How far has humanity come in civilizing
ourselves? We have only to observe the
Holy Mother Church which had indulged in
high prelates living in magnificent opulence
a pope who experimented with a dynasty
when he fathered a son to become yet another
pope and bishops took wives and lovers until
celibacy was enforced as a sacred precept
when priests charged hefty sums for remission
of parishioners' penitence in reflection of their
mortal sins and no one spoke askance at lecherous
men of the cloth casually raping children and
their pious mothers, when the Holy See sought
the heretics in their midst, conversos accused
of secret underground ceremonies in their
original proscribed faiths and auto da fes
became public entertainment -- to the present
enlightened era where the Roman Catholic
Church publicly disowns its sexual molesters
eschews its ages-old characterization of
Jews as Christ-killer finally admitting the
Saviour was a Jew, and appointing a new
pope who though frowning on abortion is
prepared to forgive transgressors and to
acknowledge same-sex marriage while
washing the feet of the poor as an act of
personal penitence as he denounces the evil
of capitalism and conflict -- speaking out on
the harm we do as humanity to one another.
No comments:
Post a Comment