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invited me to write about PassionOfTheChristFilm:
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A hope (and a challenge?!) -- a few people I would like to see write in their weblogs about the movie (and not necessarily a response to the above): mom ... Pepe ... Raymond (a friendly nudge to Raymond: dude, just write what you feel, without that inner editor/censor. it might be liberating, it might be frightening, but the point is: it will be you, and for that glimpse of You, this reader for one will be grateful.)
I read Lloyd's post the ugly face of christianity. Not surprisingly, the title caught my eye. Lloyd challenges me write about the movie, which I haven't yet seen -- but for now I'd like to focus on what Lloyd wrote. He is rightfully appalled by the large scale abuse of children by priests:
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The breadth of the crime against children perpetrated by priests is simply, agonizingly, appalling: 10,667 documented cases in the past half century, in America alone. Even taken at face value, that number is harrowing, and difficult to imagine. And can there be any doubt that the actual figure must be higher? I'm not going to say much more on this issue than this: this is most certainly indicative of a systemic flaw in Christianity. It is a cancer in the corpus of Christianity. Whether or not this cancer is inevitable or accidental is not the point; the point is that it exists, and it must be confronted for what it is, an absolute, horrifying evil. How this generation of Christians confronts it will define all our common humanity for the foreseeable future.
My question in this context has more to do with the assertion "this is most certainly indicative of a systemic flaw in Christianity. It is a cancer in the corpus of Christianity." How so? Why not flaws in the Catholic Church specifically? Flaws in those particular human beings? Flaws in all of humanity? the American system?
When Lloyd writes "Christianity", what does he mean? Christian theology? Jesus of Nazareth? The church?
Does Lloyd mean that this type of abuse could not/does not happen elsewhere? Or more that there is no way a religion with the professed standards of Christianity should have allowed such crimes to have happened?
Related links
I've not carefully read the studies but here are some links for when I want to do so:
A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States by The National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Abuse Scandal Is Now 'History,' Top Bishop Says (NewYorkTimes)
