The great happy Vatican death spiral, By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Is it almost time? Can we finally start making preparations, send out a global Evite welcoming millions to a grand ritual down by the beach, a fantastic ceremony featuring copious amounts of fire and cake, dancing and vodka, Shakti icons and free condoms for all?

Verily, is the Catholic Church and its dank, nefarious heart, the Vatican, with its attendant red-robed apologists, unreformed child rapists and a leader who is, as Richard Dawkins rightly declares, "a leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds ... a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence," is it safe to say this archaic and vile institution is finally nearing its end?

How grand to imagine -- even for a moment, even if you already sense it's damn near impossible, even if you think the Church still does some good in the world, somewhere -- how utterly uplifting to think that finally, after all these centuries of lies and oppression, intolerance and cover-up, that one of the most dangerous, insular religious monoliths in the world could come tumbling down in a smoldering heap, with something fluid, feminine and utterly transformational to spring up in its place.

You want a true second coming? A big, happy slap of the Rapture? There you go. ...

(click here to read the rest)

(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/14/notes041410.DTL&nl=fix)

Mark Morford's new book, 'The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism,' is now available at daringspectacle.com and Amazon. Join Mark on Facebook and Twitter, or email him.

[Hekate]

1. "with something fluid, feminine and utterly transformational to spring up in its place"

What a terrific idea. Maybe, after all we've been through, could this be the paradigm shift envisioned by Riane Eisler in "The Chalice and the Blade"?

What an amazing thought for the wee small hours of the morning.

edited to add: Of course this is just a dream, as Morford points out in the rest of his article. Still, a happy thought.

Morford's recounting of the latest stomach-turning scandals make me wonder what my father and his two sibs endured during their stay in a Colorado RC orphanage in the early 1920s. I only heard scraps from my mother when I was growing up, though she knew more than she said. He was a rebellious 5 year old, and I think he was physically abused. He didn't reveal anything sexual about his childhood until he started going senile -- but he grew up to molest me, so he may have been twisted that way early on.

Hekate

[SpiralHawk]

2. "At least we're not into faux lesbian wide-stance diaper bondage, like republicons." - Vatican

"So STFU, and appreciate our moral virtues, such as they are." - Vatican

[eridani]

3. If the Borgia popes didn't do the Church in, this scandal surely won't n/t

[Donnachaidh]

11. yup - totally agree. But it won't stop the blustering chants of

*look, the Vatican is going to fall* opinionators who obviously haven't a clue as to the history of the Church.

[Daemonaquila]

16. ONLY if the people look away and let it be.

What a terribly defeatist attitude. Every institution - every filthy government, church, or corporation - can be brought down. That is, unless people decide it's impossible, or look away, or decide they're too busy to make it their problem, or... Ratz and friends are counting on that.

In the days of the Borgia popes most of the population was illiterate or close to it, there was no mass media and certainly no community-controlled media to discuss issues and action, and most people had no meaningful way to challenge church power through the courts or in any other venue. That is not the case today.

[Donnachaidh]

18. I believe better people before you tried and FAILED.

Like John Knox, Martin Luther, etc.

Rail all you want - this is not going to bring the Church down. Period.

[Zix]

26. Papatine actually looks more benevolent than Ratso in that pic.

Scarily enough...

[xchrom]

4. Recommend -- ordaining women and a real reformation

Without the opus dei lunacy.

[madokie]

5. Or do as many of us have done over the years

quit reading the book and believing in its every word. We're no different than that bug that hit your windshield, we're here until we die and then thats that, nothing more out there.

[Kolesar]

9. There is more out there

You take pride in the fact that you are compassionate to other humans and thoughtful of protecting Earth.

[malaise]

6. Nice read

We can hope.

[diddlysquat]

7. My favorite part::

Wrong. The Rapture is when the major karmic roadblocks of man -- all the Vaticans, popes, temples, cults, megachurches and even most organized religions all stagger and collapse under the weight of their inherent hypocrisy, all the oppressed sexuality, the homophobia, misogyny, fear of science, the denial of true spiritual source.

You could call it one of the greatest ironies of man: Only when our supposedly "holy" dogmas, institutions and leaders fail, can the human soul ever truly be free.

[Kolesar]

8. The Catholics Rats organized against Kerry because he was not sufficiently cruel to the Moslems

Ratzenberger was part of the effort to organize Catholics against Senator Kerry in 2004. I cannot believe that their real motivation was only abortion. They are right wingers and adopted the Bush philosophy of Old Testament cruelty.

[Donnachaidh]

12. link please?

I'd never heard this about Ratzi -- have you a credible source?

[Kolesar]

13. It's a six year old story

The link and the email probably died with my old Seagate drive. I don't keep a comprehensive web site index of Catholic RW politics.

[Donnachaidh]

17. and Google is unavailable?

Seriously, you make allegations and then don't back them up with credible links?

[madokie]

21. I remember it too

but me being me I don't have a link for you either, probably been scrubbed by now anyway.

I'm a proud non religious person fixing to find out tomorrow what kind of lung cancer I have. I'm going to my grave knowing full well I'm not going to a heaven or a hell, maybe back here to harass a few dickheads though :-)

[Kolesar]

23. So, you'll be back late tomorrow, I hope...

good luck, or whatever the correct non-mystical term is.

[Hekate]

25. I'm sorry to hear that, madokie. This is scary news but I'll keep a good thought for you

It can't hurt, you know ;-) (my "good thought", I mean).

I have a nicotine-soaked friend who is surviving after surgery. I don't know how many packs a day BH smoked in his life, but given the color of his fingers, I'd say considerable. He finally lost part of a lung and finally quit.

Hang in there. I believe more in reincarnation than I do heaven and hell, but I also don't believe in shuffling off this mortal coil any sooner than we have to. :hug:

Hekate

[Kolesar]

22. I pissed off a downstate Republican when I posted it on a major environmental group's listserve

If those aholes had not organized against Kerry, Kerry probably would have won Ohio and the electoral college in 2004. The margin was only 130,000 votes, IIRC.

[glitch]

27. Google is also your friend. nt

[rug]

10. "The answer is, of course, almost zilch. There is no chance whatsoever. "

[lunatica]

14. Not to worry. If the Catholic Church falls there will be

tens of thousands of wannabe popes who will start their own cults deifying themselves and pedophilia will not suddenly disappear.

[Christa]

15. K & R nt

[SidDithers]

19. K&R...

Morford is one of the best.

Sid

[Kablooie]

20. Better keep the buildings though. Hell of a lot of great artwork there.

[Hekate]

24. Think of the beautiful museums they'd make. It would be sad to disperse all the treasures....

... to individual collectors. I'm imagining sales to museums, and traveling exhibits, and so on. Any clergy not in prison could retrain as curators -- in fact, given the sheer size of the holdings, I'm sure there are any number of well-qualified art and antiquities curators and administrators among them, if they could just get their heads around their new roles.

I never thought I'd be this disgusted at a church that is only mine by ancestry, but I reached the tipping-point this past month, as it became apparent that the corruption goes right to the top.

Oliphant is spot on.

Hekate

[ZeitgeistObserver]

28. I think money will take the church out, not sex.

Although this certainly sets the stage for it. Lot's of hankey-pankey at the Vatican Bank and now they'll have to cough up big-time.