In some ways, there seems to be this right of passage for Catholics (mostly clergy) to bully those who are of different beliefs and lifestyles. I'm not talking your typical push you 'round the playground' type of bullying, but the type where if you don't believe what I believe, then you're just disgusting...period. They've made their point very clear, while trying to clean up their messy files of pedophilia and homosexual activities that have been going on in their churches for centuries. They never even step up to the alter and apologize, only to make excuses, cover up scandals and pretend like it never happened. Before I get into my distaste for the new Pope, I have a story of my own. Back in the eighties when I was going to CCD - night school for religion, they had sent us away to a religious retreat in upstate New York. It didn't seem like a "retreat" as much as it looked like a prison with cement walls and a door for each room. The only fun room they had was about the size of my bedroom with a pool table in it. They had old cots with thin bedding and one floppy pillow. The grounds were just as bland as the inside of the building - some dried out yellow grass and a swing set. I remember we were waiting to be called into a room to confess our sins to a priest named, Father Pipala. We were still learning the proper way to confess as well, prayer included. When it was my turn, the nun came up to me and whispered, "Now go and walk into that room over there and confess to Father Pipala." It was a thick metal painted door. I opened it to see Father Pipala sitting on a cot in an empty bedroom patting the bed saying, "Come here, child. Talk to me..." I stared at him, expecting to see a booth with black meshing to hide myself from confessing. But it was all out in the open: a priest on a bed giving me a "come hither" look. At that age, I never knew anything about pedophilia or grown ups wanting anything other than to teach us and to take care of us. But at the age of 8 yrs old, I felt a creepiness that I'll never forget. I sensed something was wrong. I stepped closer and stared at him. When he tried to grab me with force, he managed to pull off some of my sweater. I ran out of the room as fast as I could and screamed down the dark hallway that was lit with cheap florescent lights that flickered on and off. One of the nuns tried to grab my arm but I made my way outside by the bus we drove up in and cried hysterically. The entire day, those nuns were "extra kind" to me, letting me sit aside from the activities that were given to the other kids telling everyone, "She doesn't feel very well."
Not too long after, it was exposed that Father Pipala was charged for molesting children, mostly boys. In an article written in
The New York Times, it states, "In Monroe, Father Pipala settled into his job, coordinating the youth ministry and working in drug and alcohol programs. His license plate read, 'Fred 66,' a play on his nickname, Father Ed, and the year of his ordination.
He also assumed a darker role: founder and leader of a club called the Hole, based in the church basement.
It had several dozen members -- all teenage boys, some with strained relations with parents, others from broken homes. The priest said in his deposition that he based the Hole on the 'philosophy of having someone who would be there all the time, a place that one could go to share their thoughts and feeling and not ending up in some bar talking to some strange bartender.' Yet, he said he gave the boys beer and liquor and showed them pornographic videos. Father Pipala created an initiation ceremony in which the teenagers, sworn to secrecy, joined him in masturbating into a red cloth, an act he would later compare to an ancient 'tribal' ritual. Each boy was given a small square of the cloth, and a T-shirt with his number on the back.
By the time of his arrest in 1993, prosecutors said his abuse had extended to oral and anal sex. They said dozens of minors were initiated into his club and that he molested boys in rectories, at a Jersey Shore condominium and during a vacation in Massachusetts." ---
read more here.
Aside from my own priest being a creepy pedophile, and in the same church, other priests telling me in confession booths that being a lesbian was a dead end road, I wonder what kind of road they were planning to travel on themselves. The church tried to sweep this mess under the carpet, just as the Vatican does with their own. No one ever seems accountable for their actions. Not one of the members of the church seems to lighten up on everyone who is a "seemingly sinful person" just by their sexual orientation. I understand Catholics believe homosexuality is a sin, but maybe they should pipe down a bit more since most of their clergy members are all repressed homosexuals and pedophiles. When it came to my attention that Pope Francis was chosen, many people were a bit upset with this, including myself. Many of the LGBT community were a bit taken aback by his statements. As you can see from the photo posted, he states that homosexuality is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. Well isn't ruining the lives of children by sexually molesting them also a destructive plan? If you practice homosexuality in the Vatican, in your churches --- shouldn't you be more lenient with the LGBT community? We're at least accountable and out - we at least admit we're gay or lesbian. We don't sweep our truth under the rug and show you a different face under a "red cloth". Pope Francis also stated that gays having children was considered child abuse. Child abuse? Really? He doesn't have the balls to admit what's brewing behind those closed doors and has the audacity to rant off that two loving people of the same sex are "abusing children" by having them. Now that's really gay.
To make matters even worse (and not to make you cringe), but the bishops told Catholics to celebrate holy week by attending an anti-gay march. You can read the article
here. How about we rally in front of every church for an ant-pedophile march? In fact, we should spread it around the world, for all people, gay, lesbian, bi, straight, transgendered to picket outside of every single Catholic church and protest against children being sexually molested by priests who have no self-control whatsoever.
John Becker writes, "This year, however, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is encouraging Catholics all across the country to add one more activity to that list. In addition to fasting, praying, and preparing for Easter, the bishops are asking their flock to take time out of their Holy Week observances, travel to Washington, D.C., and participate in a march and rally to protest the possibility that loving and committed same-sex couples might be granted the freedom to marry.
The events are scheduled for Tuesday, March 26, the day the Supreme Court will consider Hollingsworth vs. Perry, the challenge to Proposition 8. (The Court will hear United States v. Windsor, the challenge to the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," the following day.) It's being organized by the National Organization for Marriage, a blatantly partisan special interest group which infamously plotted to fragment the Democratic Party coalition by "[driving] a wedge between gays and blacks. Using Christianity's most sacred time of the year to promote homophobic bigotry and malicious discrimination? That's utterly contemptible. Every time I think the U.S. Catholic bishops can't possibly sink any lower into the cesspool of anti-gay bigotry, they find a new way to do exactly that. ...Jesus wept." You're right. I'm highly disgusted. You would shun Catholicism too, if you found out that one of your own kids were molested by a Catholic priest.
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