DEPICTION OF DANTE’S INFERNO (HELL)

Unfortunately, this post is not some bad April Fools Day joke.

The Pope has now been implicated in the global sex abuse scandal that the Catholic Church has become deeply embroiled in these past few months.  And the list of these scandals grows larger as time goes on.

This author first wrote about the developing scandal in Ireland back in December of 2009 – noting the dissonance between the Pope’s willful ignorance of that problem, coupled with his ostensibly “deep concern for Christian and Family Values.”  It was all to obvious to me at that time that this blatent hipocrasy which revolves around the Pope – pun intended - might develop into the final stake in the heart of the single most corrupt institution on the face of the earth. 

The scope and depth of this issue is finally coming to light, and the Vatican is beyond criminally culpable – just look at this recently-uncovered secret Vatican document from 1960, wherein the Church explicitly instructed all Bishops around the world to cover-up the ongoing child sex abuse cases, or face excommunication.  This is explosive evidence of an ongoing international criminal conspiracy dating back 50 years. 

However, the highest moral crime committed by the Church was that the victims and their families were also threatened with excommunication if they revealed anything.  It’s right there in black and white – these are the official words of the Vatican.  For that alone, there should be a very special place reserved in Hell for all of them.

Unfortunately, the Vatican’s legal status as a sovereign state gives it absolute immunity from prosecution or civil suits.  Sovereign Immunity is a legal concept granted to nations – and their diplomats – that shield them from criminal liability.  It should come as no surprise that the Church has been granted this extraordinary legal status, given the fact that it is the most powerful non-govermental institution on the face of the earth.  That is how the Vatican has been able to shamefully protect former American Cardinal Bernard Law from extradition back the United States to testify before a Grand Jury in Massachusetts regarding his participation in the decades-long cover-up in this country. 

Now even the Pope is invoking immunity under the same doctrine.  However, I’ve got news for you, Pope – that WILL NOT  protect you when it’s time to meet your maker.

What is even more incredulous is that fact that the Pontiff and his pathetic minions inside the Vatican are denying that he had any knowledge of a memo authored from his office regarding re-assignment of a pedophile priest during his tenure as Archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982.   Moreover, his unbelievable claims that he was not aware of the monumental scope of this problem is betrayed by the fact that he served as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal official from 1982 until his election as pope in 2005 – during that 23 year stretch of time, it was his responsibility to oversee all priest pedophilia claims anywhere in the world.

Even Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Irish Catholic Church, initially denied any responsibility in that scandal and refused to resign – despite the most damning evidence to the contrary.  Here is his unconscionable rationalization for not taking any action when confronted with the evidence:

“I felt I did my duty, the duty that was assigned to me by my bishop. It’s not fair to judge actions of 35 years ago by the standards we are following today . . . Thirty-five years ago we were in a different world. We had no guidance, we were in uncharted territory.”

Let me get this straight:  you knew that one of your priests was screwing 10 year old boys in the ass 35 years ago, but you did not say anything about it because “things were different back then”?  

In fact, a priest that has been accused of molestations in Germany now has the audacity to claim that priests should be supervised by other priests to ensure they do not engage in sexual deviant behaviors with children.  WTF?  You are now excusing your behavior by saying “well, it would have never happened if someone had been monitoring me”? 

Are we finally getting the picture here?  These pedophile priests, as well as those who have harbored and protected them, are ALL a waste of human skin.  And the Catholic Church’s behavior these last 1000 years has given no doubt that it’s sole purpose was to use it’s power and authority to spiritually imprison countless souls for it’s own narcissistic ends. 

One apologist tried to deflect criticism of the Church, stating that ”This is far from being just about the Church: 80 to 90 percent of the cases happen in families.”  In other words, well they do it more than we do.  Notwithstanding that reprehensible “whitewashing” job, the “stench of evil”regarding the Pope’s career, as Christopher Hitchens so eloquently stated it, is both beyond palpable, as well as indefensible.

In the final analysis, the most paraxoical aspect to all of this is ironically divined from Article 1 of the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law:

“The Roman Pontiff . . . is the Vicar of Christ . . . ”

Under the Church’s interpretation of the Code of Canon Law, the Vicar of Christ is Jesus’ substitute here on earth – defined by serving as ” . . . someone who is authorized to act as a substitute or agent for a superior - compare ‘vicarious‘—serving in the place of someone else.”  If this man is Christ’s agent, what does that say about Jesus Christ or God?  I can already hear the rationalizations for this one . . . the same one’s that have been offered, ad nauseum, for 2000 years.

While serving as the Vatican Prefect [Cardinal Joeseph Ratzinger], on September 5, 2000, The Pope authored a document referred to as “Dominus Iesus“.  In that decree, he unabashedly declared that the Catholic Church was the sole “instrument for the salvation of humanity.”

IF that is true, with one swift stroke of the pen, the Pope damned all mankind.