Liar, Liar, Faith on Fire

The news of the continuing Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal is rather unending and new facts about what certain figures did and did not do, what they knew and when they knew it, and what the current authorities are planning to do about these issues. There is so much scandal here it makes Nixon look insignificant. And the scale only increases and stories of abuse are found in most every continent.

What kind of credibility can such an organization have when it comes to cases of morality and public policy? When it comes right down to it, the Catholic hierarchy has proven they don't care about morals, but about their power. One need only consider medieval history with its crusades and inquisitions to gain lands and break resistance against the authority of the Pope.

And of course, there is lying for power. Recently, the Pope made a pilgrimage to the Shroud of Turin. This is a well-demonstrated medieval fake, yet

He said that keeping up that hope is the message of the Shroud of Turin, in which disciples see their sufferings "mirrored" in the suffering of Christ, CNA reported.

The shroud is a message of hope, mirroring the suffering of Christ? How is a known forgery, produced in order to bilk people of their money a symbol of hope? It's a symbol of corruption and greed, and the Pope wishes to use it as a source of religious power. He wants to use a lie, a proved lie at that, as justification for faith.

If your faith is dependent upon medieval lies, you have another thing coming.

Then again, there is a long history of using lies to get people to believe what they want you to in the Christian tradition. For example, Eusebius, a Christian historian in the fourth century, believed that telling falsehood was good for the state. Eusebius is also one to use forged documents for his points, such as letters from Jesus (History of the Church, 1.13), and he may be the creator of the testimony of Jesus in Josephus (the Testimonium Flavianum).

Apparently, that ninth commandment is not so unbreakable, at least in a long line of tradition by an organization that now tries its best to cover up the molestation of children by its priests, silenced by its bishops and cardinals, and now one of those cardinals is pope. I guess when your system is this corrupt, veneration of false idols is hardly a problem.