I have participated in so many protests throughout the course of my life that I don't even remember my first one. I'm pretty sure it might have been the day I skipped high school with friends to go to Boise to protest the fact that Idaho did not recognize Martin Luther King Day, but there might have been a protest or two prior to that, because my mother was a radical before she became a beat down agoraphobic.
To me, protesting has always been one of the best ways to let the power structure know how you truly feel about an issue. There is nothing more powerful, or more frightening, than hundreds or thousands of pissed off people showing up to let you know exactly what's wrong with a given situation or issue. I am a fan of protesting, but lately there is one group of protestors that I'm feeling should have their protesting license yanked.
Every weekday I drive past Planned Parenthood to retrieve my youngest from preschool. About half of the time, there are protestors holding various signage. I usually mutter phrases of vile hatred under my breath about them needing to mind their own fucking business, or how dare they harass women going in for medical treatment since abortion is only a very tiny percentage of what Planned Parenthood actually does, or even, that men shouldn't have the right protest at all because they don't have vaginas to deal with. The group bugging me the worst lately are the Catholics.
I grew up with Catholics, a certain percentage of my family is Catholic, and I'm well versed on Catholic dogma. I know what the beliefs, customs and practices are, and I have nothing against anyone who is Catholic. Whatever inspires you to go on from day to day, more power to you. However, between the Catholics protesting in front of Planned Parenthood and the Catholic Church's continued effort to make contraception exempt from healthcare legislation, it's time for someone to call this church on its moral hypocrisy.
How dare any institution that is responsible for the systematic rape of children over decade after decade lecture me on what is moral. The church was aware that they had priests who were raping children, yet instead of stepping in to stop it, they moved the priests to a whole new crop of children to rape. Then when those children became very damaged adults and tried to take the issue public, the Catholic Church retaliated against them and their families. I have seen the stories of some of these victims and it sickens one to the core. One story I will never forget is that of a 54 year old man whose life, from the age of 7, was a nightmare. He was repeatedly raped by his local priest for years. When he tried to tell his parents, they punished him, so he never spoke of the abuse until he joined a lawsuit against the church when he was in his early 50s. After the abuse ended, with a priest transfer, he went on to have two broken marriages, three kids he barely spoke too, floated from job to job, and was an alcoholic. Despite, finally getting some acknowledgement of the wrong that had been forced upon him, the damage was done, and I wonder today if that man is even still alive.
I think of that man, who had he lived a childhood without being raped, probably would have been a proud man with a fulfilling life, whenever I see those protestors carrying their Virgin Mary statues and praying in front of Planned Parenthood or when I read articles where a Catholic Church official is talking about how immoral it is to have employers pay for a female employee's birth control pills, like it's any of their fucking business in the first place.
I know the Catholic Church is in damage control mode right now; electing a South American pope to keep their Hispanic churches from bleeding members, which it has been doing for the past 10 years since the child rape scandal broke, and paying off lawsuits, while excommunicating a rapist priest here and there, but then they shoot themselves in the foot by continuing to exercise influence they just don't have anymore. They also seem to let their ego get in the way by giving someone like Cardinal Roger Mahoney a slap on the wrist, then flying him to Rome to vote in the papal conclave. It's as if the church is only doling out punishments to repair its image in the press, but is not at all interested in the systemic changes that need to take place in order to make it a worthy institution.
The sad thing is that, like most systems that have become corrupt and bloated, it will not see its own death coming. On the tip of my brain, I know at least a dozen, once devout, Catholics that have left the church and want nothing to do with them. Most of it has been due to the child rape issue, but nearly half of the people I know who have left the church are women who are tired of hearing that they are only good for breeding and obedience, and that no matter how hard they try, they will never be good enough to become leaders within their faith.
In the second decade of the new millennium, there are a few things we know. We know that child rape is the worst thing in the world, women have the right to choose how many children they want to have, and no human being, no matter who they are, is infallible. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church finds itself on the wrong side of the modern world, and it needs to take a long, hard look at itself in order to determine how it will survive into the future. Until then, the church needs to stop believing that they still hold the power to influence policy, particularly when it comes to issues of morality.
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