverted. And what is amazing is that they act this way with such a moral superiority to the rest of us. One could say they have balls -- and I don’t just mean those of altar boys either.