Monday, September 9, 2013

Religious Discrimination or Racial Discrimination In Disguise?

I just find it odd that when a rogue, extremist Muslim group killed around 3,000 people, now mainstream America hates all Muslims, and doesn’t trust any of them, even those who have been in this country for generations, even those who have served in the military.

Yet, tens of thousands of children around the world have been molested by priests of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.That’s tens, if not dozens  of times more lives ruined than those killed on 9-11. Sure, you could say at least they weren’t killed. But their lives were wrecked, and they were left emotionally and psychologically scarred. Not by an extremist group, either; this is as mainstream Christian as you can get. Not only have these priests for the most part not been disciplined by the church, in most cases the Vatican pays for their legal defense, and even helps them flee the countries they live in if necessary. Again, not a splinter group, not rogues, not “extremists” - mainstream Catholic priests, supported by the Vatican. Bear in mind that if you’re Catholic, and you tithe, you’ve contributed to the legal defense of child molesters. Think about that for a minute.


Anyway, people get irate about Muslims wanting to build a mosque pretty much anywhere, but don’t give it a second thought when they see a priest. (Personally, I don’t want my kids around a priest, and I’d be tempted to organize a protest against proposed construction of a Catholic church near a daycare center or elementary school.)

Why is that? I think a lot of it is because people fear what is different. They’re comfortable with Christianity and white people. They’ve gotten used to being around Hispanic, black and Asian people. Arabs are still “foreign” in a lot of folks’ eyes. It’s easier to hate what’s different. If they acknowledge just how embedded child molestation is in the priesthood, they’d be forced to reexamine their own beliefs and their own Christianity. But they don’t want to be seen as racists, so they focus their rhetoric on Muslims, not Arabs.

Of course, I could write an entire post about the atrocities that are committed and shrugged off in the name of Islam, too, but at the moment, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy.

I’ll leave you with a Christian scripture to ponder:
Matthew 7:5:

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye: and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brothers eye.