Child Molesting and the End to Salvation

When the Bishops were found to have taken every dodge to clear Pedophile Priests or to allow them to escape the long arm of the Law, well, people could not understand it in the least. Was it Corruption? Was it simply dull witted insularism where the Bishops only had it in mind to protect the Us’s from the Them’s? But the Bishops were powerful Bosses of the Church, and the Priests, well, just little worker ants in the system. Why did the Bishops care so much? Why didn’t the Bishops simply throw those little perverts to the Wolves – turn them in for prosecution, ex-communicate them and fire their asses. Burn down their damn houses!

But nobody thought for a moment about Church Doctrine. Remember, Jesus died for our sins. Forgiveness. Salvation by Faith, not Works. In a Theological Setup like that, really, isn’t one sin much like the next. Are not all sins to be forgiven. So, yes, while there is a particular horror about Child Molesting, from the standpoint of Doctrine, the Bishops could not treat it in any other way than as though it were a normal sin like lying, cheating, exploiting the poor, or the usual adult heterosexual sins … the normal Work-a-day Bread and Butter Sins of the Confessional. The ones the Priests say they’ve heard a thousand times.

So, anyway, the Bishops were defending the Pedophiles because they thought they were defending Doctrine. Salvation hung in the balance. If God would forgive those cocksuckers, He would forgive anybody. Isn’t that what everybody signed up for? Hey, if you don’t like Sinning, what did you become a Christian for?

In the Middle Ages if anybody questioned Catholic Doctrine, then the Heel would fall. Complaining Communities would be declared heretical ‘en masse’. If some arrests and convictions did not turn things around, then there would be more, and more, and more. If slaughtering the entire heretical community was what it would take to silence the Questioning of Doctrine, then that is what it took. Oh, and remember that the Big Complaint was never that the Bishops were Morally too strict. It was always about Corruption. And, yes, there were always a great many complaints that the hired Priests were … troublesome. You know, honestly, the Bishops never did believe in paying their Priests what decent well educated Human Beings should be paid. So they paid Second Rate and got Second Rate. But despite all that it still remained firmly in the Field of Salvation Doctrine that people could not simply withdraw the Benefits of Salvation from some Christians because the Sins considered inconvenient. Salvation was Salvation. There could be no picking or choosing, or it all would be lost. Wouldn’t it?

But now we have the Modern World and the Church was being taken to Court and losing. Defense of Doctrine was not a permitted defense in the Secular Courts. The Law recognized only Moral Responsibility. And the Church was losing big. Some Cities had to sell off more than half of their Schools and Hospitals to pay off the Sex Victims… who deserved all they got. Afterall, people cannot be expected to give out Blow Jobs for free. They stepped forward demanding to be paid for their services. So give them the money. They must have worked very hard for it. We can all live without schools and hospitals as long as we know that all the various sex acts had been paid for in full. Yes, we can never forget who the victims were in all this.

Oh, by the way, the Catholic Church is constitutionally decentralized. The Pope is ONLY the Bishop of Rome. He would take care of Rome, and the Bishops would take care of their Towns. The way this came down legally was that the Lawyers could not sue Rome for what was done in Cleveland. So the Bishops had to pay their own bills. So, how long, then, could we expect that a Bishop would defend Doctrine if it meant he would eventually go bankrupt and lose his entire Diocese. Rome was not helping. Indeed, Rome seemed as ready to throw the Sinners to the Wolves as anybody else. The Vatican had released self-serving Comments deploring the decline in American Morals… and then European Morals when just as much Pedophilia was found Over There.

So Pedophilia was selected out as being the One Unforgivable Sin. No Salvation for the Pedophile. No Forgiveness. Christ did not die for no dick up the ass.

But wait… what does that do to the whole Doctrine? Remember that the Bishops earlier were probably not defending those little cocksucking Priests because of any sense of loyalty or attachment. They probably wanted to flog them to death for creating so much trouble. But they saw it as their Duty as Bishops to defend Doctrine above all else.

Well, now the doctrine has been cracked.

The World hated Pedophiles and so the Pedophiles be damned.

But now isn’t All Sin back on the Table. Can the Church really just throw out only a corner piece of Doctrine? Now that a Line can be Crossed, what new Doctrine defines that line?

What exactly were we going for when we wanted Forgiveness of Sins? What did we think Salvation meant? Just the little Sins? Of course we could not be forgiven if we did anything seriously wrong. But that reduces Christian Salvation to just silliness.

Anyway, I’m happy. Paulist Doctrine has been renounced. But how long is the Church going to let it go without making the formal announcement that Salvation is no longer in play?

Maybe the Church will be cynical about it all. If nobody has noticed yet, maybe they never will. They will simply run the Church one way, insisting upon Moral Responsibility and Good Works, while still paying lip service to Forgiveness and Salvation. The Church will pretend there is still Salvation and Forgiveness, as long as nobody expects to get any of it. They will continue to Write the Checks against all the old abandoned Doctrines. But since all the Lawsuits, they just can’t cash them any more.