If you want his head...
Is it just me, or are others disturbed by the fact that more piety-based outrage has been heaped on Toyota for stuck accelerators than on the Vatican for harboring sicko priests? What does it say about Western society when more people want the plattered head of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda than the early retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, a man who may have personally intervened to protect pedophiles?
Is it just me, or are others disturbed by the fact that more piety-based outrage has been heaped on Toyota for stuck accelerators than on the Vatican for harboring sicko priests? What does it say about Western society when more people want the plattered head of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda than the early retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, a man who may have personally intervened to protect pedophiles?
What about this cowboy?
Historians would assuredly note that quite a few poorly chosen candidates have been elevated to the papacy, an office often filled more for political reasons than for the sanctity of the recipient. That is certainly the case of the Vatican’s current Big Cheese—he was the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Truth from 1981 to 2005; in essence, he was Vatican’s point man in quashing dissent. Benedict XVI isn’t the worst or most unqualified pope by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is he a man of simple faith and piety.
But back to Toyota: There have been around 2,000 complaints of sudden acceleration involving Toyotas sold in the United States and investigators are looking into 37 fatalities. Should we care about this? By all means! The majority of cases thus far investigated have proved meritless, but even if 1% are accurate it more than justifies the recall and the whopping $16.4 million fine the National Highway Safety Council slapped on the automaker for stymieing research into potential problems with its accelerator pedal. But consider also that we’re talking 2.3 million vehicles involved in the recall. Even if every complaint had been true, the number of problem cars is less than .00008 of Toyota’s U.S. sales for 2009-2010.
By contrast, in the United States there have been 10,667 allegations of clerical abuse involving children in the years between 1950 and 2002, the latter year that in which the Vatican finally enacted a proactive policy to deal with allegations. The old method was to sweep them under a brocaded tapestry. This is exactly what Pope Benedict is accused of having done; back in the days when he was Joseph Alois Ratzinger he allegedly failed to act on numerous allegations of clerical abuse, including a Texas priest accused of molesting three sub-teen boys. Alas, he can’t be put under oath for any of this as an even sleazier person—former President George W. Bush—granted Ratzinger immunity from liability.
A total of 4392 priests have been accused. The pope insists there has never been a large problem in the Catholic Church and is on record as saying that abuse involved less than 1% of the clergy and that Catholic rates are lower than that of other denominations. By the numbers, maybe. There are roughly 68 million Catholics in the United States, thus the abuse-to-believer ratio is around .00015. If one considers how many priests there were in the fifty-year period, the abuse percentages appear to be small. Those studying the issue argue that the true abuse rate is at least twice as high as the pope claims, and perhaps five times higher. But let us assume, just for a moment, that the pope’s figure is correct. An abuse rate of .00015 is higher than Toyota’s alleged accelerator pedal failure rate. Are we saying that pedophilia is less of a concern than car problems? Is Ratzinger the spiritual leader of Catholicism or an accountant poring over actuarial data? On what moral authority does he stand when lecturing others over reproductive rights, the ordination of women, or cultural relativism? I don’t recommend trying the “papal infallibility on matters of faith” angle; any historian can tell you that this hoax didn’t exist until the 1870 Vatican I council. (Nor is the 'Catholic -Church-isn't-as-bad- as- others' much of a moral argument!)
Drag out any argument you want, though. I say that the very least we can do is hold pope to the same standards to which we’d hold an automaker.
Historians would assuredly note that quite a few poorly chosen candidates have been elevated to the papacy, an office often filled more for political reasons than for the sanctity of the recipient. That is certainly the case of the Vatican’s current Big Cheese—he was the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Truth from 1981 to 2005; in essence, he was Vatican’s point man in quashing dissent. Benedict XVI isn’t the worst or most unqualified pope by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is he a man of simple faith and piety.
But back to Toyota: There have been around 2,000 complaints of sudden acceleration involving Toyotas sold in the United States and investigators are looking into 37 fatalities. Should we care about this? By all means! The majority of cases thus far investigated have proved meritless, but even if 1% are accurate it more than justifies the recall and the whopping $16.4 million fine the National Highway Safety Council slapped on the automaker for stymieing research into potential problems with its accelerator pedal. But consider also that we’re talking 2.3 million vehicles involved in the recall. Even if every complaint had been true, the number of problem cars is less than .00008 of Toyota’s U.S. sales for 2009-2010.
By contrast, in the United States there have been 10,667 allegations of clerical abuse involving children in the years between 1950 and 2002, the latter year that in which the Vatican finally enacted a proactive policy to deal with allegations. The old method was to sweep them under a brocaded tapestry. This is exactly what Pope Benedict is accused of having done; back in the days when he was Joseph Alois Ratzinger he allegedly failed to act on numerous allegations of clerical abuse, including a Texas priest accused of molesting three sub-teen boys. Alas, he can’t be put under oath for any of this as an even sleazier person—former President George W. Bush—granted Ratzinger immunity from liability.
A total of 4392 priests have been accused. The pope insists there has never been a large problem in the Catholic Church and is on record as saying that abuse involved less than 1% of the clergy and that Catholic rates are lower than that of other denominations. By the numbers, maybe. There are roughly 68 million Catholics in the United States, thus the abuse-to-believer ratio is around .00015. If one considers how many priests there were in the fifty-year period, the abuse percentages appear to be small. Those studying the issue argue that the true abuse rate is at least twice as high as the pope claims, and perhaps five times higher. But let us assume, just for a moment, that the pope’s figure is correct. An abuse rate of .00015 is higher than Toyota’s alleged accelerator pedal failure rate. Are we saying that pedophilia is less of a concern than car problems? Is Ratzinger the spiritual leader of Catholicism or an accountant poring over actuarial data? On what moral authority does he stand when lecturing others over reproductive rights, the ordination of women, or cultural relativism? I don’t recommend trying the “papal infallibility on matters of faith” angle; any historian can tell you that this hoax didn’t exist until the 1870 Vatican I council. (Nor is the 'Catholic -Church-isn't-as-bad- as- others' much of a moral argument!)
Drag out any argument you want, though. I say that the very least we can do is hold pope to the same standards to which we’d hold an automaker.
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1 comment:
Great comparison and a unique perspective.
How, though, did Ratzinger get immunity from Bush?
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