Yesterday I wrote about judging and mentioned that there are cases in which each of us judges easily – and that it is not bad to do this either. The following news is one of those cases: a Canadian catholic bishop was found guilty of importing child porn.
When Bishop Raymond Lahey was searched at the Ottawa airport, border guards found 588 pictures and dozens of videos of naked boys, even as young as eight years old, on the clergyman’s computer and phone. With further investigations they found even more and after the judges found him guilty, he was arrested. He is awaiting sentence and will additionally also face disciplinary actions by the Vatican.
They have even found that he has taken trips to countries like Malaysia and Thailand. We all know that in those countries sex tourism is one of the biggest businesses with foreigners. How do you know the bishop only bought his porn there but did not actually had sex with young boys?
Now tell me, don’t you judge this? Wouldn’t you say that this is shocking, disgusting, horrible behavior? A person does this to children, innocent boys who don’t understand what is happening? And this all under the banner of religion! I do judge and say this is wrong.
At the same time, I do not judge just this one bishop. He is not the only one but just joins the high number of child molesters among Catholic priests. Of course, he is a bishop, which means that he is even higher in their hierarchy, a more important official of the Catholic Church. This all shows again how wrong their system is that does not allow priests to have sex. I have said again and again that such abuse is the result of suppressing the sexuality of these men. You cannot stop this natural urge and if you forbid its natural outlet, it will find another way. Priests, bishops and probably cardinals, too, turn to homosexuality and sometimes even child abuse. Yes, I have to judge and say that this system, this rule and this idea is wrong.
I have been writing a lot about sexual abuse by Hindu Gurus and also much about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It happens everywhere, in all religions and it is always wrong.
Source
Photograph by: CHRIS MIKULA POSTMEDIA NEWS, Postmedia News; Ottawa Citizen
You say it yourself, this is nothing new anymore. Isn’t it sad that it really doesn’t shock me anymore? We have heard so many stories much worse than this one in the last few years that you really just wonder why some people still send their children to church services and church school.
I fully agree with you! It is unnatural to keep priests from doing what is the basic principle of nature! They don’t practice celibacy when they have sex with each other! I wouldn’t care if they just slept with one another but they abuse children! Our children! We send them there and trust them and they show them porn and touch them! It is bad, and I, too, judge this man, this church, this religion and this system!
I suspect there’s much more going on here than just sexual repression. Because if it was just sexual repression, they would seek outlets through relationships with other adults. If they prey upon children like this, it suggests to me an evil nature that derives pleasure through cruelty and victimization of the most innocent, who are the children. Such people appear to me as not only sexually repressed, but also cruel and of the most degenerate, warped, and twisted moral natures.
Dear Deniz,you are of course right. Not everybody with a suppressed sexuality searches with children. There is additionally a sick wish of superiority and power which they satisfy with this abuse. But at the base of this is the suppression of their sexuality through religion.
Religion is an institution established by man for various reasons. Exert control, instill morality, stroke egos, or whatever it does. Organized, structured religions all but remove god from the equation. You confess your sins to a clergy member, go to elaborate churches to worship, told what to pray and when to pray it. All those factors remove you from God. Spirituality is born in a person and develops in the person. It may be kick started by a religion, or it may be kick started by a revelation. Spirituality extends to all facets of a person 19s life. Spirituality is chosen while religion is often times forced. Being spiritual to me is more important and better than being religious.Religion can be anything that the person practicing it desires. Spirituality, on the other hand, is defined by God. Since religion is man defined, Religion is a manifestation of the flesh. But Spirituality, as defined by God, is a manifestation of His nature.
True spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself. It is your way of loving, accepting and relating to the world and people around you. It cannot be found in a church or by believing in a certain way.
Completely agree with you Swami. I hope their karma catches up with them…
This is really sad, it is true and I wanted to write the same. It is the same effect that happens when the media loses interest in a catastrophe when it takes too long, such as at the Fukushima power plant catastrophe. In the first week, half of the news were about Japan but then it slowly got less and less important – it is just so normal already.
It is completely wrong that this Bishop has done what he did, under the name of religion and I also cannot help myself from judging him and saying that it is wrong, of course it is. But also at the same time it gives a bad name to Catholic priests and bishops all over and a bad name to the catholic church. It was wrong of him to do this, but I do not think that it was him religion that allowed him to do this, he did it because it was in his sick perverted nature…