Why's that Pedophile on my TV?

I'll probably offend a whole bunch of innocent people with this one, so my abject apologies to start with... but:

Last night I caught a snippet of the news between arriving home and jumping in the shower. I had paused in front of the TV whilst the segments were changing, and then the announcer came on with a guest, who was wearing a priest's collar and talking about the pope's visit. So help me, the first thing that came welling up out of the lizard depths of my brain was "Why's that Pedophile on my TV?".

Then I thought - you don't know, he could be a perfectly nice person. Just because he has on a priest outfit, that doesn't automatically make him a pedophile.

The fact that Cardinal Law was taken back to Rome, welcomed with open arms, and given high office there leads me to believe that the powers that be in the Catholic Church don't think that pedophilia in the church is really a problem. Until he and all the rest of them who had the power to stop it and instead betrayed the trust of their flock by giving these criminals access to MORE children rather than retiring them to a monastery where they could meditate on their sins.... until they are all reviled and punished I will always look at priests as possible pedophiles, and will never trust them at all.

Now we find that the highest officials in our government have committed the worst crime that we can think of: knowingly and enthusiastically planning torture for other human beings - in the White House no less.

I'm here to say that until and unless we round them up and put them on trial for war crimes, we will all be painted with that brush. We will not be trusted, our shit will stink to the heavens, and rightfully so.

After Nixon we swept it under the rug, for the sake of "healing the partisan wounds".

After Reagan's Iran Contra, we were treated to Ollie North's innocent baby blues as he spouted righteousness and looked all spiffy in his uniform with all the salad on the chest. The war crimes and the torture under Paul Bremmer (familiar name?) were swept under the rug, and Reagan was crowned prince of the sunrise and gumdrops trickling down a rainbow.

Li'l Bush on a silver spoon slid out from under that rug.

Until we prosecute the gang of torturers, and put them in chains where they belong, people all over the world will be asking themselves every time they see our politicians on the news... "Why's that war monger torturer on my TV?"

and rightfully so.




[disclaimer: I am not now and never have been a christian, but my ex-husband was an ex-catholic who was an altar boy when young; and learned from an early age that it was a good idea to avoid being alone with a priest.]