CORRUPTION – Letter to the Editor
Varghese Pamplanil gives his feedback on:
Corruption is a social sin – Article by Amado Picardal, Manila, Philippines.
The article above set me thinking.
According to Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary, the word ‘corrupt’ means: guilty of dishonest practices, bribery;destroy integrity; crooked; debased character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil; decayed; putrid; infected; tainted; made inferior by errors or alterations in texts; cause to be dishonest, disloyal etc.
The thread that prominently runs through the article is financial corruption at various levels of the Church, government, society, politics, business and other areas.
In my view corruption of the minds or souls (many religious people believe humans have souls), injecting the poison of superstition, sin and guilt and distorted views about life and the world by the Catholic Church and its priesthood from the moment of an infant’s baptism seem to be the worst form of corruption. The redacting the Bible to suit the purpose on hand, the continuation of the archaic Cannon Laws, the ever increasing number of saints with a view to collecting money by way of offerings should be treated as moral and ethical corruption. The reluctance to discard old irrelevant, often dangerous beliefs, on the pretext that these are divinely ordered, could be termed as heinous corruption.
Money and wealth will pass but dangerous superstitious beliefs grow worse than the worst cancer with no cure in sight. Bribery is only one aspect of corruption. Is not the acceptance of funds from morally degraded persons the worst form of corruption? Money laundering, acceptance of slush funds from criminals from Mafia and international criminal syndicates by the clerics are worse than mere bribery. Pilfering funds from the donations, collecting fees for various rites is condemnable.
The author has quoted approvingly Pope John Paul II to prove his thesis. But the Pope, an “actor turned zealot” was the Emperor of corruption in real life. How would the author rate this Pope who surreptitiously led an amoral life by his love affair and coveting of a married lady with children by violation of the Commandment that “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife”? He brazenly accepted thousands of US dollars from one Fr. Maciel Mexico – sexual pervert, rabid bigamist, pederast, dope fiend et al — (died in 2008 aged 70) obtained by him through cheating of wealthy widows for funding Solidarity of Poland. The Pope protected the criminal priest despite heart-rending stories reported to him by the affected persons. How many thousands of children have been sexually abused by the perverted depraved clerics of the Church world over?
What about the money obtained by the Church from Benito Mussolini by the Lateran Treaty of 1929 and its investment in untraceable properties in London and elsewhere as they were funds received from a War Criminal? What about the rampant money laundering done by the Vatican Bank? Let not the Devil quote the scriptures.
Will Pope Francis have the courage divest the accumulated wealth of Vatican, plundered, looted and obtained by unethical means, and distribute it among neediest of the world?
Corruption, simony, naked bribes to grab positions of power in the Church is the order of the day in Zero Malabar Church. It allows crook priests to defraud its gullible “goats/cattle” with impunity.
The Zero Malabar Church is the worst example of CORRUPTION. God, if any, may save the people from it
