Living here in Boston, I have been bombarded daily with tales of utter perversion and depravity in the Catholic Church. One almost grows numb from it (it's incredibly sad that one doesn't even bat an eye to child abuse allegations after a while).
But the news this week of additional coverups that took place in recent years takes the cake. Tales of priests giving cocaine to young people (and snorting quite a bit of it themselves), luring young people into sexual play as a way of becoming closer to God, beating their housekeepers. It goes on and on. Just go to the Boston Globe Website for loads of new findings (http://www.boston.com/globe/).
Now, what bothers me to no end is the fact that this stuff is going on (has for decades) and the Cardinal Bernard Law is still in power. People bow and pray at the church overseen by a man who knew that children were being raped and did nothing at all to stop it and everything to cover it up. If these events had been taking place in any other organization, it would have been shut down completely and swiftly. Out of business. If this kind of thing was going on (to this, or much lesser, extent) in the Boy Scouts, a dance school, a day care, it would be game over.
It makes me so mad.
Look at some of these new bits of info learned via documentation taken from the Archdiocese of Boston (via the Boston Globe). This dude, Rev. Meffan takes the cake...
"At least three women, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, charged that the Rev. Robert Meffan had sexually abused them 25 years earlier under the guise of spiritual counseling."
"The priest encouraged them to be ''brides of Christ'' and described himself as ''the second coming of Christ,'' according to the files. The women said that Meffan, now retired, regularly invited them to his bedroom where he encouraged them to ''link spiritual stages with sexual acts,'' including the fondling and kissing of genitals."
"In an interview yesterday, Meffan acknowledged the sexual contact with the girls. "'I was trying to get them to love Christ even more intimately and even more closely,'' Meffan said. ''They were wonderful girls'.""
"''What I was trying to show them is that Christ is human and you should love him as a human being,'' said Meffan, 73, reached by phone at his Carver home. ''Don't think he's up there and he's spiritual and he's not human and physical. He's human, he's physical. That's what I was trying to point out to them. I felt that by having this little bit of intimacy with them that this is what it would be like with Christ.''"
Yet, Bernard Law had nothing but kind words to say about Meffan...
"But despite those complaints, and a senior church official's conclusion that Meffan was unbalanced, Cardinal Bernard F. Law in 1996 had warm words for the priest as he approved his retirement. ''Without doubt over these years of generous care, the lives and hearts of many people have been touched by your sharing of the Lord's Spirit. We are truly grateful,'' Law wrote."
Someone tell me why this asshole Bernard Law is still working in any capacity whatsoever? He is by default as corrupt as any of the perverts that he has helped to cover up. He has aided and abetted the abuse of literally hundreds of children. I swear from the avalanche of unearthed stories similar to this, I am starting to wonder if the Catholic Church is not some secret society of pedophiles. I know damn well that there are more good priests than there are bad, but Jesus, the ratio is way more out of whack than should be tolerated.
Someone close this shit down quick, like a Norwalk-infested Disney cruise ship, and keep it shut down until it is rid of its sickness.
