h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I tried to add a comment in your blog site but for some inexplicable reason (to me at least) a SQL error occured, at least that's what I think it said. It was the entry about the Catholic church and paedophiles.

I was going to say that people generally find it easier to turn a blind eye rather than stick their heads over the wall and say something. Anything for a quiet and safe life. Don't rock the boat and all that sort of thing. Don't draw attention to yourself or alienate yourself from the majority. Don't become an outcast from society! So people turn a blind-eye.

It amused me but also somewhat worried me that when I saw the up-standing Sun reading masses demonstrating against paedophiles (and anything else beginning with paedo-) they spelt the words Government as "Goverment" and Parliament as "Parlament" and I thought "Dear God, what the hell does these people know about it?" What the tabloids told them to think I suppose.

Worrying.

Bah, AARGH, and DAMN!

I like people commenting on my blog. Dammit. I have a monkey to beat now.

Anyway, onto the topic at hand. Yes, you are precisely right. But...it's also incredibly frightening. I have a personal dislike for the Catholic church, so I try my best to remain objective...but this is just stupid! And not only stupid, it's abusive! I know it's easier to keep one's head down when faced with an organisation as large as the Vatican...but surely there are limits. It's one of the few things that still shocks me...that this is essentially being ignored. Most people work along the premise that if you know about a crime as severe as child abuse, and don't speak out against it, you are as guilty as the person that perpetrated the crime. From the looks of it, the Vatican are essentially a paedophile ring...and it's coming across like the Pope farted in public.



Hypocrisy in modern society. Who would have guessed it.

The problem is this: the Vatican are extremely powerful, politically and financially and always have been historically. It was the Vatican that gave the go ahead for the Norman invasion of England. The Vatican who gave the go ahead for the land-grabbing crusades - it had very little to do with the Muslim faith and everything to do with land and power, and so on and so forth throughout history. They introduced many lands to Christianity with the sword - the Knights Templar and the Inquisistion for example.

The Pope, as so-called head of the church, should do more and the press and people should pressure him into more positive action. It makes me laugh that the Pope is infallible as were all popes before him until 1860 or something (which was when the then pope decided that he was infallible!) and yet they often disagree with each other!

The Catholic church is responsible for many crimes - from the despicable way they treated Galileo to turning a blind eye to paedophiles. It will catch up with them one day for nothing lasts forever.

I suspect the problem with the blog site lies in my computer rather than your site. I often get Java Script errors come up; the thing I use at home is old and knackered and unfortunately we can't afford to get a new one yet so we have to make do with that.

The thing is, I know all that. Yet it still astounds me, that the most despicable crime on the face of the earth has been committed on a mass scale, and yet, they still aren't being pulled up to code. Perhaps they are on the official side, but not in terms of society. No one seems to be getting outraged by it all. I find it very weird...especially seeing as most people aren't religious in any way these days.

Perhaps because they have such a huge following of devout believers. I agree that it is frankly very strange that there hasn't been any obvious reprimands or court cases except when they couldn't hide the guilty any longer.

There are still a lot of very Catholic countries out there and millions of people who follow the pope's every word. That can have a huge influence on policies and Governments who are frightened of upsetting such a large voting base. Perhaps I'm just too cynical.