Anger, Faith,and Fear in Society Today:

It seems to me that alot of people are afraid of the Catholic Church, or perhaps it's more like anger at the church for the sexual abuse coverup. To me its' interesting to inquire just why everyone seems so angry with the church. I dont' seek to condem either side of the sex abuse scandle rather explore the reasons for the emotions on both sides of the isle. The people are angry that there was a cover up. Okay fine. But it seems to me that the outrage is more than that. Its' about how the people suddenly had the blinders removed, and thay suddenly saw that the priests, and bishops are human too, vunverable to the same temptations as the rest of us. Suddenly we see they are not much differnt than the rest of us, and it's like going into shock at suddenly realizing that we all have faults. We see the imperfection of the men who are our priests. We held them up to such high standard believeing that they did'nt have or, don't share in the same temptaions that the rest of us face. But they do. And when they give in to those temptations then there are allways the reprecussions that follow.

So now we have the scandle that it seems has turned many people away from the catholic faith becuase they are disgusted that perhaps the emperor does'nt realy have any clothes. But was it the scandle alone that has people away from the church? In America I believe the reasons run deeper. One of the reasons I believe is the strong history of Prostantism dominateing history of the country. Plus Americans have allways rebeled at authority. People don't like haveing someone tell them how to act or behave. Thats why in some quarters of American society the pope is reviled because he stands for moral authority, and some in America can't stand that. Thus the rise of indivualism, belief in the the self as being the sole governing moral authority over one self. Since it is the individual who can choose to act however they please. Yes they can. But I would argue that people are allways looking for a higher purpose, higher direction. People want direction of morality, they just don't want it thrown down their throats. A good example of this is humanitis qwest for the meaning of life. The individual asks why am I here? Why do I exsist, and whats my role in life?

All of this leads to fear and insecureity. Part of this insecureity is by the way we elevate people to hero status. In a way we worship them, we admire them because they seem to posses a higher charater, than the rest of us. Thats what happend to the priests. We held them in such high regard that when they were seen as being like the rest of us we got angry, and we got scared, because then we realized that it was'nt just the children who are vunerable, but we all are. Thus we lashed out in anger, feeling hurt and betrayed becuase we lost our naivety. We lost our innocent belief that the priests above all would'nt seek to hurt us or destroy our innocence.