Random Thoughts

This can’t be what Peter had in mind

I am not a Catholic. I don’t think that precludes me from having any insight into the Catholic church though. As a Protestant having sent two daughters through six years each of Catholic school, and engaged in a total of nine years worth of commensurate reading and discussions, I have learned more than the average non-Catholic typically knows about that religion.

That being said, I just don’t get the way the Catholic Church is handling sexual abuse committed by priests. Or rather failing to handle it. I just don’t get it.

I don’t get why the current Pope wouldn’t defrock a priest who committed repeated acts of sodomy on young boys. I don’t get his rationale. Call me confused; it seems to me that the abuse of a child mandates a millstone around the neck approach if anything does.

But I’m not a Catholic, so maybe there’s some mysterious intangible element to the priesthood that innately absolves them of responsibility for in-your-face repeated sins.

When I read stories like this in the Onion,

VATICAN CITY—Calling the behavior shameful, sinful, and much more frequent than the Vatican was comfortable with, Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level.

Addressing thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the pontiff offered his “most humble apologies” to abuse victims, and pledged to reduce the total number of molestations by 60 percent over the next five years.

and I see videos like this on YouTube,

I figure there is a clear reason this kind of satire is being directed at the Church, and it’s because the Church is failing to deal adequately with a profoundly disturbing problem. It seems to me that the Catholic Church has reached the point where Jonathan Swift would be saying, if you don’t want to deal with the problem of starvation in a rational manner, perhaps you ought to consider eating the babies. Or in this case, using “Priest Off.”

There simply is no excuse for this. It’s right up there with the historic abuses of the Catholic Church. At least when they sold indulgences, people weren’t literally getting screwed.

There are a number of deeply faithful Catholic bloggers out there, and I have been wondering what they made of this situation. How are they dealing with the abject failure of their leadership to protect children?

The Anchoress seems to be urging patience toward the Pope, while Mark Shea at Inside Catholic blames the media for creating a “feeding frenzy” upon the Pope.

Allison at Why I am Catholic reminds us that the Church needs prayer.

And Greg at the Deacon’s Bench points out that statistically priests probably don’t commit sexual abuse of children more than any other segment of the population.

I’m not a Catholic. I don’t have the same veneration for the Pope or any Church leader below him that a Catholic does. I don’t particularly blame him, nor do I absolve him; I figure every human being is responsible for their own sins. I do know though that this entire situation, including the way Catholics are responding to it, doesn’t make me want to become a Catholic.

If I was a Catholic, I’d be demanding action. After all, it is their Church.

Scottish values

There are many reasons why Scotland never has been and never will be a world power. Why it was rolled over by England. Why it–despite persistent calls for Scottish independence–is of no substantive worth in terms of global politics.

This is one big reason:

The release from prison Thursday of the only person ever convicted in the 1988 bombing that killed 270 people aboard a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland angered and outraged victims’ relatives, who said they were left feeling wronged again.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released Thursday after serving eight years of a life sentence in a Scottish prison. Scottish officials said the former Libyan intelligence officer’s prostate cancer was advancing and that they were bound by Scottish values to release him. He was recently given only months to live.

“Scottish values?” What the heck would those be, I wonder. Apparently making sure that a mass murderer has a comfortable death at home is “Scottish values.” Apparently “Scottish values” come down firmly on the side of a convicted felon who gave no comfort nor mercy to 270 innocent travelers. Apparently Scottish values include trampling on the law that demanded a life sentence for the murderer, figuring that 8 years served was enough. That would be about ten and a half days served for each murdered passenger.

Cohen and other relatives said they believe he was released so world leaders could appease Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi because access to his nation’s oil is so important….The Times of London reported that al-Megrahi was to return to Libya in Gadhafi’s jet — something else the victims’ families saw as an affront.

Gadhafi will be visiting New York in September, where he will address the UN immediately after Obama. We can look forward to the photo op of the two men smiling and shaking hands like old friends. Nobody is as cordial to dictators and thugs as the current US President.

Obama and good buddy Hugo Chavez

“Twenty years later, this is the last sad chapter where government leaders have no moral backbone,” said Bert Ammerman of River Vale, whose brother Tom was killed on the flight.

Certainly Scottish leaders have no moral backbone. I suppose in that way they’re no different than any other politicians.

Obama was bold enough to call al-Megrahi’s release “a mistake.” Mr. President, putting a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon of salt in the stew is a “mistake.” Letting a convicted murderer go scot-free (pun totally intended) is a disgusting travesty of justice.

In other news…

The MSM is determined to brush off concerns about Obamacare. Gateway Pundit offers startling insight into the mentality behind end of life care and the Obama health care plan. When they say “You don’t need to worry,” that’s when you ought to really start worrying.

The creator of the Obama Joker posters is 2009′s answer to Cool Hand Luke. H/T Brutally Honest.

And this ought to be mandatory reading for anyone even remotely curious about the whole Cash for Clunkers program. H/T Flopping Aces.

Bad bad blogger

I am such a bad blogger. I’ve let eons of cybertime go since my last post (in cyberspace, a week is an eon, right?).

I’ve got so many things on my mind that I could blog about. I could blog about Obama’s attitude toward post 9/11 interrogation techniques. Or Obama’s attitude toward Hugo Chavez. Or Obama’s attitude toward our country in general.

Or I could post about ignoring the monsters in our midst, whether they’re teens hellbent on murder in Colorado ten years ago, or Craigslist predators today.

Or, I could post about what it means to be training for a career in a field that is pink-slipping people by the thousands.

Appropos of that last, I could post something mindlessly fun, like this:

It’s audio only. And I will post something more substantive soon. “Soon” in real time, which would be later today, not “soon” in cybertime, which would be about 30 seconds from now.

She’s not going to win “Mother of the Year”

This makes me so angry.

An emergency call that brought two police officers to a home where they were ambushed, and where a third was also killed later during a four-hour siege, was precipitated by a fight between the gunman and his mother over a dog urinating in the house.

The Saturday argument between Margaret and Richard Poplawski escalated to the point that she threatened to kick him out and she called police to do it, according to a 12-page criminal complaint and affidavit filed late Saturday.

When officers Paul Sciullo II and Stephen Mayhle arrived, Margaret Poplawski opened the door and told them to come in and take her 23-year-old son, apparently unaware he was standing behind her with a rifle, the affidavit said. Hearing gunshots, she spun around to see her son with the gun and ran to the basement.

“What the hell have you done?” she shouted.

The mother told police her son had been stockpiling guns and ammunition “because he believed that as a result of economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society,” the affidavit said.

If there was any justice, Margaret Poplawski would be charged along with her homicidal loser son in the deaths of those policemen. It’s not a crime to allow your wacked out adult son to live in your house. It’s probably not a crime to allow him to stockpile weapons and ammo, assuming they’re legally owned. It’s not a crime to summon the police over a stupid domestic spat involving an unhousebroken dog.

It’s not a crime to be a stupid, self-involved b–ch either. If it was, Margaret Poplawski would certainly be charged with that.

I can’t fathom a mother permitting her son to do what this woman allowed. No, I’m not talking about the damned dog, or Richard Poplawski living with his mama when he should have been out on his own. I’m talking about him arming himself and gunning down men who were there because Margaret called them. She knew he was a whackjob, she knew he was paranoid about “protecting himself,” and she did nothing to keep this tragedy from unfolding.

And when the inevitable happened, she ran and hid in the basement.

I am so sick of hearing about families who ignore the madness in their midst, who do nothing to prevent tragedy, who permit (if only by their own deliberate inaction) the deaths of decent people.

If justice is truly served, Margaret Poplawski will have to answer for her part in this tragedy.