Where to spot cardinals in Boston this weekend

Brought to us by Stuart (J.C.) Smalley.

"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, I don't care if people don't like me just because I continually shriek anti-Catholicism for completely invalid reasons."

Might as well add me to your enemies list.

Cardinal Law was handsomely rewarded for his role, and yeah, there is probably plenty more collective guilt that has gone unpunished, including perpetrators, those who covered for them, and even those who just looked the other way. It didn't happen in a vacuum.

As a former altar boy (who was one of the lucky ones that didn't get molested) I hope they all keep hearing about it for the rest of their days. The day the Church can get people to forget or keep quiet about it is the day it can start all over again.

Also, anyone who hasn't yet should watch Spotlight and thank the Boston Phoenix and the Boston Globe for their service.

We’ve been over this many times, John, but let’s do it once more.

Catholicism is a religion.
Catholics are a group of people.
The Catholic Church is an organization.

The Catholic Church, the organization, placed people in positions of authority, who abused that authority to rape children. At a deeply institutional level, the organization shielded those abusers, protected them from discovery and prosecution, and enabled further rape and abuse.

Fury at the Church for its institutional role in enabling the rape of children (the innocent victims being, on the whole, Catholics) is not in any way, shape, or form bigotry against Catholics or against Catholicism.

The cardinals coming to Boston are not ordinary Catholics; they are the leadership of the institution. Pointing out that they are the leadership of an institution with a history of enabling child rape, by suggesting that children are not safe around the leadership of that institution, is not in any way, shape, or form bigotry against Catholicism as a religion or against Catholics as a people.

Stop defending the actions of the institution by accusing those who criticize it if bigotry against the religion or the people.

There is a difference between collective guilt and institutional guilt. The molestations and rapes of children by individual priests were individual crimes, and the guilt for them is individual. The protection of those individuals, the coverup of those rapes and molestations, the care for the reputation of the church over the dignity of the victims, are crimes of the institution. The Roman Catholic Church is hierarchical, and makes strong claims for the authority of its higher officers. If they have such authority over it, then they are responsible for its crimes.

Kinopio erases the distinction between institutional guilt and collective guilt by suggesting that the senior members of the church are themselves likely to commit the individual crimes which the institution has protected. This kind of confusion is typical of satire. Kinopio's post is weak satire, but it is satire. It is certainly true that some have, in their accusations, transformed the institutional guilt of the church into collective guilt of its clergy. This is not, however, anti-Catholic bias, it is anti-clerical bias, or, more precisely, anti-Catholic-clerical bias. It is bias against someone because they represent an institution perceived to be corrupt, not because of their religious beliefs.