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	Vatican Priest: Talking about Sex Abuse Scandals Is like Enacting the Holocaust By David Dayen Firedoglake April 2, 2010 http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/02/vatican-priest-talking-about-sex-abuse-scandals-is-like-enacting-the-holocaust/ This is an unbelievably insensitive statement from a senior Vatican priest. A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack [...] Benedict sat looking downward when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said. Father Cantalamessa quoted from what he said was a letter from an unnamed Jewish friend. “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole word,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.” I had dozens of relatives murdered in a synagogue as victims of collective violence and anti-Semitism. You are being criticized because you covered up for child rapists. The term “false equivalence” doesn’t begin to describe this lunacy. As I Jew, I can’t say I really recognize these “recurring symptoms” of which this priest speaks, but maybe that’s because I’ve never belonged to an organization with an official policy of hiding the actions of pedophiles. The Vatican is officially distancing themselves from this statement as fast as they can, but if anything it was a gaffe that revealed the true nature of things. I don’t think it comes as a surprise that the Catholic church has a persecution complex. But it’s good to know that they consider being criticized as tantamount to systematic murder and violence.
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