The Catholic Church and Jamaica

Since I last wrote in this blog a lot has happened. Needless to say about about 76 persons died in what has become known as "The Tivoli Offensive" and Michael Christopher Coke the man who the extradition request was out for was finally captured on Tuesday June 22, 2010 and was sent to New York on Thursday June 24, 2010, the same day he waved his right to an extradition hearing here in Jamaica. So what could have happened in two days, had the government dealt with the matter confidentially and in the best interest of the country and not politically, took us ten months to complete. So as a country we have lost ten months over what? Because of what? Over selfishness, because of political ambitions and fear. I get to understand that if as a country we go ahead with a commission of enquiry to assess everything that has happened and why they happened, along with if Mr Coke opens up just a little bit, there are going to be some big troubling politically exciting times for Jamaica land we love.

Also too, the Roman Catholics are at it again. Almost daily a new or should I say an old sex scandal is revealed. There is a saying "whatever is done in darkness must come to light". Maybe the Roman Catholic priests have never heard it but I doubt that. There are a lot of theories, especially psychological, that are being circulated as to why priests commit these sexual sins. The most popular of which is that the vow of celibacy stifles or should I say go against a man's natural make up. We are sexual beings. As adults we should be having sex. How can someone live without sex for all their lives? That is why for priests that sexual energy is usually dispensed with in an inappropriate channel or usually leads to perversion. A channel that has harmed many many young boys over the years.

Just this week, the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium was invaded in an abuse enquiry. And in May a Nun was excommunicated for allowing an abortion, a decision that was made to save the life of a 27 year old woman who was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child and who would have died, along with her child. The doctors had told her that if she continued with the pregnancy that there was a 100 percent chance that she would die. Now this happened at St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Centre in Phoenix and this Nun, Sister Margaret McBride who was an administrator at the hospital as well as liaison officer to the diocese, gave her approval to proceed with the abortion under what I get to understand (from an article by Barbara Bradley Hagerty) is called "Directive 47". These are ethical guidelines which allow for procedures that could kill the fetus to save the mother. And so, when the Bishop heard about Sister Margaret's decision he automatically excommunicated her. Excommunication is the worst penalty anyone could receive in the Catholic Church.

Now then, after all these priests molested all these little boys, over all these years, non of them were excommunicated. Take Father Marcial Maciel for example; a great achiever in the Catholic church in Mexico and a close associate of Pope John Paul II; had at least two common law wives and a string of kids from a number of women; stole academic work from someone else, translated it, renamed it and called it his own and sexually abused most of his students and seminarians. He even sexually molested his own children (for more on this please see Alma Guillermoprieto's nyrblog 2010/may/17 enitled Father Maciel, John Paul II, and the Vatican Sex Crisis). But Maciel was never excommunicated. He died a priest.

In concluding I ask the following questions: does this highlight the inequality and double standard which exist in the Catholic church?; Is the Jamaican government mirroring the negative aspects of the Catholic Church with its double standard, where the constitutional rights of some citizens are more important than others? Mr Coke in a statement thanked the security forces for not treating him badly. But isn't this the basic standard by which all peoples are to be treated? Or are some alleged wrong doers more special than others?