Cartman and Catholicism

In the recent news, there's been much talk over child molestation cover-ups by current Pope Benedict XVI. While it's great that this story is getting its much-deserved media attention, sexual abuse and Canonical cover up has been going on for years, decades... maybe even centuries?

In 2006, director Amy Berg shot a documentary called Deliver Us from Evil, which showed how the Catholic Church systematically covered up cases of sexual abuse in California in the 1970s/80s by simply moving a pedophile priest from parish to parish while he continued to molest children.

Not that it's right, but I understand the urge of a profitable, multinational, brand-conscious organization to cover up a potential scandal. At this point though, I think sexual abuse and the Catholic church are synonymous in the collective consciousness of the world. For an example of this, we need look no further than last week's episode of South Park.

In the episode, when Cartman is asked if he would like to smuggle some illegal KFC into town, he replies affirmatively by asking:

“Does the pope help pedophiles get away with their crimes?”

This starts a recurring theme of well-deserved Pope bashing. Cartman is asked about smuggling KFC repeatedly throughout the episode and always replies affirmatively in the form of a Pope-zinger question:

“Is that something I’d want to do? Is the Pope Catholic? And making the world safe for pedophiles?”

Then, “Does a bear crap in the woods? And does the Pope crap on the lives and dreams of 200 deaf boys?”

This is South Park at its best.

Actively covering up sexual abuse is Catholicism at its worse.

The Catholic church should wave the white flag, surrender the war of cover up and seriously clean house. They have a history of irreconcilable miscues which have left their organization morally bankrupt. Yet, at the same time, they still have some solvent assets in their portfolio: compassion for the poor, the Jesuit educational tradition, the Kennedy political legacy.

The Vatican needs to take a page out of the GM playbook: drop the losers and focus all energy on core strengths. They should know better than anyone that confession wipes the slate clean. The world will forgive them if they own up to their past.

Basic ethics aside, the Pope is running a business and he needs to realize that he's going to run it into the ground if he continues down this path of over leveraged moral equity. The Pope must stop the abuse, then stop the denial. It's for his own good.