Annie Laurie Gaylor: Catholic Statement Today Caricatures Itself

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-President of the Freedom of Religion Foundation, takes on the Vatican’s decision to make ordaining women a crime equal to raping children.

Today it was reported that the Vatican considers the ordination of women as priests to be as “grave” an offense as pedophilia in the ranks of its priesthood. The headline,“Vatican: Ordaining women as bad as pedophilia,” could have been written by the editors of The Onion.

At a Thursday news conference at the Vatican, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, who handles sexual abuse cases, listed what the Vatican calls the “more grave delicts” or offenses. These include:

* Sexual abuse and pornography
* Attempted ordination of women
* Heresy
* Apostasy
* Schism

(The Catholic sense of proportion is to rate criminal, premeditated, predatory assaults against children as the equivalent of ending sex discrimination in the priesthood and no worse than “apostasy and schism.”)

Scicluna said: “Sexual abuse and pornography are more grave delicts, they are an egregious violation of moral law. Attempted ordination of women is grave, but on another level, it is a wound that is an attempt against the Catholic faith on the sacramental orders.” (In order words, it’s apparently even worse! What’s a “moral violation” against a helpless child compared to the horror of a woman at the altar?)

Those 59% of U.S. Catholics who favor the ordination of women ought to “vote with their feet.” Why do liberal and thoughtful Catholics cling to this corrupt and antediluvian institution? Women don’t just hold up half the sky, they hold up the pillars of the Catholic Church with their faithful support and church attendance. Those in the Catholic pews lend their credibility, not just their money, and therefore become part of the problem.

Why would any one wish to be on the side of a church which has institutionalized child abuse and its cover-up, and now compounds its injury to women by the insult of declaring that their inclusion in the priesthood would be just as bad as a priest raping a 12 year old?

The Catholic Church is pathetically blind to its own sins. It still doesn’t require mandatory reporting of suspected crimes to civil authorities by bishops. It calls the prospect of a woman priest as bad as a male priest who has actually used his “man of God” prestige to systemically prey, rape, molest and pillage minors.

The Catholic Church’s timing is very poor. The Vatican made this utterly odious comparison the very same week the world learned that the former bishop of Bruges, Belgium, had systematically sexually abused his own nephew for years. The New York Times reported earlier in the week that the 42-year-old nephew of Roger Vangheluwe helped to force his resignation in April by threatening to go public with the abuse. (Since his resignation, nearly 500 have come forward in Belgium to report abuse by priests.) According to the logic of the Church, a woman priest would be just as immoral as its bishop, who wasn’t just a pedophile and child molester, but an incest abuser!

The reason the Catholic Church attracts (and apparently is run by) so many perverts is because it perverts human nature by devaluing women.

Related articles:

1. In Brief: Vatican Rules: Ordaining Women Priests a Crime Like Sex Abuse of Children
2. In Brief: Argentine Priest to be Prosecuted by Catholic Church
3. Penn & Teller Episode About Catholic Church – Free Online!
4. Catholic Sex Abuse Accusations Spread Across Europe
5. Catholic Bishop: Children Want to Be Sexually Abused