The Church’s Sins Are Ours

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org) thinks that Frank Bruni op ed ( Nov 4 NY Times) “The Church’s Sins Are Ours,” re sex abuse scandals" is right on target.

"It’s fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient respect for religion in America and that religious people are marginalized, even vilified.

That’s bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special accommodation and the benefit of the doubt. Because they talk of God, they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an unwillingness to cross them.

The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.....

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says a character in “Spotlight.” Indeed it does: a village too cowed, and a village too credulous."

There were 414 comments on this OpEd including:

"American history is replete with examples of religious institutions and ministers betraying their spiritual mission through the pursuit of political influence. Catholic authorities who valued the church's power and influence over the welfare of the faithful violated, in the most egregious manner, the commission they believed they had received from Christ. The Protestant evangelist, Billy Graham, while innocent of any criminal behavior, also betrayed his spiritual calling when he used his pulpit to claim that God wanted Christians to vote for Richard Nixon...."

Below it the comment Edd posted in the Times on-line is a good column.


Bruni's point is reinforced by the 2014 book, Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, by church-law trained lawyer Kieran Tapsell.


Also note a report this week in the National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl titled "NCR Research: Costs of sex abuse to US church underestimated."


Ruhl's research shows that the sex abuse scandal has cost the Catholic Church in the US $4 Billion in the past 65 years. Ruhl adds that "separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." That adds up to a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been seeking public funds through vouchers and tax credits for their shrinking system of private schools.

Holy Politics Batman

By Gary Berg-Cross

I read in the papers that the Billy Graham group no longer calls Mormonism a cult. Mormonism has long been considered beyond the pale of American Protestantism. But in early October the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association quietly de-listed Mormonism from its role of religious cults. Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unification Church, Unitarians, Spiritists and Scientologists, are among the remaining list of cults. Wait, Unitarians are there along with Scientologists? What is the criteria for a cult in their ideas? A cult (derived from the Lain for worship) usually means the ideas are consider bizarre and outside the mainstream - "deriving inspiration from outside of the predominant religious culture" You can see a discussion of the sociology of the concept in Wikipedia.

OK so it is some type of  consensus thing and not based on principles, although bizarre behavior is what some expect is involved in the characterization.  What bizarre behavior is attributed to Unitarians?  Well perhaps it is that they might not be followers of Jesus.  But then again neither are Mormans in the strict sense.  Jesus is one of many prophets.  Maybe not God.  But here I start to wonder if Muslims might qualify along with Mormons. Jesus is a prophet, but not the last one.  It's just who will call the last in the chain that seems an issue.

Great, so with the right PR Muslims might get in and keep Unitarians out.

According to reports Mark DeMoss, who is  head of an Atlanta public relations firm and a close adviser to the Franklin Graham, has acted as a liaison between traditional evangelicals and the last two Romney campaigns for president. Muslims, Spiritists etc. can take note of who to call if they want to be de-listed.

The upgrade to accepting Mormons is just because some large, influential groups says that you are in.  This change of cult status follows Romney’s earlier visit to Graham’s mountain home which included Graham’s son Franklin, who now runs the BGE association for his aged (93) father.

Well this is strange progress, but perhaps illustrates what drives change in fundamentalist circles. Or maybe 1% ruling class circles in general.  I sure hope that some of the help recording the negotiations.  It might give a chilling picture of a Romney administration if fundamentalists are the path to his victory. According to the article the closeness of the Graham and Romney families started with” Franklin’s call before the S.C. presidential primary for conservative Christians to not hold Romney’s religion against him.” In a word it is driven by politics and such things as getting out the vote to beat a political enemy.

There are also other concrete steps that Spiritists might note. One is that  Mark DeMoss that PR man who has been Franklin Graham’s longtime spokesman, is now a Romney adviser. That’s the way things get done in the holy alliance of religion, politics and the PR/lobby business. You can see some of how it works in my blog on the 2nd political life of Ralph Reed.  Has he met with Romney and does anyone have the tape?
There may be other favored ones are meeting to exert pressure, just the way the ultra-Orthodox exert leverage in Israel and get involved in decisions of war and peace.


It’s a long way from Humanist principles.

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Meeting Billy: http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2012/10/18/billy-graham-group-removes-mormonism-from-list-of-cults/?cxntfid=blogs_political_insider_jim_galloway