Yes, it was soapy.
Yes, I was too young to watch and I watched anyway. Hey, I watched Shogun and this was even nuttier than that.
Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it: I was only 13 and the TV mini serie The Thorn Bird made me realized that what I was taught to be a congregation of saintly men giving their lives to the ideals of Christ like St-Francis of Assises was, in fact, only a congregation of men. Warts, drunks and all.
I didn't read Stendhal yet, I didn't know that ambitious young priest were standard fare in Literature. But what I did understand then was that the Church was an assembly of guys that wanted power, riches and played politics with the best of them. They also had the privilege, the chance to don a robe that gives them instant credibility and innocence however dirty their hands.
I was in a button down uniforms, girls only catholic schools and we had to confess our sins every months to a priest. He didn't know our names, we didn't know his. And what you read before is what I told that priest at 13, after watching Richard Chamberlain getting it down with some sweet lass half his age.
I did not believe that this melodramatic drivel was anything but, however it opened the door to doubt.
And without doubt, there is no free will... And there is no real faith...
So you can understand how the abuse crisis do no surprise me.
It is only how they treat their victims that does....
I was a victim of abuse. This is what the Pope must do to stop it'
Saturday, 20 March 2010
It was not being raped by a priest at the age of 14 that shattered my faith; it was the horrifying realisation that the Catholic Church had wilfully, knowingly abandoned me to it, the knowledge that they had ordained the priest who abused me despite knowing he was a paedophile and set him free to abuse with near impunity, ignoring all complaints.
And so it is difficult not to be cynical about the likely merit of the pastoral letter that Pope Benedict XVI will publish today.
