“Chewing the Cud”, CCV -April 21/18: Varghese Pamplanil responds.

by CCV · Published 01/05/2018 · Updated 01/05/2018

The following is a reaction from Sri Varghese Pamplanil, to james kottoor’s, article comparing Clerical Sex abause in Chile and India, Kerala in the CCV: “Chewing the Cud”, April 21/18.

Varghese Pamplanil

Child sex abuses by Catholic clerics, in Chile & knee-jerk reaction of Pope Francis:

The elaborate presentation by the Editor of CCV on the “Mea culpa” of Pope Francis is interesting and relevant.

The gesture of the Pope in meeting three victims of Chile’s predatory paedophile priest’s sex abuse, appears to me, is not of much significance. At best it is a PR exercise.

What is germane is the deep rooted scars on the psyche of persons subjected to horrendous, inhuman and wide spread sex abuses as children by the Catholic clergy that occurred in US, UK Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland and many other countries across the globe? Can the Pope touch his heart and publicly confess of the obdurate obfuscation and omertàon on the part of the Church thousands of abuse cases by criminal Catholic clerics for decades together in order to protect the reputation of the Church?

The reaction of the Church is tantamount to the response on discovering the preparers with their pants down. Had these sexual deviants been handed over to the civil authorities promptly, some good would have come out. Will the Pope, who represents the Universal Church of Catholics the world over take a policy decision that at least, hence forward, hand over the priestly criminals to civic authorities as and when such cases occur for exemplary punishment?

That would be warning to persons claiming to have direct access to their deities and think they are above the Laws of the Lands they live in. Mere public relation exercises may not do much good and serve little purpose.

Has the Pope the honesty to bring into the public domain the major findings and the far reaching recommendations of the Australian Royal Commission which investigated in detail lasting five years on the horrendous rampant sexual abuses of trusting innocent children by the Australian Catholic clergy and the cynical cover up resorted by the authorities of the Church, in L’Osservatore Romana, for all the world to be in the know of?

After reading the heart rending stories of the affected victims , he should have disowned the Australian Catholic Church. Will the Pope wear the sack cloth of penitence for the rest of his reign? No chance. Empty platitudes and token gestures serve no purpose. It will fool no one.

The happenings in the Catholic Church throws up a larger question about the belief in the Christian God. The proof of the pudding is eating it.

Why is the Christian God, apparently has “No Eyes and No Ears” and appears to be incapable of doing any thing effective to haul up the delinquent hierarchy of the Church for corrective action? Why this God never visited the modern day Sodom called Vatican to find out whether at least one “Just Human” lives there and if finding none promptly rain down “sulphurous fire and brimstone” to obliterate the place and its inhabitants from the face of Earth? What about the other centres of Sodoms thrown across the Catholic world?

Why, why & more whys?

Why this Almighty God has not lifted his little finger against the murky goings on, in the Church since CE 425 despite the fervent pleas of billions of faithful over the centuries? Why did this God, on his own volition, not punish the rouge Church and its clerics? Why did He do nothing against the Pope who ordered the burning alive at stake of Giordano Bruno who refused to recant the scientific truths he found out. Was he not a monk of the Church?

What did the Christian God do when Jan Hus was burned alive at the stake; his charred bones powdered and turned to ashes so that nothing of his memory survived for translating the “Word of God “ into his native language for the benefit of his people? Which God condone the sacrifice of the lives of children cajoled to join the “ Children’s Crusade”? Which God would shut his eyes on the atrocities of Inquisition set in motion from 1231 by Pope Gregory IX and made more horrible by Innocent IV by branding, killing and banishing Jews as pariah dogs forgetting conveniently that Jesus was a circumcised and practicing Jew? What about the thousands of so called heretics prosecuted and tortured all over the Christian world?

Why the Catholic Church hold on to the pernicious view that the entire world is bound to follow its injunctions and commands? Is not an individual entitled to hold her/his own views? Why did not the Christian God prevent the cold blooded and callus murder of thousands of innocent Cathars, children and women included? Why did he not take any action against Popes John XII, Alexander VI and the others of the type, who had indulged in murder of perceived enemies and who turned the Vatican into a whore house?

God, Devil bogy men?

God and Devil are boogymen to scare and discipline the childish and the simpletons with very little brains. The Church is peopled mostly by “eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven” and “children” who refuse to grow up and inclined to indulge in childish things.

To my understanding, the edifice of the Church is built on wobbling foundation. It’s views of the world is the irrational; its moral precepts are not in convergence with the Natural Laws; it acts against human nature. It is still wrapped in the fossilised and absurd concepts such as Fall of Man, Original Sin, Sinner Human, conception of a Virgin by the Feminine Holy Spirit, the non-rapture of the said woman’s hymen despite the delivery through her vaginal birth canal, the hovering of a star just above the manger where their Human God was born, the fairy tales of miracles, the darkness at noon and the non-existent earthquake at the time of the death of Jesus, his bodily ascension to heaven after resurrection.

Only when all the copies including the manuscripts of the fiction and fairy tale book called the Bible is burned to cinders in roaring fires, humanity will regain some semblance of sanity. The Church is also an organisation long overdue to be consigned to the dung heap of history. Any way it will end up there eventually even if nothing is done. Only when this happens humanity can breathe the sigh of relief!

It is high time that the people who really constitute the Church assert themselves. Let the roles be reversed. Let the non-clerics who feed the clerics call the shots. Let not the tail wag the dog. The employers who have all along been relegated to the far corners of the Church take over the controls of the institution and make the paid employee clerics to behave.

The track record of the Catholic Church in the sphere of human rights have been dismal. It is time to take a count of the thousands of mentally mutilated credulous. Millions and millions carry around their necks huge stones of sin and guilt deliberately tied by the scheming money grabbing clerics and their lives are being made miserable by unscrupulous cheating “Vattayees” and their ilk.

Has the church anytime admitted its errors and taken remedial measures? It forced Galileo to recant on the pain death a scientific truth. Will the Church ever recant its numerous mistakes?

The only step to bring the Catholic priests to behave is their compulsory marriage. The Church can give special dispensation to the sex maniacs to have more than one wife. The other remedy is to castrate all the clerics before setting them loose among Catholic girls, boys and women.

Another method to ensure that the clerics do not indulge in sexual perversions is implantation of more than one electronic device deep inside their bodies at time of their ordination so that their wrong doings and escapades can be monitored. It is also necessary to install infra red cameras and other devices in Church sacristies, bed/bath/ other rooms used by the clerics so that the nefarious activities of the “dog collar” wearers can be tracked. The Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and sundry others connected with the Church should be watched diligently by the civil authorities.

What all inhuman anti-progressive deeds have been heaped on the human species by the Pauline–Constantianity a.k.a Catholic Church during its accursed existence for the last 1700 years. So, let the Pope, the Curia and all the clergy wear the black cloths of the penitents for the rest of their lives and even commit harakiri

and save humanity.

Varghese Pamplanil

james kottoor replies:

Dear friend and Columnist Varghese,

My heart-felt thanks to you. “A Devil’s advocate’s Service”, pointing out the pros and cons, primarily the cons, to what the CCV in general and its editor in particular, is what the editor requests and expects from our readers and critics.

We don’t believe in patting each other’s back, flattery expecting flattery in return. That doesn’t help to find the flaws in our thinking and vision, to correct and grow. That is what you have done in the a bove piece without mincing words, without fear or favour where issues are concerned, but with no love lost where personalities are concerned.

Our motto is and has always been that of Voltaire: “I will go to death to defend your right to speak or write what you honestly believes in, even when I may not agree one bit with what you have to say.” Congrats for rising up to that motto.

I wish many more would follow your example in frankly speaking, which is what is for us “Spreading the Good word” or “Evangelization” in the parlance of ‘Churchianity’. One has to speak out in season and out of season, in rain and shine, constantly. That is what Francis Pappa is doing. Unfortunately just the opposite is happening as far as our Indian bishops are concerned, who won’t even acknowledge mails sent to them.

But as an exception Cardinal Alancherry replied to me cordially and instantly to a letter I sent wishing him a “Happy Birthday” on April 19^th. I wonder how many would have greeted him on his birthday and received replies, in spite of all the ragaing church politics. It would be good to find out.