** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
A Cornucopia of Death
By Arianna Huffington, AlterNet
Posted on April 12, 2005, Printed on April 14, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21738/
Paint the last month black. It's been an orgy of
mourning; a cornucopia of death. We've had Terri
Schiavo, Pope John Paul, Prince Rainier, and Charles
and Camilla's wedding--which felt as grim as any
funeral. All brought to us in no-longer-living color.
If nothing else, the media have outed themselves as
the ultimate necrophiliacs.
I expect CNN and Forest Lawn to announce a sponsorship
agreement any day now.The pope's interminable
interment was the magenta-colored cherry on the death
sundae. The TV coverage was so over-the-top and
utterly uncritical, it was as if John Paul had been,
well, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Or, at least,
Jim Caviezel.Now,
I'm certainly not suggesting that the last week should
have been spent trashing the late pontiff. His many
achievements--taking on communism, embracing the Third
World, speaking out for the poor, and standing up
against war--surely deserved recognition and praise.
But you'd think the wall-to-wall coverage would have
included some serious discussion of the two tragic
failures of his reign: his woeful mishandling of the
church's child molestation scandal, and how his
archaic position on condoms contributed to the deaths
of millions of people, especially in Africa.
The molestation outrage is a black mark that can't be
whitewashed. Over 11,000 children were sexually abused
and close to $1 billion in settlement money has been
paid out, but the pope did not go much beyond
decrying "the sins of some of our brothers." He never
met with any victims, he never offered practical
solutions to dealing with the problem, he never
addressed the decades-long cover-up of the abuse. He
even rejected a "zero tolerance" policy calling for
the immediate removal of molester-priests, concerned
that it was too harsh. Too harsh?!
This is a man who wouldn't allow a priest to become a
bishop unless he was unequivocally opposed to
masturbation, premarital sex and condoms. So, in his
perversion pecking order, you had to be dead-set
against "self-love" but when it came to buggering
little kids, there was some wiggle room.
And let's not forget that the Pope appointed Cardinal
Bernard Law, who was one of the architects of the sex
scandal cover-up, and who even faced potential
criminal prosecution for his role in the concealment.
But instead of making an example out of Law, the pope
gave him a cushy sinecure in the Vatican. Adding
insult to the grievous injury suffered by the abuse
victims, Law was one of the nine cardinals specially
chosen to preside over the pope's funeral masses. It
is a disgrace--and an indication of how detached the
Vatican became under this pope.
The other stain on the pope's legacy is his tireless
opposition to the use of condoms--even in places like
Africa, where AIDS killed 2.3 million people last year
alone, and where the disease has driven life
expectancy below 40 years in many countries.
But even in the face of that kind of suffering, he
fought tooth and nail against condoms. Any time a
church official even suggested that people infected
with HIV should use condoms, they were either removed
from office or censured by the Vatican. We were told
again and again last week about how committed John
Paul was to promoting a culture of life. I guess the
20 million people who have died from AIDS are the
exception that proves the rule.
On the other hand, the pope's passing might have saved
the political skin of one of his culture-of-life
cohorts, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. If you have
a series of looming ethics scandals about to come
crashing down on your head, having the media focused
24/7 on something else is a very lucky break indeed.
But, in the end, it's going to take a huge celebrity
dying every three days for the next few months to keep
The Hammer from going down.The presence of DeLay at
the pope's funeral in Rome, along with President Bush,
the First Lady, Condoleezza Rice, Bill Clinton, Nancy
Pelosi and Bush Sr., was a stark reminder of our
perverted priorities.
The pope dies and it's Must Holy See TV; 1,547
American soldiers die in Iraq and President Bush and
Laura have yet to attend a single one of their
funerals. Not a single one. Maybe the president only
goes to funerals of people whose death he wasn't
involved in.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/21738/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html
AAM Website: http://www.africanassociation.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
