Doubts

Doubt

“I want to say to you: Doubt can be a bond 

as powerful and sustaining as certainty,” 

John Patrick Shanley.

Considering social media's response to today's headlines, many in an indignant uproar about public figures behaving badly turn a blind eye when members of the clergy are the perpetrators. Regardless of affiliation, abuse of religious power is the most dangerous and destructive.

In other words, it's not like the entertainment industry among others is pretending to be a paragon of virtue. Traditionally, "La-la land" doesn't have the best of reputations unless the rest of us common folk are living under a rock or something. 

Yet one would think those representing “God” might be held to a higher standard. We ask priests and other clergy into our lives every day, establishing an intimate, lifetime relationship for better or worse. We trust them with our darkest secrets. We believe that they have our best interests at heart. We have faith they will lead us into the light not the darkness. Our love for them is unconditional. Our "hope springs eternal...," Alexander Pope.

Is it any wonder our children are afraid “to tell” when the devil is also "Our Father”? The fact that those of any clergy are rarely prosecuted is absolutely frightening much less disgusting. It’s not Jesus who protects them: it’s a system of enabling “disciples,” the very worst of heretics.

How can we expect Hollywood to clean up its act when those of the cloth avoid prosecution entirely in the name of all that is Holy?