At first glance, mathew archbold's whinge that Roman Polanski proves our persecution against Christians seems reasonable.
Just for a moment I want you to imagine that Roman Polanski was a priest. Frightening, yes?
But for the sake of my point imagine that he's a priest who drugged and raped a thirteen year old.
Imagine he's a priest who fled to France so as to avoid punishment for his crime. Imagine that he flaunted his freedom in America's face for decades.Now imagine that Roman Polanski as a priest was apprehended by the police after all those years. Now, imagine what the media would be saying.
There's one little problem with this: the Catholic Church demands that we view, and treat, priests differently from producers (and everyone else on the planet).
Priests are special, we are told. Priests hold special moral authority, directly from God, we are told. Priests are better than the rest of us, which is what allows priests to teach us, admonish us and absolve us of sins. (I grew up Catholic before all the scandals. This is exactly how Catholics used to view priests.)
You can't have it both ways, my dear mathew. Either priests are special, which makes their crimes special, or they're not special, don't have the ear of God and don't have the right to tell anyone anything. You can't stand there and tell me that I'm not a good person because I voted for Obama, and then turn around and say, "but Roman Polanski did it, too!"
Roman Polanski is scum but priests (and other religious leaders) who abuse children are even worse. Whenever someone in a position of authority and trust abuses their power the crime is magnified. If, as you point out, we accept the church's notion that priests are God's personal intercessors on earth, then that makes their crime greater still.
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