Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

Pope John Paul II - not a well man

According to a new book, Pope John Paul II regularly whipped himself. At other times, and in spite of illness, he slept on a bare floor. This, apparently, makes him eligible for sainthood.

To the faithful, the self-flagellation and hardship, in emulation of Christ’s suffering, are heroic. But outside the warped logic of faith, is there any other context in which this kind of behaviour wouldn’t be regarded as unbalanced?

The details of the late Pope’s masochism come in a new book, Why He Is a Saint: the Real John Paul II. It’s by Vatican official Monsignor Slawomir Oder who will be in charge of the process that will probably end in John Paul II’s canonisation (so it’s probably not a very balanced view of the erstwhile Pontiff).

There could be no clearer illustration of how religious and real-world perspectives do not align.

To the faithful Roman Catholic, John Paul II’s actions demonstrate devotion and courage.

To the ordinary human being, such behaviour seems suspiciously deviant. Indulging in such masochism suggests mental disorder, perhaps with sexual overtones. Masochism, after all, frequently has sexual implications, and in a sect that imposes lifelong celibacy (in theory) on its priests, one might expect many different manifestations of aberrant psychosexual pathology.

Even without such dark overtones, this behaviour still seems odd. To deliberately hurt oneself in emulation of a character in a fictional story is hardly normal, is it? What would we make, for example, of a teenager who chose to live in a wardrobe to honour the story of Narnia? That’s right – we’d get them help. And that’s without them self-harming – a sure sign of psychological issues.

This wouldn’t be the first time that behaviour which would seem odd or unacceptable to society at large is excused by religious adherence. There is a broad spectrum ranging from violent jihad to the Church of England’s recent fight to protect its ‘right’ to discriminate against homosexuals. Right now, in Kansas, a man is claiming that his religious beliefs left him no choice but to murder a doctor.

It’s also worth remembering that, when he wasn’t enjoying a sound self-whipping, Pope John Paul II lived in an environment of fantastic wealth and privilege.

Still, the Roman Catholic church has elevated people to sainthood on any number of feeble premises. It’s a form of marketing. By making people saints, you’re saying, ‘See how our church contains so many good and righteous people’. It helps counter the bad press the church gets for its paedophile priests and its effective genocide-by-AIDS in Africa.

Most organised religions are fundamentally bizarre. They involve a wholesale acceptance of strange and improbable ideas. Most of the time, we let this slide, because many of these ideas have become entrenched as part of the whole patchwork that is our mythological and historical landscape.

But occasionally, something crops up that makes you step back and think, “wow, now that’s weird”. This is one of those occasions, and it’s the clearest sign you could ask for of the gulf between faith and the real world.

A blanket lifting of excommunications by the Pope has had the effect of bringing back into the Roman Catholic church a bishop who also happens to be a notorious Holocaust denier.

Richard Williamson, from Britain, was one of four bishops appointed more than 20 years ago by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was himself ousted from the Roman Catholic church for his refusal to accept ‘liberal’ reforms such as the abandoning of the Latin Mass.

Now Williamson is back in the club, in spite of the fact that he is a forthright Nazi apologist. According to the BBC:

Bishop Richard Williamson recently told Swedish TV: “I believe there were no gas chambers. I think that two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers.”

The Vatican has said that the four bishops – who also include two Frenchmen and one Argentinian – have agreed to accept current Catholic teachings and papal authority. And that’s enough to save them from everlasting torment. Aligning themselves with some of the greatest mass murderers in history isn’t a problem, it seems.

Clearly the Roman Catholic church will take anyone these days. Maybe it’s a reaction to their dwindling numbers.

One has to wonder about the morality and ethics of a sect where a willingness to accept dogma and the word of the boss is deemed far more important than, say, the truth. Or simple decency. Or, for that matter, morals.

The Roman Catholic church was always far too cozy with the Nazis. During the war, the Pope liked to send Hitler birthday greetings and there is plenty of evidence of colusion. After the war, the Vatican was implicated in helping leading Nazis to escape. But one would have hoped that they’d have got over their infatuation with (other) vicious totalitarian regimes. Not entirely, it seems.

Speaking on his US tour, the Pope has recalled some of the horrors of his own past. But only some.

While in New York, the Pope addressed a Seminary in Yonkers and said:[photopress:ratzinger_nazi_youth.jpg,full,alignright]

“My own years as a teenager were marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers.”

It turns out he was talking about Nazism, a cause he briefly served, and not about Roman Catholicism, his current brand of totalitarianism. He went on to praise respect for human rights. Really? What, like the right to control one’s own fertility? Like the right to use condoms to reduce the risk of AIDS? No, thought not. So I guess he favours only some human rights.

The Vatican is asking Roman Catholics everywhere to indulge in a prayer marathon in order to rid the church of the sin of child abuse. Yeah, that’ll work…

The Roman Catholic church is displaying yet again how remote it is from the real world. It has come up with a novel way of atoning for its crimes – specifically, the abuse committed by some of its priests against the young people in their charge.

Most sane people would see long jail terms for the perpetrators as a reasonable start. Removing ‘celibate’ religious extremists from positions of authority over vulnerable children would be another good move.

But no. The church has decided that Catholics everywhere should bend the knee in self-abasement to atone for the pervert priests. Never mind that the fault lies with an upper hierarchy more concerned with covering its tracks and maintaining a public image than in discovering the truth of its own members’ crimes. The top brass has decided that the blame and shame must be carried by all Catholics.

The initiative is the work of Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, though it is generally held that it must have the approval of Pope Benedict. The atonement will take the form of a prayer marathon. And a fat lot of good that will do the people whose lives have been affected.

Some recompense has been forthcoming in the US, with around $2 billion having been paid by the church to its victims. There are actions impending or in progress elsewhere, too. I can’t image that money will ever make up for the damage done. But at least it’s a honest response.

Getting ordinary Catholics to indulge the church in a pointless act of ‘adoration’ would be laughably silly if not for the context. As it is, it is dishonest, pointless and self-adoring.