<% Option Explicit %> Hypocrisy 101: What the pope's "apology" is teaching the world about Christianity
Features

Editorials: Editoriality
Archives - Animations
Commentary
Pandora's Box!
Video
What Is?
Contact Us
Voices of the People
Home

  Hypocrisy 101: What the pope's "apology" is teaching the world about Christianity

by Lesley Hensell

Think back - way back - to your childhood. You've just socked your sibling in the snoot. Mom's shadow looms over you as she glares down and demands an apology.

You cast your eyes onto the floor, fidget, and quietly say, "I'm sorry."

And what were the magic words your Mom said to you then? "Sorry for what?" She made it clear that you had to explain exactly what you had done, in addition to the words of contrition. Her reasoning surely included the belief that confession is good for the soul.

Catholics also believe that confession is good for the soul. That's why so many of them visit their priests in the privacy of the confessional and enumerate their sins. But priests require the same level of detail as Moms, and those offering the confessions must say exactly what it is they've done and why they are sorry about it.

Which brings me to Pope John Paul II's alleged apology for sins committed by Catholics over the centuries. Yes, you read that right, he did not apologize for the sins of the Catholic church and its officials. He apologized for the sins of individual Catholics, most of them long-dead.

The pope's apology was more of a word-find activity than a statement of truth. With broad phrases and euphemisms galore, the pope further insulted the memories of those to whom the church owes its apologies. Check out these ridiculous "I'm sorries," which are for:

  • "The suffering endured by the people of Israel." The wording of this phrase makes it sound as though Jews were going through a famine or perhaps an epidemic. Of course, the church denies the truth behind the statement - that Pope Pius actually had a hand in the Holocaust by conspiring with the Nazis.
  • "Methods of violence and intolerance used in the past to evangelize." I learned a long time ago that your apology doesn't mean much when you water it down with excuses and alleged rationale. This statement is supposed to reflect the Catholic church's official acts of oppression and murder during the Crusades. Isn't it astounding that, hundreds of years later, the church still cannot admit what it did?
  • "Force in the service of truth." Again, who can believe that the church is sorry for countless murders and abhorrent torture when it still sticks to the story that these unforgivable acts were "in the service of truth?" This lame statement refers to the Inquisition, when even the elderly and small children suffered tortures such as burning at the stake and the rack.

    Apologies mean nothing when those offering them refuse to acknowledge the truth. The truth is that the Catholic church itself - its leaders, including several popes - have sentenced thousands upon thousands to death for daring to be Protestants, Muslims and Jews.

    Yet the pope's alleged apology places blame anywhere else it can. Referring to the Crusades and the Inquisition, the "apology" stated: "Isn't it a bit too easy to judge people of the past by the conscience of today . . . almost as if moral conscience were not situated in time?"

    Oh, come on. When was it ever OK to murder innocent people? When did Jesus say that it was fine to knock off someone who had different beliefs than you?

    Regarding the Holocaust, the Pope said the slaughter of millions of Jews and other innocents "was certainly the result of the pagan ideology of Nazism." What makes this statement particularly bogus is the praise that was continually heaped on Catholicism by Hitler and his cronies, who even modeled the society of the elite SS killing forces after the Jesuits.

    Apologies in and of themselves are not particularly important. After all, they change nothing. But acknowledgement of the truth, which often leads to improved patterns of behavior, is crucial in any large organization. Clearly, the Catholic church has never learned its lesson. We're not talking about ancient history here. Some of the church's atrocities have been carried out in the last century.

    Even now, a refusal to acknowledge a cancer within the Catholic church is destroying the lives of innocents. Rather than undertake the drastic action needed to prevent rampant molestation of young boys around the world, the church simply keeps the problem hidden. By some estimates, the Catholic church has paid out upward of $1 billion to settle or avoid legal action linked to molestation of children by priests in the United States alone. Unfortunately, the church values silence on the issue over the health and safety of its people.

    Will the church blame that on its parishioners as well, rather than place the blame on its officials? Probably so. After all, it's the parishioners' tithes that are paying for priests' sickening sins. The church holds itself to much lesser standards than its people, who must fully confess their bad deeds rather than hide them from view, making excuses all the while.

    What does this teach the world about Christianity? Nothing positive, that's for sure. In no way do the Catholic church's actions reflect the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, which call for honesty and truth, as well as confession and forgiveness. Unfortunately for true Christians, the church's bad behaviors reflect poorly on all believers and make Catholics out to be as hypocritical as the leaders they glorify for misguided reasons.

    God help us when one of the most powerful religious establishments in the world, no matter its sect or denomination, can't admit to the truth.

    •