The other day I mentioned my passionate conviction that if there was anything to them (besides being one more front for bashing feminism) then so-called Men’s Rights groups should be taking the lead in calling for investigation, prosecution, exposition, and shaming of the systematic abuse of boys by priests in the Catholic church.
In that post I briefly mentioned that evidence of abuse of women and girls might turn up as well. Sounds like that other shoe has now dropped — on my non-figleaf Facebook account I found the following link from my progressive but also sensibly-religious sister-in-law.
Angela Bonavoglia: The Catholic Church: Abusing, Endangering, And Intimidating Women
It was indeed outrageous that Reverend Raniero Cantalamessa, in his Good Friday homily at St. Peter’s Basilica, with Pope Benedict in eyeshot, compared the public denunciation of the Catholic Church hierarchy for harboring child molesting priests to the homicidal viciousness of anti-Semitism.
But there was another reason to be troubled by that homily: Cantalamessa also talked about the need to end violence against women, which is crucial, but he did so without any acknowledgment of the Church’s own culpability in the abuse, endangerment, and intimidation of women.
Cantalamessa talked about the need to end violence against women, which is crucial, but he did so without any acknowledgment of the Church’s own culpability in the abuse, endangerment, and intimidation of women.
Bonavoglia goes on to point out that in addition to what amounted to casual disregard for female victims as well as male ones, these are the same people who absolutely condemn birth control, abortion, and use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
If my sister-in-law is ticked off enough to post about this, publicly, on Facebook, then resentment and revulsion has got to be running pretty deep in the rank and file
