[Photo by BBC News]Pope Benedict XVI warned us against "godlessness" and "secularism" on Good Friday [see post below].
Perhaps he was thinking about his former bishop, Fernando Lugo, who is now the president of Paraguay.
Seems the president, when he was a bishop, had an affair with a 16-year old girl which resulted in the birth of a boy child.
The president, at first, denied any such shenanigans, but doggone it all, the girl, Viviana Carrillo, filed a paternity suit.
So, finally, he confessed and said he is going to "assume all responsibilities."
That's nice.
This is no big deal, of course; happens all the time; and not infrequently, it seems, of bishops in the Roman Catholic Church.
The problem is that such behavior, which I'm sure Pope Benedict would classify as "mocking" Christ, or a "desert of godlessness," does not appear to be caused by "secularism" or "the faith ... being trivialised." The man was a bishop, for Christ's sake!
Nor it is caused, I think, by the fact that "Values and norms that held societies together and drew people to higher ideals are laughed at and thrown overboard."
A bishop wouldn't do that.
In fact, the bishop was horny and his church said he could not do what was normal -- get married and have children -- so he was caught between a rock and a hard place...or hard something.
I don't think the bishop is a bad person; in fact, it seems he was a good bishop in many ways and that he's been a good president for Paraguay in other ways.
I do think the Pope and his so-called "values and norms" which insist that Catholic clergy be men and be celibate are, in fact, creating the rise in what he bemoans as "secularism."
I also think the Roman church is filled with hypocrites of the highest magnitude.
There's more here.
