Holy pedophiles, Batman!

As a father of two beautiful boys, it both nauseates and angers me that there are so many people in this world who would wish to do them harm. It seems as though we can’t turn on a television or read a newspaper these days without hearing about child exploitation and sexual abuse around every corner. The subject became a water cooler topic and was brought to the forefront of the public consciousness with the Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno Penn State scandal and there have been a few notable cases of late worth discussing because of their proximity to us.

A daycare operator in Shediac was charged with attempting to possess child porn and two separate incidents of trying to produce child pornography. As bad as those accusations are, they didn’t involve any children entrusted to the care of the facility. If you want an example of that, look no further than the case of the local daycare operator whose spouse has been charged with owning and producing child porn involving attendees of the facility. Details are few and far between, and officials have been extremely tight lipped as to the specifics involving the accusations. The accused, to say the least, will not likely be welcomed back into polite society with open arms even if he is acquitted, based on the nature of the charges. I don’t have enough space (or gag reflex suppression) to even talk about the arrested St. John councillor and his child pornography connections.

Child exploitation is one of the worst crimes that can be committed against the most innocent members of our society. Anyone who perpetrates or covers up the crime should be treated like the fabled Frankenstein monster and chased through our villages with torches and pitchforks. A stigma is attached to those who commit and conceal these crimes, and rightfully so. The question I would have to ask, though, is why Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky and the three local suspects tied to paedophilic crimes have been vilified while the person who is alleged to be complicit in covering up one of the largest systematic child molestations in modern history is being applauded as some sort of man of great character?

I’m looking at directly at you, the supporters of Mr. Joseph Ratzinger - AKA Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict XVI has sat in power for the last eight years, but the last three years of his Papacy have seen an unparalleled number of sexual abuse disclosures come to light. Aside from an official “oh, we’re sorry about that” delivered by Pope Benedict in 2010, there has been little to nothing done about the millions of children who have been victimized at the hands of Catholic Church clergy. Why am I being so hard on Mr. Ratzinger? Surely he couldn’t have stopped these monstrosities all alone? Let’s rewind a tad for a bit of a history lesson.

After Joseph Ratzinger was promoted to Cardinal and before he was appointed as supreme leader of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II put Cardinal Ratzinger in charge of the ‘Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith’ in 2001. The purpose of this department was to dig deep into the allegations of child rape and torture at the hands of Catholic priests. In May of that same year, a letter was drafted by Cardinal Ratzinger for every bishop in the Catholic Church; reminding them of the seriousness of a particular crime that greatly concerned the church.

Surprisingly, that sickening offense was not the rape of young children, but the reporting of any incidents of sexual abuse to authorities outside the church hierarchy. It was strictly a matter to be dealt with internally, and never to be leaked to the outside world and its prying eyes. What was the penalty for blowing the whistle on any holy hanky panky? Punishment would be possible excommunication from the Catholic Church. Molesting a child won’t get you booted from the church, but telling the authorities about someone abusing a child very well may. How’s that for a barometer of morality?

The church’s internal methods of dealing with offending priests was to send them to ‘therapy’ rather than have them prosecuted, and many abusive clergy were simply reassigned to other diocese so that their sexual crimes might continue. If Ratzinger was involved in this cover-up as a Cardinal, it would be hard to deny that he had a hand in the concealment as Pope.

So, as it stands, Pope Benedict’s final day in office will be February 28^th – where he will then retire to the confines of private living quarters in the heart of Vatican City. Citing “health concerns and frailty” as his reasons for being the first Pope to step down in over 600 years, his decision is being trumpeted as honorable and wise by many Catholics. Personally, I think his self-imposed exile isn’t honorable, and is quite cowardly in the face of this groundswell of accusations.  His only wisdom is staying in hermitage at Vatican City to avoid prosecution on the slew of charges that are already rumored to be coming his way.

So where’s the justice? Do the claims of doing the Lord’s work excuse those from the judgment and scorn that we lay so freely upon others accused of similar crimes? To speak with many Catholic faithful and to hear their unapologetic reverence for Pope Benedict, the answer is a resounding “yes.”  The cross seems to have a new role as a shield, protecting its holder from even the most deplorable of actions in the eyes of the blind faithful.

Heaven help us and our children if this is, indeed, the truth.

Can I get an Amen?

...And February made me shiver

I used to enjoy February. The end of winter is in sight, memories of paper bags filled with Valentine’s Day cards in grade school, and the way we get a crazy extra day every fourth year. It was always a perfectly harmless month, much like any of its eleven calendar siblings.

That all changed on a snowy Wednesday morning in February of last year when I received word that my younger brother had been killed in an unfortunate accident at 34 years of age. His passing left a stain on the month that will follow me until the end of my days.

Little did I know how soon that stain would darken.

My mother was admitted to the hospital this past Saturday morning with a sudden and acute health issue. On another snowy morning in February – this past Sunday, to be precise – I was notified that my mother had passed away at only 54 years of age.

As I write this, I am preparing for a 3 day trip home to Cape Breton to visit with the remaining members of my family and say goodbye to the woman who brought me into this world. It’s a very confusing time for me, as a big part of me feels like I’m bidding farewell to someone I hardly know. You see, despite what you may have thought, not every mother/son relationship is the stuff of 80’s sitcoms where the Huxtables or Keatons sat around the dinner table and solved all their problems over meatloaf. Family relationships can be difficult, messy, and even destructive entities – and my mother and I are the perfect example of this fact.

A single Mom at 16, my mother gave birth to four healthy boys by the time she hit the age of 32 – the age where I became a father to my first child. My mother was largely alone throughout her child-raising years and handled three of her four rambunctious boys while being little more than a child herself. As a self-absorbed teenager and 20-something, I didn’t understand what fueled many of my mother’s behaviors.  I didn’t approve of many of the decisions and life choices she made and I had no issue with questioning them loudly and often. It was her behaviors and my aggressive criticisms and reactions to those behaviors that drove a wedge between us for the better part of my adult life.

We went years hardly speaking, and when we did it was only unkind words that were exchanged on both sides of the equation. It seemed like the rift between us was irreparable, and I had all but given up in trying to patch things up; it was then I found out I was going to be a father.

I called my mother when I found out my wife was pregnant. I told her I would like for her to be a part of my life again and my child’s life as well, with the rule that things needed to remain civil between us. I didn’t want any of the issues between my mother and I to spill over to my child, and she agreed.  For almost five years and with the arrival of my second child, she showed a loving side of herself that I had either never seen or long since forgotten. She was the perfect Nana to my boys and took an exceptional amount of pride in the role.

It’s only now, as a father of two preparing to lay his mother to rest, and having seen her affection for my boys that I finally understand her.

I went into parenthood with an emotional toolbox filled with the experiences that only 30+ years on this earth can provide. I also had the most loving and supporting spouse a man could ask for.  I’m not a perfect parent – but I’m far more equipped to deal with the stresses that raising children can bring than my mother ever was at her incredibly young age. I sit and ask myself today how I would have fared as a single parent with three children before my 21^st birthday. An asylum probably would have been a pretty safe bet.

As a parent, you give every bit of yourself to your children and they become the center of your universe. What happens, though, when you haven’t had that opportunity to figure out who you are? How difficult it must be to provide a foundation for your children when you, yourself, are built on a bed of straw.

I get it now, and I only wish my mother were around so I could tell her how sorry I am.

My mother’s funeral is Friday, and I am likely sitting in a church as you read this – an oddity in itself. I was chosen earlier in the week to write her eulogy and I feared that I would have nothing to say that anyone would want to hear.  I see now how wrong I was.

I won’t talk about the woman who I butted heads with so much through my life. I’ll recall fondly the woman who walked me to school on my first day of kindergarten. I’ll laugh about the woman who tortured me throughout my childhood with viewings of Dirty Dancing and Grease. I’ll talk about her love for animals and her wonderful singing voice. I’ll talk about how her surprising me with a big plastic swimming pool in my room on my sixth birthday was one of the best moments of my life and how her bringing me to see E.T. as my first ever theatre movie was an event that brought me to writing movie reviews 30 years later for this very newspaper.

I’ll pay respect to the woman who did the best she could with what she had available for her children.

I’m going to talk about my Mom.