Dec. 20 (Monday) Pope Benedict XVI in his year-end message called on the Catholic Church to reflect on the abuses committed by priests against their charges but also suggested that pedophilia was considered a kind of norm of the times (the 1970s).
Now, I can see the 1970s driving someone to drink; all you need to do is listen to My Ding A Ling a few times, and you will be hitting the gin very seriously indeed. But those were simple times and people had simpler tastes in music. I would also blame the song My Way, sung by Frank Sinatra, as a cause for almost any horrible thing: serial murder, whales beaching themselves, or global warming, just to name a few.
The lyrics of that song are so strained, you can almost feel the writer (Paul Anka) struggling with poetic constipation: "I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption"...
And then: "but through it all when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out." (YUCK!)
And even worse.., "For what is a man, what has he got, if not himself, then he has naught".
Naught... when did you use THAT word last? When did ANYONE use it? 1920s? But that song was released in 1969, so we cannot blame the errant behavior of the priests on its pernicious influence.
(I do, however, believe in the death penalty for Paul Anka who wrote it.)
But pedophilia? I sort of remember the 1970s, and I don't remember huge waves of popular pedophilia sweeping the nation. But maybe I missed something.
What particular aspect of the '70s might it have been? The Pope would not make something like this up. And he does not strike me as the tongue in cheek sort. It had to be something.
The movie, "The Exorcist", came out in 1973. Could this have caused those priests to go over the edge?
There they were, worried that they didn't have the "right stuff" to chase away the devil, so they had no alternative but to go over to the "dark side" and molest children?
Seems unlikely, doesn't it?
Perhaps it was the waterbed which coupled with the new advances in women's reproductive rights lead to a sexual revolution?
There they were, surrounded by pictures of hot women such as Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs, and driven by lust, they had no alternative but to molest the young boys in their congregations.
No... maybe that is a little far fetched too. Why would they molest boys, after all?
What was it about the '70s that caused those poor priests to loose their moral compass and molest youngsters?
The personal computer!
Yes!
The advent of the personal computer in the 1970s must have been too much for them to handle, so they needed to escape the stress somehow and had to "handle" something else!
But no. The child porn sites and nun-porn sites were still a distant dream in the future.
What COULD it have been?! I mean... what would drive these priests to molest the people in their congregations? It had to be something bad; they would never ever do this on their own, for sure. Right? I mean would the Pope make something like this up?
Maybe it was something the Pope himself had in mind? What was he doing in the 1970s?
According to Wikipedia, "He founded the theological journal Communio (which has) become a prominent journal of contemporary Catholic theological thought. He remained one of the journal's most prolific contributors. In 1976, he suggested that the Augsburg Confession might possibly be recognised as a Catholic statement of faith. This however did not happen due to differences in theology on justification."
Does this sound a lot like cricket news to you? It does to me. The Augsburg Confession. I am willing to BET that this has something to do with "throwing down the stumps".
Those Popes! Aren't they just a gas? But what about the XXs, VVs, and IIs after their names? Are they so unimaginative that they can't come up with new names without the cumbersome Roman numerals? Instead of Pope Benedict XVI, why not Pope Fred, or Pope Ralph?
Wait... we are talking about the priests, not the Pope. But "Pope Paul VI did cause considerable surprise when he suddenly denied rumors of "scandalous behavior".
Maybe the Devil made them do it?
Maybe you have an idea? Check out the '70s and let me know.
And Happy New Year!
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