My dad works at a Catholic church as a custodian, and this week has had to go to work early to attend sensitivity training courses. A good portion of the class deals with educating the adults who work at the school about appropriate and inappropriate ways to interact with the students at the school.It's a great idea, and the Catholic church should have incorporated it decades ago. There's only one problem -- the priests at the school are exempt from attending.
That's right. The Catholic church, which has had to pay millions to the families of kids who were previously molested by priests, says that the one group that has been convicted the most for inappropriate interactions with students is exempt from the courses.
It's like the federal government requiring all of their employees to attend a session on the perils of drinking and driving, except for those who have been charged with a DUI. It's ludicrous.
I am a Catholic myself, and things like this are getting pretty tiring. Priests charged with crimes are sent to other churches to get them out of harm's (the law's) way, half-hearted apologies are issued to families who don't feel it's right to sue the church; and then there are things like this happening.
Meanwhile, the Catholic church sits there and wonders why attendance and more importantly, donations, are dwindling. As far as attendance, parishioners are tired of hearing the endless stories about sexual predatory priests, and the reason why donations are down is because parishioners know that much of the money they give will be used to fund the livelihood of those priests who have sexually assaulted children, or to pay for the lawsuits being filed.
I still attend church on a regular basis with my family, because I feel the lessons of the Church are still important, and that the priests are flawed, not the Church. Those in the Church need to start following the Golden Rule, and do unto others as they would have done on to them -- and that means that priests should start attending these courses now.
RoadRage
2 comments:
More evidence the Church is out of touch with its membership. That's the reason you often see the word "fallen" in front of the word Catholic when people describe themselves, and why all the McChurches are made up primarily of fallen Catholics.
When Jesus returns, I believe He will look everywhere and finally say, "I see nothing here that looks like what I told you about. There are some people who act like I told you to act. These people are My Church. To them I have one additional commandment...DON'T ORGANIZE.
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