May, 2002.
From time to time we non-Catholics have heard sexual inuendo whispered about, but always by those who were also whispering same things about the Protestants and the Democrats and all those other folks. We always assumed the very fact that such rumors were about were proof that they existed only as feckless charges in evil, and perhaps envious minds.
However now that the facts seem to reveal that at least 250 priests and 4 bishops actually were guilty enough of this seduction of members of their own flocks to be caught, we must wonder how deep the carnage actually went.
The immediate problem of pedophilia goes to the pedophile and the one attacked. That is a serious crime and problem that lasts a lifetime. Far more serious though is an act of coverup, and permission for the perpertrator to continue in another venu. Such action reveals a certanl level of gamesmanship between the prelates and the flock. It also reveals the presence of a casual contemptousness of those whose flocks are so facile that they should actually believe what their leaders say to them.
The Bishops who were aware of the allegations and did not report it to civil authorities were guilty of a far greater betrayal of their faith and their following than the pedophile. The fact that the Bishops would reassign a pedophilic priest even one time, much less again and again, is serious enough to require civil action.
This problem is not the church’s problem anyway, it belongs in the domain of the state. Not to treat it thusly is to repeat the same mistake the Navy women made when they tried to handle the groping and rapes they encountered at “Tailgate” through the Navy. That simply made a serious problem a matter of smirking contempt from the Navy. The Clark County (Nevada) Sheriff’s office would have treated this matter very differently. The Catholic church has treated these abused children with the same smirking contempt. They would have had to react diffferently if local authorities had prosecuted the issue and if priests and bishops had to testify under oath.
Monday, May 06, 2002
Bombers
May, 2002
The world is repulsed by the sucide bombers that are being used against the people of Israel. Somehow it seems not-human to kill yourself intentionally, even for God or Country. Every nation that fights wars loses men, but they are trying not to be killed. That is a significant difference, we say.
Another extreme is the American Bombers. They come in at high altitudes where they cannot be seen, perhaps even heard, against a people who have no radar or guns that will reach that high. The population is often unaware that there are any Americans or airplanes anywhere at all. These bombs also explode suddenly and unexpectedly, yet the American Bomber is in little mortal danger.
Of course, the main objection to the Palestinian Bombers is that they seem to target, not military targets, but children and recreational areas. But so do the American Bombers, not intentionally perhaps, but unknowingly. The number of Afganistan civilian casualties will never be known, and American political leaders deny every number and every mistake they make,(except for the hospitals which like destroyed, and of course the American Red Cross headquarters in Afghanistan (which was bombed twice!)) yet the amount of innocent civilians killed by the American Bombers will clearly be far greater than all the innocent casualties wrought by the Palestinian Bombers.
The world is repulsed by the sucide bombers that are being used against the people of Israel. Somehow it seems not-human to kill yourself intentionally, even for God or Country. Every nation that fights wars loses men, but they are trying not to be killed. That is a significant difference, we say.
Another extreme is the American Bombers. They come in at high altitudes where they cannot be seen, perhaps even heard, against a people who have no radar or guns that will reach that high. The population is often unaware that there are any Americans or airplanes anywhere at all. These bombs also explode suddenly and unexpectedly, yet the American Bomber is in little mortal danger.
Of course, the main objection to the Palestinian Bombers is that they seem to target, not military targets, but children and recreational areas. But so do the American Bombers, not intentionally perhaps, but unknowingly. The number of Afganistan civilian casualties will never be known, and American political leaders deny every number and every mistake they make,(except for the hospitals which like destroyed, and of course the American Red Cross headquarters in Afghanistan (which was bombed twice!)) yet the amount of innocent civilians killed by the American Bombers will clearly be far greater than all the innocent casualties wrought by the Palestinian Bombers.
Memorial Day
May, 2002
This generally hallowed day generates within me feelings of sarcasm more than anything else. Perhaps that is due to memories of my own welcome back from two of my three tours in Vietnam. I know that a lot of these men who are honored today, the majority of which were probably now yet into the estate of manhood, had no choice in where they were and what they were doing when their life suddnly ended violently. It is often stated, on Memorial Day, that we Americans, and many others in the world, owe a great debt to these men, and that is not to be denied. The fact that his holiday keeps their memory alive is only to be contrasted with the reality of the observances which is cocerned only with the spending of money. Those who were killed ultimately had no choice, but we know now that their leaders had many choices that they did not use or were not aware of. We know that Pearl Harbor was tipped off in more than one way, only no one could “connect-those-dots” either. Korea was one of those “slippery slopes” we hear about from timt to time. We slid all the way back down the North Korean part of the place. Why did we go in? Why did we go north of the 32nd parallel? What else could have been done. Why Vietnam? Well, that answer is easy. It concerns the Falling Domino Theory. If Vietnam should fall to Ho-Chi-Mihn, then within a year all of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Taiway and possibly Japan and Hawaii would fall to communism. Secretary of Defence McNamara has written in 1995, that he and President Johnson knew the war was lost in 1966, and that we fought all the rest of it, the big part of it, those last six years, killing those 50,000 Americans and 2 million Vietnamese to try to “save the presidency,” to save Johnson and Nixon from disgrace. The Gulf War brought home men with “strange illnesses.” They are still dying, and they are told by the United States government that it has nothing to do with their fighting for the United States in the Persian Gulf. They gave for Halliburton, Exxon, and other great giants of American commerce. What other choices were available -before- the Kuwait invasion, or after, for that matter? We know that when the attack on the Twin Towers was being finalized, the American president was spending a month in Texas, to escape the “humdrum” of life in the Capitol. His administration was doubtless at work, but there was no center to events. What else could have been done?
Israel and the Arabs are at low-grade war, Pakistan and India are ready for Glory. And it goes on and on. Maybe we can make some small changes; here’s one: Let’s not ever honor another fallen soldier or lost sailor without convening a war crimes convention to address the fault of those who led their young men into war. Let us make Memorial Day really memorial by declairing that war is a crime against mankind, the universe and God.
It is a travesty that we “honor” young men who were killed by their own countries for the personal enrichment of their leaders. These leaders grow old and get rich; the young men get glory.
This generally hallowed day generates within me feelings of sarcasm more than anything else. Perhaps that is due to memories of my own welcome back from two of my three tours in Vietnam. I know that a lot of these men who are honored today, the majority of which were probably now yet into the estate of manhood, had no choice in where they were and what they were doing when their life suddnly ended violently. It is often stated, on Memorial Day, that we Americans, and many others in the world, owe a great debt to these men, and that is not to be denied. The fact that his holiday keeps their memory alive is only to be contrasted with the reality of the observances which is cocerned only with the spending of money. Those who were killed ultimately had no choice, but we know now that their leaders had many choices that they did not use or were not aware of. We know that Pearl Harbor was tipped off in more than one way, only no one could “connect-those-dots” either. Korea was one of those “slippery slopes” we hear about from timt to time. We slid all the way back down the North Korean part of the place. Why did we go in? Why did we go north of the 32nd parallel? What else could have been done. Why Vietnam? Well, that answer is easy. It concerns the Falling Domino Theory. If Vietnam should fall to Ho-Chi-Mihn, then within a year all of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Taiway and possibly Japan and Hawaii would fall to communism. Secretary of Defence McNamara has written in 1995, that he and President Johnson knew the war was lost in 1966, and that we fought all the rest of it, the big part of it, those last six years, killing those 50,000 Americans and 2 million Vietnamese to try to “save the presidency,” to save Johnson and Nixon from disgrace. The Gulf War brought home men with “strange illnesses.” They are still dying, and they are told by the United States government that it has nothing to do with their fighting for the United States in the Persian Gulf. They gave for Halliburton, Exxon, and other great giants of American commerce. What other choices were available -before- the Kuwait invasion, or after, for that matter? We know that when the attack on the Twin Towers was being finalized, the American president was spending a month in Texas, to escape the “humdrum” of life in the Capitol. His administration was doubtless at work, but there was no center to events. What else could have been done?
Israel and the Arabs are at low-grade war, Pakistan and India are ready for Glory. And it goes on and on. Maybe we can make some small changes; here’s one: Let’s not ever honor another fallen soldier or lost sailor without convening a war crimes convention to address the fault of those who led their young men into war. Let us make Memorial Day really memorial by declairing that war is a crime against mankind, the universe and God.
It is a travesty that we “honor” young men who were killed by their own countries for the personal enrichment of their leaders. These leaders grow old and get rich; the young men get glory.
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