Friday, November 23, 2007

Church apologizes for everything

This just in, apparently the top bishop in Quebec has gone and apologized for pretty much everything the church has done wrong. Everything he could think of, at the least. First of all, it definitely is nice that someone in a prominent position there is sorry, and I believe this is the first time I've heard any of them apologize for the child abuse that went on. However, I do have a few gripes.

The first is motive. This bishop wasn't apologizing just because he was sorry about all that had happened. He apologized because he thought it would help draw people back into Catholicism. This doesn't mean he isn't actually sorry, and I don't doubt that this man in particular probably is, but it does mean that it isn't as big a reason for him as attracting people to the religion.

My second problem is that although an apology is fine, what I really want is a promise to try to improve. Weeding out the bad ideas you know about is a good first step, but other bad ideas will keep popping up. You have to get down to the root causes and pluck them out. Unfortunately, this is something I expect the church never to do, as it would involve using logic instead of faith, relying on evidence instead of divine revelation, etc. In short, it would take all the religion out of religion. Not that I'd mind seeing that happen, but it's not going to.

1 comment:

AIGBusted said...

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-Ryan