The Nuncio Gets Away With It

I freely admit it: I’m out of control on the subject, though I had tried hard to rein myself in, since even I, a Norwegian-American, can summon up enough moral Nordic rectitude to deal with the Catholic church and its treatment of the sexual abuse scandals. At a certain point, there’s nothing more to say: Yes, the priests f…cked around and the bishops covered it up.

That said, the case of Józef Wesolowski certainly is unlike any other. You may remember, he was the papal nuncio for the Dominican Republic and the apostolic delegate for Puerto Rico, since one of the most crushing blows about not being an independent state is that we cannot have formal relations with the Vatican. Ouch—boys, that one really hurt!

Wesolowski showed complete lack of imagination in his sexual tastes, though it was shoeshine boys and not altar boys, but he was certainly industrious, since reports have that he had more almost 100,000 pornographic images on his computer. So on 21 August 2013, Wesolowski was recalled to the Vatican, as was another Polish priest, Wojciech Gil.

Well, that’s the official story. The unofficial story is that the archbishop of Santo Domingo was sufficiently alarmed at the press that was going to explode that he ran off to Rome and talked to Pope Francis, who recalled Wesolowski.

Can anyone believe that this pope is serious about the abuse scandal? Well, tell it to the numerous Romans who saw Wesolowski walking the streets of Rome, outside of Vatican City. Right, so when they got enough flak about that, they placed Wesolowski on house arrest, and then began the slow, tedious process of determining what to do with Wesolowski.

They did the only thing possible: They defrocked him. OK—here’s the catholicnews.com on the subject:

The Vatican announced in June that a canonical court had investigated Wesolowski on charges of sex abuse in the Dominican Republic and concluded by dismissing him from the clerical state, depriving him of all rights and duties associated with being a priest except the obligation of celibacy.

Guys? You’re expecting a man with a tenth of a million pornographic photos on his computer to be celibate? This creep is a predator with a major addiction to porn, and you think he’s gonna be celibate?

Right—so then it was a much-touted criminal trial, due to begin ten days ago. But Wesolowski’s lawyer walked into court, the morning of the first day of the trial, and announced that Wesolowski was in intensive care at a Rome hospital. Of course, of course, no one could say what ailed (or rather, what else ailed) the former papal nuncio, but remember, this is Rome, and those Italian tongue? They quite frequently wag.

So six days later, a Roman newspaper published a rumor of what I immediately suspected: The ex-prelate had arrived at the hospital confused and dazed from a mixture of alcohol and drugs. In short, Wesolowski was about to add the sin of suicide to the long list of others. So the trial was delayed, and then, three days after he was hospitalized, Wesolowski was released.

OK—it was eye rubbing, but was it worth writing about? Were we all just a little tired of it all? Yup, but I was still following the saga, when I came upon this:

The Vatican said in a June 15 statement that Wesołowski has been accused of a number of offenses, “some committed during his stay in Rome from August 2013 until the moment of his arrest, on Sept. 22, 2014.” Other offenses were allegedly committed when he was nuncio to the Dominican Republic and apostolic delegate to Puerto Rico, from 2008 to 2013, the Vatican said.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/illness-forces-postponement-of-former-nuncios-criminal-sexual-abuse-trial/#ixzz3gXmCAYnL   

OK—it’s clear: While being recalled by the Vatican for an investigation of sexual abuses, Wesolowski had continued his predatory behavior under Francis’s nose. But in the statement above, is the Vatican alleging that Wesolowski committed offenses here, in Puerto Rico?

OK—followed the link and got this, in Italian. Do I speak the language? Of course not, but anybody who has studied Latin, French and Spanish can figure it out:

La prima udienza del processo è fissata per il giorno 11 luglio 2015. All’ex Prelato vengono contestati taluni reati commessi sia durante il suo soggiorno a Roma dall’agosto 2013 sino al momento del suo arresto (avvenuto il 22 settembre 2014), sia nel periodo trascorso nella Repubblica Dominicana, nei cinque anni in cui ha ricoperto l’Ufficio di Nunzio Apostolico (il 24 gennaio 2008 era stato nominato Nunzio nella Repubblica Dominicana e delegato apostolico a Porto Rico, uffici da cui si è dimesso il 21 agosto 2013).

OK—so that Vatican is not alleging that Wesolowski committed crimes in Puerto Rico, but who is? Well, as you can see in the clip below, a number of the parishioners are: Wesolowski had visited the island frequently and had stayed in the parish of St. Martín de Porres, apparently as a guest of José Colón Otero, a priest who was removed after allegations of abuse…

…OK, the story is wacky enough to warrant its own paragraph. According to witnesses, boys were seen staying over at the parish house, and the next morning they were unable to look anybody in the eye. So the Vatican at last looked into it, and then defrocked Colón Otero. So what did the pope do, when the ex-priest appealed the decision? Partially reinstated him, since it could there wasn’t enough “moral certainty” to convict him of abuse, only of violating the sanctity of the confession.

What’s interesting about this case is what hasn’t happened, as much as what has. The Dominican Republic hasn’t requested Wesolowski’s extradition, perhaps because they don’t have a treaty that allows them to do so. But Poland requested extradition, and got turned down. The reason? Diplomatic immunity. But what about now, when Wesolowski has been defrocked? Presumably, that no longer applies; on the other hand, it might.

What else hasn’t happened? Well, the church has played a very old game: Out wait your enemies. And so the problems in the archdiocese of Arecibo, and the predation of a papal nuncio or an apostolic delegate or whoever he was have been completely forgotten, because everybody has just discovered that we owe some undetermined billions of dollars.

That’s one explanation. But the conspiracy theorist in me can’t help but wonder: The island is overwhelmingly Catholic, especially in the upper classes. The quiet word can be so very effective, when whispered in the right ear. I can only believe two things.

Wesolowski committed crimes on American soil, and…

…he’ll never pay for it.

On Priests and Imams

Here’s what it’s come to: the banner headline in today’s printed version of El Nuevo Día quotes the Secretary of Justice saying, Quedan protegidos los pederastas (Pederasts Remain Protected).

And here’s what’s worse…

My reaction?

That’s news?

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has decided to cave in to the Catholic Church, specifically the diocese of Arecibo, and allow the church to withhold documents requested by the Justice Department related to abusive priests. Why? Because some of the victims chose to tell the church, and all that communication is “confidential.”

Here’s what happened, or at least what I presume happened: some kids got abused, walked around wounded for months or years, and finally got the courage to go to the church and complain. Not surprising, because listening for fifteen minutes to the morning radio shows in Puerto Rico will tell you exactly what you don’t want to have happen to you. And that’s being the topic of the day.

If you know anything about the dynamics of sexual abuse, you’ll know that the victim, paradoxically, usually feels responsible or guilty for his or her own abuse, and that it takes a level of maturity not often seen in kids to have the strength to confront the adult world, especially when that adult world is wearing a Roman collar. So the likelihood is that most of the victims were kids, and most of the victims coming forward were young adults who reported abuse years after it happened.

So the Supreme Court has ruled that a lower court judge has to look at all the documents, determine if the complainant is an adult, and then ask the person if he / she wants the documents released to Justice.

Guys? We’re talking about crimes here.

However, so loopy is our need to “protect” religious freedom, covering up abusive priests may be perfectly legal; here’s Wikipedia on the topic:

A communication is "confidential" if made privately and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.

Yeah? So if I sit in an office and tell the bishop that the parish priest had his hand on my crotch four years ago, that’s confidential?

Yup, and that’s why we have seven priests in Arecibo who have been defrocked, and who are all walking around, or perhaps lurking outside school playgrounds, reenacting all those lurid 1950’s educational films. And does anybody think out there that those priests got defrocked for something that wasn’t illegal?

It doesn’t stop surprising me, the stuff that religious people get themselves up to, because who knew that the largest chain of charter schools is run—maybe—by Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic Imam from Turkey, now living in the Poconos?

Here’s what the website for the chain’s Texas branch has to say:

Our mission at Harmony is to prepare each student for higher education by providing a safe, caring, and collaborative atmosphere featuring a quality, student-centered educational program with a strong emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. 

In Numbers:

            40 Campuses (24 T-STEM schools) 

            25,000 Students

            2,276 Faculty and Staff

            Student-to-Teacher Ratio of 14-to-1

            100 percent Graduation Rate for Seniors

            100 percent College Acceptance Rate

Umm… 100% college acceptance? 100% graduation rate?

Well, if true, that would account for the waiting list of some 30,000 kids—more kids than are currently enrolled in the system. And in the video below, the kids certainly look happy, and the school is a knockout. True, most of the teachers are Turkish, and some of them are substantially less fluent in English than I am in Spanish. Which is odd, since some of them are teaching…English.

And that 100% Graduation Rate? Well, here’s one less-than-gruntled account by a teacher fired by a Gülen school:

When it came time for OATs, as they were called then, testing was a disaster. Several Turkish men arrived and pulled “at risk” students from their classrooms, taking them to the moldy rooms in small groups, despite the lack of written documentation allowing accommodations. The week after testing, I went to school on a Saturday morning in order to keep ahead of my planning, and I saw a dozen Turkish men sitting in a classroom with stacks of OATs on their desks. The current principal brought a cup of tea and a plate of cookies to me while I worked alone in my classroom. He said that the men were simply darkening in the answers for students who wrote too lightly.

Right—we all know that kids have an instinctive bent for delicacy, which undoubtedly accounted for those faint markings….

And there have been questions, as well, about how accountable these schools are. Reports have surfaced that at least the Turkish teachers have to kickback up to forty percent of their salary to the Gülen movement. Oh, and what about the question of immigration? Is there really such a shortage of American teachers?  And do these “teachers” have any formal training?

That said, it’s also true that, bar having done if for twenty plus years, I’m completely untrained too, and that didn’t stop me from fooling a passel of students and the world’s largest company into thinking I knew what I was doing.

Nor is Gülen, apparently, the most virulent of imams. Because his message was / is that the Muslim world doesn’t need more mosques and madrasas, but rather schools that focus on the sciences and math. And though virtually a recluse, his movement carries such weight that, in Turkey at least, his opponents fear that he may be planning a coup. 

And the schools—are they really connected to Gülen? They—some of them—say no, others say yes. Why the confusion, or the secrecy?

Well, would you want to be a Muslim in America? And here, I have to say that however radicalized I might be as an atheist, I’d welcome an imam like Gülen who—if true—is a moderate and condemns extreme forms of Islam. We need these guys….

And the charter schools? With their reports of not accepting some students, of kicking out students who don’t perform, of shifting kids around? That’s the negative stuff. But what about all those kids you see in videos who are solemnly swearing that school is fun, learning is cool, going to school is a joy?

Don’t know. But this I do know: if I were a parent, I’d certainly check out the charter schools in my area….

Notes from a Radicalized Atheist

Must we?

I try to be fair, I try to be respectful, I try to remember that many of the worthwhile things that have occurred over the last couple of millennia are the result either of the church or their believers. And what, I ask myself, have we atheists ever contributed? Have we started soup kitchens, held the hand of the dying, worked with lepers? So shouldn’t I give organized religion a break?

Want the short answer?

Fuck no.

To any nonbeliever out there, it’s been a bad couple of weeks. Consider, for example, the famous Hobby Lobby case, and can I convince you, Horrified Readers, that the religious backgrounds of the five male justices had noting to do with it? That all five of the justices who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby were catholic (nope, no capitals today, dammit)—that’s a coincidence? Oh, and the other catholic on the court who voted in dissent was a woman—Sonia Sotomayor—otherwise, guess what? It would have been 6 / 3.

Did you know, Hobby Lobby—as yes, I’m addressing you personally, since that apparently is what five people in the US have decided you are—what kind of a crowd you were going against? Because there isn’t one protestant on the Supreme Court (seriously thinking about those caps, too). So you guys walked into the lion’s den and came out unscathed—gotta hand it to you.

Of course, let’s hope your daughter doesn’t work for a closely-held corporation that has strong Jehovah’s Witness beliefs. Otherwise, that blood transfusion? Or the vaccines, which oddly enough have gotten prohibitively expensive? Here, courtesy of The New York Times, is the lead from an article entitled “The Price of Prevention: Vaccine Costs are Soaring:”

There is little that Dr. Lindsay Irvin has not done for the children’s vaccines in her office refrigerator: She remortgaged her home to afford their rising prices.

Guys? Can you imagine what the rest of the world is thinking about us?

Now the situation is so bad that a rabid little college in Illinois—Wheaton College—has decided it doesn’t want to fill out a form telling the government that the college is opting out of the contraceptive clause; here’s the Columbus Dispatch on the subject:

The school had argued that simply doing the paperwork — the form asks only for name, contact information, signature and date — infringed upon its religious liberty because it would trigger the employee’s ability to get the disputed contraception.

What’s this about? Simple—the Supreme Court has just declared the right of corporations to impose their religious beliefs on workers.

Nor did the religious right waste any time, because, the day after Hobby Lobby? A whole gaggle of religious groups sent a letter asking Obama to not issue an order directing the federal government to not award contracts to companies; enter The New York Times, again:

Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s addlebrained Hobby Lobby decision, several groups wrote to Mr. Obama on July 1 asking him to allow federal contractors to fire or refuse to hire workers based on their religious objections to a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Oh—just for your information, the article is titled “Tax-payer Financed Bigotry,” a statement so pithy that it spares you the need to read further.

Well, we already have the catholic church firing teachers and principals of their schools who have gotten married—to members of their own sex, that is. Oh, and by the way, are those schools entirely self-funded? No nickel of the taxpayers going there?

Here’s a clue:

More than 80 percent of students receiving federal vouchers through the D.C. program attend private religious schools with such civil rights exemptions but no opt-out option for religious instruction. 

Oh, and don’t think, by the way, that all you have to do is worry about federal money, because you also have to worry about what the bastards in your statehouse are doing. Because increasingly, that’s where the action is; consider this, from The Washington Post:

In North Carolina, the state legislature recently passed a bill to divert $10 million of taxpayer money meant for public schools to private schools, including those that “provide an education that is Christ-centered” and teach “the truth of scripture” with “Bible-based facts,” such as: “dinosaurs and humans co-existed on Earth; slave-masters generally treated their slaves well; in some areas, the KKK fought the decline in morality by using the sign of the cross; and gay people have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists.”

Know what? I’m now radicalized—for (easily) ten years I worked in a company where wearing a gold crucifix around your neck was almost de rigeur, where saying “bien, gracias a Dios” was the standard response to the question of how you were doing. And I shut up because I was respectful, though I admit to fighting the life-size crèche that Human Resources—ladies? Aren’t you guys supposed to be the experts here?—put up one Christmas. But now?

Now, I wish I had turned the company into a battleground. I wish I had said, “god doesn’t exist,” at every turn. I wish I had told everybody that had a crucifix to take it off, because I found it offensive. I wish the whole company had ground to a halt, so that 499 people could have been jumping the throat of little me. I should have duked it out until the end.

Reasonable?

Done with it!

Pop Quiz, Boys and Girls

Pop quiz, boys and girls. Get out your No. 2 pencils and get to work!

1.     The statement below is _______ true / ________false

The Vatican said Friday that Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent days, and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible against a cleric: laicization, meaning he can no longer perform priestly duties or present himself as a priest.

If you answered “true,” you got a zero on the quiz, but guess what? You’re also not alone. Here’s a sweet little description of “the harshest penalty possible against a cleric:”

Poor prisoners are called "ranas" or frogs. They sleep on the floor with mice and vermin around them. They have no private rooms or baths and they must use latrine-type holes in the jail patio and openly evacuate. These prisoners all shower together and fight for the last drop of water, while the goleta owners enjoy private baths. Every morning at about 9am there is a "conteo" or prisoner count where they are asked to walk out of the cells into the hallway to be counted.

Wesolowski was the papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and had the habit of strolling, beer in hand, the malecón and contracting the local boys to do you-know-what. And he was so open about it that the local news picked up on the story. Before he could be investigated and /or arrested, however, the archbishop of Santo Domingo went off to tell the pope that they had a little problem. The pope did what they always do: refused to turn the pedophile over to the civil authorities. Instead, for the last ten months, Wesolowski has been sitting in the Vatican, where he enjoys—or enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

So Wesolowski has two months to appeal the decision, and then faces a criminal trial in the Vatican. If convicted, he’ll be jailed there, presumably under conditions a bit more humane than the ones in Dominican Republic.

Isn’t it time to say it? The “state” of Vatican City is a joke—it not only is the smallest nation in the world, it also is just 108.7 acres, making it smaller than the average American farm. And I had assumed that the nationhood that everybody accords it was an ancient thing, from the times with the Vatican had real states. Wrong again—it dates from 1929.

OK, you say, so it’s bogus, but who cares? What difference does it make?

Well, for one thing, the Vatican denied the Dominican Republic’s extradition request, on the grounds that Wesolowski was a “citizen of Vatican City,” which has a policy of not extracting people.

There’s more. Allegations have been floating around the Internet that a common dodge for bishops is to give the files on abusive priests to the papal nuncio, since in several dioceses, victims of abuse have successfully sued to have the files made public.

And so Wesolowski may still have diplomatic immunity. What no one is saying is that he allegedly committed crimes, yes, in the Dominican Republic, but also here, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. And since the FBI, reportedly, is looking into the situation of priestly abuse, are they also looking at Wesolowski? Because Wesolowski made frequent trips to Puerto Rico, and stayed in the parish of a now defrocked priest, José Colón Otero. More, the parishioners were doing everything short of standing outside the church with cardboard placards, so desperate were they—the parishioners, not the placards—to get some church official to do something. They wrote to the bishop, then Wesolowski, and finally the Vatican. And what did Wesolowski do? Nothing.

There is something fishy going on in Arecibo. Consider the fact that the current bishop, Daniel Fernández Torres, is being investigated by the FBI for abuse. Oh, and he came out and said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had cleared him of the whole thing. But the lawyer representing the victim? She came out and said the Vatican never talked to her client.

Guys? It’s hard to know which is greater: the arrogance or the shamelessness.

Our Chatty Pope

So the question of the moment is: does this guy know what he’s doing?

The word is that Pope Francis is a dab hand at managing the press, but is he? Or are we simply seeing what we saw with John Paul II—which was the collective decision of the media to adore what was a staunchly conservative, repressive theologian who never admitted that there was a sexual abuse scandal in the church. So he got a free pass, as he has even in death, since he was allowed to pass the miracle test with a 50% score. Under church rules, two miracles are needed to establish sainthood. But either Pope Francis or Benedict waived this rule, and allowed John Paul II to be declared a saint based on only one miracle.

So from the beginning, the press has liked this pope. Confession—I generally regard likable popes as more dangerous than disagreeable popes, so Benedict was my man: a completely prissy, probably-way-closeted pope who drove people out of the church faster than sounding a fire alarm. Perfect!

Second confession: though I think it‘s completely nutty, I appreciate theological conservatism on logical grounds. Consider the policy, as my friend Harry once told me, about getting a sperm sample, when needed for infertility counseling. Normally, guys go into a room, in which usually there are some well-thumbed and hopefully not too sticky men’s magazines. But how can a good Catholic give a sperm sample, since absolutely every sexual act must be undergone—considered using the word “endured”—for the sake of procreation?

Right—there’s a procedure: the man goes to bed with his wife, but using a condom, into which a pin has been pricked. There is thus the theoretical chance of procreation, and you get the sample. See?

I love this sort of lunacy—who wouldn’t? But I find it seriously screwy when a pope drifts back to talk to reporters, on the way home from Rio, and sends people’s eyebrows an inch north and their jaws several inches south. Because the five words that everybody associates with this pope is, “who am I to judge?”

Answer—you’re the pope.

It occurred to me, just now—I know what the problem is. Having worked in Human Resources for Wal-Mart for seven years, the answer came to me with my first sip of double espresso. Here goes:

The pope doesn’t have a job description!  

That’s gotta be the problem, because if he did, there would probably be some sort of nonsense in it, on the lines of:

Consistently and rigorously articulate, uphold and champion key components of the Catholic faith, as defined by scripture, tradition, and the entire canon of the faith.

In short, the pope is supposed to get up in the morning and sit down and make moral judgments. That’s why people are dropping the bills in the collection plates.

OK—so the most recent controversy? The pope apparently made a 10-minute call to an Argentinian, Jaquelina Lisbona, who is legally married to a divorced man, and who has been told that she cannot take communion. Why not? Because she is living in sin with her husband of 20 years, since he has divorced, and his first marriage has not been annulled. So the pope grabbed the phone, called her up, and told her, in essence, to shop around for a more sympathetic priest. And that it would be fine to take communion.

One of the most bizarre things about the Catholic Church is how little its faithful know about it. Nor do I, but this much I know—and to make sure, I googled “state of grace communion.” Try it, and you’ll get your answer.

What’s weird is that this is Catholicism 101—and the pope is saying it doesn’t matter?

Predictably, the millions of divorced Catholics went wild—the pope was signaling that the Church was changing! There were winds of modernity galling through the now open doors of the medieval church! Did the pope plan to announce major changes when the meeting of bishops occurred later in the year?

Just as predictably, the conservatives were howling, and here I have to say—who can blame them? Because the church’s teaching on marriage is bedrock.

Of course, it’s also bogus, since a suspiciously high number of marriages are getting annulled, nowadays: a byzantine procedure that requires two tribunals to decide that, no, a marriage never existed at all. Some of it anyone can go along with—if papá is standing over you with a gun, there’s not much consent involved. But life is messier, in general, and the church is increasingly willing to nullify a marriage because, well, your husband turned out to be a drunk. Oh, and guess what? It doesn’t hurt to throw a little money at the problem, and pay for “advocates” who can…well, advocate.

So how many marriages are getting annulled? Here’s Wikipedia:

Diocesan tribunals completed over 49000 cases for nullity of marriage in 2006. Over the past 30 years about 55 to 70% of annulments have occurred in the United States. The growth in annulments—at least in the US—has been substantial. In 1968 338 marriages were annulled. In 2006 27,000 were.[17]    

In fact, both JPII and Benedict repeatedly called for crackdowns on giving annulments, especially at a meeting of the Roman Rota, which typically hears cases for annulment. Here’s what one source said:

In 1991, when Pope John Paul II wanted to defend marriage against what he perceived to be emerging threats, he used his speech to the Rota to lay out a natural-law case for marriage. He acknowledged that marriage is shaped by culture, but contemporary secular culture, he warned, had now become hostile to marriage. Freedom had become "absolutized," and the pontiff wished to make clear where the boundaries lay.

Three years later, in 1994, Pope John Paul II admonished the Rota against the ease with which annulments were being granted. Judges must know the truth, and the truth "is not always easy." Avoid "the temptation to lighten the heavy demands of observing the law in the name of a mistaken idea of compassion and mercy."

Ah, for the good old days!

Right, so what did Francis do? Well apparently he drifted in and gave a seven-paragraph address. Here again is Charles J. Reid on the subject:

What he delivered was a beautiful meditation on Jesus and the qualities of the good judge. The judge, he began, must be fully and maturely human. He or she (and canon law permits women to exercise the judicial office) must never be legalistic, must avoid dry abstractions, and must instead serve the ends of real justice. And justice, he stressed, required full awareness of the needs of the persons before the court. Attend to the person, he emphasized, in his or her "concrete realities."

As Reid writes, the most important message—the take-home, as we used to say at Wal-Mart—was the judges must be pastoral, not judicial. Which leaves me wondering—if the judges are not to be judicial, well, who is? The answer, as I read the article, is nobody: since Jesus had focused his life on the pastoral, everybody within the church is supposed to be pastoral.

Well, the Vatican press office, who must be salivating for the days of Pope Benedict, came out and said that a private call was not a policy shift, not a realignment on doctrine. Which is probably true; there’s an old Roman saying: popes come and go, the curia remains forever.

And this pope needs to be careful, because if he puts out all these hints, and then doesn’t come through? If his bishops hang tough and say, “sorry, but divorced Catholics cannot take communion?” Look at the trouble in the Anglican Church over the ordination of a gay bishop—it would look like Queen Elizabeth’s tea party in comparison to the fight over remarriage of divorced Catholics.

I’m an old atheist, so I tend to scoff at the whole thing. Still, I do sort of wonder…

…should somebody yank the telephone out of the Holy Father’s office?

Lands I'll Never See

OK—this is NOT what I’m going to talk about. I mean, why go on and on about the diocese of Arecibo, which has just been told by judge Ángel Pagán Ocasio that it has fifteen days to hand over the documents about its seven pederast priests and (minimally) twenty victims.

‘It’s old, Marc’ I tell myself. For the last thirty years (or thirty decades?) it’s been the same story. And even though the dioceses of San Juan, Mayagüez, and Caguas have handed over the documents, the bishop of Arecibo is standing firm. He’s not gonna hand them over. The Catholic Church, you see, first has to abuse these kids, and then it turns around and “protects” their privacy.

“I really think men should be barred from running religions,” I told Pablo. It was hardly a felicitous choice, since Pablo is a minister. But he’s gay, so he got it….

I told him because I had told myself—this ranting has got to stop. First you became obsessed with Joyce DiDonato, now it’s the Catholic Church. And besides, the Catholic Church is as open as a Kansas prairie compared to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If memory serves, the video I watched last weekend claims that the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization has a database of 23, 720 reports of sexual abuse of minors, And, like you-know-what, their policy is to report to the Vati…sorry, that’s their headquarters in Brooklyn. Then, the pastor-or-elder-or-whatever is told to handle it internally. But guess what? Church policy requires that for anything to be settled, there must be two—hey, Marc, where’s that famous flare for punctuation?—TWO witnesses.

See what I mean about men in religion?

I knew they were crazy—how crazy I didn’t know. Want an example? Well, Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the denomination, had the really bad habit of announcing the end of the world (added value, Readers: think twice about this when establishing your religion…). He did it several times, and farmers did crazy things like not planting their fields—since why bother? Oh, and some people sold their homes.

So it was all a bit embarrassing when the deadlines passed, but not a problem, because Russell—who must have been quick of feet—came up with an explanation. Jesus had come back—but invisibly! And you know what? It may have been true, because, look—it’s just little me, sitting in a café in Old San Juan. And there are 7.9 million people out there—including two in the plaza right now standing next to a cardboard placard saying “What does the Bible REALLY say?”—who completely believe in the visible return of our savior. So the odds are that Jesus really did come back…

What else do these guys believe?

Well, it may be that my brain was fogged after reading the word—and dimly remembering its meaning—eschatology. (And why am I reminded of Dorothy Parker, just now, who, when asked to use horticulture in a sentence, came up with “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think?”) At any rate, I read the paragraph below three times, and then went off to eat a snicker doodle, just to get the blood sugar up a bit. And guess what? I still don’t get it. For anyone out there who really needs to know, here it is:

A central teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the current world era, or "system of things", entered the "last days" in 1914 and faces imminent destruction through intervention by God and Jesus Christ, leading to deliverance for those who worship God acceptably.[191] They consider all other present-day religions to be false, identifying them with "Babylon the Great", or the "harlot", of Revelation 17,[192] and believe that they will soon be destroyed by the United Nations, which they believe is represented in scripture by the scarlet-colored wild beast of Revelation chapter 17. This development will mark the beginning of the "great tribulation".[193] Satan will subsequently attack Jehovah's Witnesses, an action that will prompt God to begin the war of Armageddon, during which all forms of government and all people not counted as Christ's "sheep", or true followers, will be destroyed. After Armageddon, God will extend his heavenly kingdom to include earth, which will be transformed into a paradise similar to the Garden of Eden.[194] After Armageddon, most of those who had died before God's intervention will gradually be resurrected during "judgment day" lasting for one thousand years. This judgment will be based on their actions after resurrection rather than past deeds. At the end of the thousand years, a final test will take place when Satan is released to mislead perfect mankind. Those who fail will be destroyed, along with Satan and his demons. The end result will be a fully tested, glorified human race. Christ will then hand all authority back to God. 

All I can think is that God—oooops, that’s Jehovah, sorry about that—put these people on earth to make the Mormons look mainstream….

OK—I’ll tell you what you already may know: the JWs prohibit blood transfusions, saluting the flag, joining the armed forces, celebrating birthdays and holidays. In addition, the religion is strongly patriarchal and conservative. Men lead and women are submissive, though men, according to Wikipedia, are encouraged to listen to their wives’ and children’s thoughts—thanks guys!

What if someone goes off the track?

Well, that can be a problem—since, in the first place, contact with any other religion is strongly discouraged. But if it’s really bad, the sinner is disfellowshipped (ah, computer, at last we agree!) and then shunned. So that means your family can talk to you, and any business obligations (especially those with a contract involved) can be done—but that’s it. Oh, and elders can invite you to repent and thus be reinstated (something I was hoping would be called refellowshipped, but no luck).

So the woman in the video of last weekend endured physical and sexual abuse, as did her children, and what was the advice? Go home, be more submissive, and pray harder.

It was, in short, a sort of Sophie’s choice: she could give up everything and save her kids, or she could throw her kids to the wolves, or rather, the wolf. Guess what she chose?

I told myself—I have to step back. This is my sanity, here. No more rants, Marc!

So consider the case of Wells Cunningham, whom YouTube—adept at tracking my history—suggested I watch. Well, I knew the Handel-Halvorsen duo, but what was the story with the man, Halvorsen himself? Is it right to have spent so much time with the JWs, and to know nothing about Johan Halvorsen, 1864 to 1935? Well, here he is, since cute guys have a special place in this blog:

Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist, conductor and composer of—among other things—incidental music for plays. Oh, and he married Grieg’s—yes, that Grieg—niece. And he’s known for just a few pieces, of which the passacaglia below is one. And another one? The Entry March of the Boyars, which you can find on YouTube, and to which you can listen to the first minute and then safely go off to do something else. Don’t worry, you won’t have missed anything….

And Wells Cunningham, the cellist? Wait—not only is he an amazing cellist, but he also plays the violin—as he does in the clip below—the piano and the guitar. And damn, who is he, and where did he get that amazing technique? With a nod to Malcolm Gladwell, this guy got to 10,000 hours and then decided to do it all over again.

Well, he’s a graduate of the University of Miami and Eastman School of Music, and the principal cellist of the New World Symphony—or perhaps used to be. And he’s done work with popular artists like Jennifer López and Marc Anthony.   

So I listened to the Handel-Halvorsen, and then I listened to Cunningham play the 24^th caprice of Paganini, and was impressed enough to send myself the clip. It arrived in my inbox with the notation: this message has no content.

Absolutely true, I thought, the Paganini certainly doesn’t have any content, so why bother? So I turned to the second symphony of Halvorsen—which actually wasn’t too bad.

There are lands I’ll never get to, and that’s all right, I decided. I’ll never have Cunningham’s technique, for example. I’ll never have faith, or—perhaps—follow a spiritual path. But a nice, Nordic symphony?

Ah, I can go there!