Clergy Month Quotes

Freethought Today, publication of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, every month presents two full pages of criminal cases involving scores of clergy and other religious leaders, hypocritical keepers of heterosexual family values, who are charged with sexual assault, rape, statutory rape, sodomy, coerced sex with parishioners and minors, indecent liberties with minors, molestation and sexual abuse of children (of both sexes), marriage or cohabitation with underage girls, financial embezzlement, fraud, theft, and other crimes.

About a hundred million years ago, the dinosaurs had everything their own way. They thought they knew all the answers. They thought they could hear the grass growing. Maybe they could. But according to Titsling and Boukanowski, their social life was a disgrace. They changed their sex every other month and used profane language, and at the age of three, at the very tender age of three, they would go steady in no uncertain manner and bring forth eggs as large as footballs! Without benefit of clergy or city hall. Extinction! That's what they asked for, that’s what they got.

Marvel comes quickly, cloaked in the mundane. It's the woman waking to the smell of smoke as fire spreads, miles away, through her brother's house. It's the sharp flash of recognition as a young man glimpses, in the ordinary hubbub, the stranger with whom he will share his life. It's a mother's dream of her baby, blue in the cold store, six months before he comes, stillborn, into the world. Even the Church Fathers admitted the category of marvelous- or mirabilis, as they knew it. For them it was an irksome classification. A grey area. Compare the marvel with it's less troublesome metaphysical kin. In the thirteenth century, the miracle reflected the steady-handed authorship of the divine- truth made manifest. Similarly magic, or magicus, demonstrated with tell-tale showmanship the desperate guile of the devil. The marvel, however, was of poor performance and tended, therefore, towards ambiguity. It took shape in the merely mortal sphere. It seemed to lack the requisite supernatural chutzpah. Here, the clergy were typically surplus to requirements. Yet, if less outwardly compelling, the marvel was also less easily contained than either the miraculous or the magical. It remained more elusive. More stubborn. And if finally reducible in time, with the erosions of memory, to rationalization, anecdote, drinking tale or woman's lore, the marvel also rarely failed to leave behind a certain residual uncertainty. A discomfiting sense of possibility. Or, on bolder occasions, an appetite for wonder.

Though Pius acted discreetly, he did not hide Hitler's attack plan under the proverbial bushel basket. During the second week of January 1940, a general fear gripped Western diplomats in rome as the pope's aides warned them of the German offensive, which Hitler had just rescheduled for the 14th. On the 10th, a Vatican prelate warned the Belgian ambassador at the Holy See, Adrien Nieuwenhuys, that the Germans would soon attack in the West. ... Pius had in fact already shared the warning, while shielding the source. On 9 January, Cardinal Maglione directed the papal agent in Brussels, Monsignor Clemente Micara, to warn the Belgians about a coming German attack. Six days later, Maglione sent a similar message to his agent in The Hague, Monsignor Paolo Giobbe, asking him to warn the Dutch. That same month, Pius made a veiled feint toward public protest. He wrote new details on Polish atrocities into Radio Vatican bulletins. But when Polish clergy protested that the broadcasts worsened the persecutions, Pius recommitted to public silence and secret action.

Month after month, as I continued speaking out about clergy sex abuse and posting cases on my database, hateful messages arrived in my inbox. Many of them began with ‘I'm a Christian and …’ or ‘I'm a Baptist and …’ before descending into a vomitous gush. The writers led with their faith and then spewed hate.

Richard Joseph’s seminal work on Nigerian governance—to which this book owes an intellectual debt—appeared in 1987 and a lively academic discussion of “prebendalism,” its core idea, continues right up to the present, though mostly in academic rather than policy circles.[5] Prebendalism and neopatrimonialism can exist anywhere; their essence is the privatization and exploitation of public resources by those who control the government and its bureaucracy.[6] By origin, “prebendal” refers to Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy assigned to cathedrals that were entitled to a share of the foundation’s income by virtue of their position—not as a return for the services they might or might not perform. The income itself is called a “prebend” and the recipient is called a “prebendary.” In the Nigerian context, prebendal describes the behavior of elites that access and share the government’s oil revenue, not because of their services to the state, but because they are entitled to do so. There is the expectation that prebendal beneficiaries will share their prebend with their patrons and their clients. This relationship, in which patrons distribute wealth to their clients, is often described as neopatrimonial.[7] Hence, prebendalism is intimately related to the neopatrimonial patronage-clientage organization of Nigerian society. Prebendal behavior is most salient among elites, but its spirit and that of neopatrimonialism extend throughout society. A policeman at a checkpoint is salaried. But because he controls the checkpoint, he is entitled to ask for a bribe, and does so: “What do you have for me today?” He is expected to share a portion of the bribe he receives with his boss or patron and with subordinates and family. The system is partly a product of poverty: the policeman at the checkpoint may not have received his salary for months, and, if he had, it is too small to support a family. So, his bribe collection is part of a system of work-arounds. This system of entitlements and sharing is unregulated except by various local customs and wide open to abuse.

Being wounded by a narcissistic pastor is a particularly painful trauma. Clergy hold a uniquely powerful role in our lives, and an experience of abuse (in whatever form) from a pastor or priest or ecclesial authority is a profound violation. Some will avoid acknowledging this trauma for months or years out of deference to a spiritual authority, second-guessing their own experience all the while. Others may acknowledge it but stew with rage and avoid the work of healing.