The speeches of the Pope against pedophilia are only a pseudo and anti-biblical critique, and so they reinforce the Roman and pagan system that produces pedophilia, teaching an anti-biblical and repressive doctrine in sexuality, in that “sexual repression brings people to a dictatorship”. This situation gives me an opportunity to read the Bible therefore as social criticism, as did our Lord Jesus Christ. Like all the other prophets in the Bible, Jesus believed firmly in God’s revelation. This is what led the prophets to hear the word of God in a “saving” way. That is, immersed in problems of “death” in their society (in this case pedophilia) they “heard” in the word of God the critical word of a saving criticism of their society, and they proposed the “kingdom” of God, which they “heard” from God (Word and Spirit), and transmitted it to their contemporaries. This is the biblical task of believers: “to hear in a dead situation (in this case, pedophilia) the Word of salvation from God and to propose it to their society’s system as repentance and salvation.”
The Pope did exactly the opposite. In a terrible and deadly situation of bishops and priests who force nuns to have sex, of bishops and priests who break up families by impregnating others’ wives, of bishops and priests, homosexuals and pedophiles, he does not go to the Bible to read in the Bible that “a bishop must be the husband of one wife,” (1 Tim. 3:2); that “who forbids marriage is a devil” (1 Tim. 4: 1-5) and so is he who forbids the right to eat and to take a wife (1 Cor. 9:3-5). Instead he accuses these poor bishops, priests and nuns who are the result and victims of his anti-biblical and tyrannical doctrine to reinforce his doctrine and Roman system through the condemnation of his victims with the result of deviating the world from the Bible and consequently from the salvation that comes from God’s word. That the Pope deviates from the Bible is evident, as are the deadly results of this deviation. But how can the Pope’s condemnation of the bishops and priests, pedophiles, etc., strengthen his system of tyrannical doctrine?
Take a well known and also a better-documented example: the critique of hierarchy in medieval Europe, that is, of the beginning of modernism. There was at that time (just as there probably also existed in the Ancient World) a complex and internally divided ideological system. I will limit myself to emphasizing just two forms of justification: religious and secular, i.e., Christian (Roman Catholic) and feudal. Naturally, in medieval Europe the hierarchy had its religious defence and its clerical supporters. But Christianity (not Roman Catholic) has always been, at least potentially, subversive. Its texts, the Bible, suggest a primitive or original form of egalitarianism. I prefer here to deal with feudal ideology, an ideology that is integrally and totally hierarchical, even though it dies not lack in critical potential. It was indeed a claim of the nobles, lords and barons, as well as of Popes and priests, (each of whom occupied his position in the hierarchy), that they should take care of those who were lower in social rank. Service was a social ideal of the feudal system. Its founding myth was the tale of “the strong defending the weak”. (So now the Pope, when he can no longer hide pedophiles, etc. from their victims, as he always has in the past, tries to accuse them to uphold this same tale). Then came the usual array of lay or clerical copyists with the usual detailed display of ideals in terms of justice done and protection assured by this hierarchical society. And when justice was not done and protection not assured, an occasional critic would rise up and chastise a dissolute and degenerate aristocrat or bishop or priest, like the Pope is now being criticized. But a criticism of this kind is really supporting the system because it speaks only of deviant individuals or groups whilst not touching the system or the philosophy that produces aristocracy and papacy and their deadly consequences.
A classic case of this is the Pope asking for forgiveness because those within Roman Catholicism who did not share his way of thinking butchered the martyrs or the Jews. This serves to strengthen the system that produces infallible men in this world, such as the Popes, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Arafat, (who is often in the Vatican kissing the Pope’s heart)etc.. and preserves the system’s roots, out of which the same disasters are always ready to grow. The so called bad catho‑romans are chastised whilst the Roman theology that produces the Pope and his hierarchy and his deadly effects like pedophilia etc., is itself celebrated, and the existing system is reaffirmed. Celebration or condemnation becomes subversive only to the extent that the aristocratic or Roman Catholic ideal varies from or is the opposite of the real behavior of aristocrats and the papal hierarchy. Soon one of the more courageous critics will wonder why the privileged Popes, bishops and priests only so rarely perform the services that supposedly justify their hierarchical position. This critic will ask why they use their supposed “purity” to assault the children or wives of other people, or nuns, or whomever. The revolutionary critique of aristocrats and Popes, or of bishops and priests as parasites has its origin in this fact- that they “declare that they have done what in reality they have never done or do the opposite of what they promise to do in order to have power.” This is why the Roman Pope declares himself infallible and does not allow criticism. It would allow the possibility of a reformer pointing out evidence of the disasters that Roman theology produces and thus foster the indignation of the faithful and their need to change the theology that produces and supports these misdeeds. In Italy human rights are still expected by law from the Popes. (While the Pope is the most absolute monarch in the entire planet). They are not, rather, a conquest made at the grass‑roots level precisely because the catho‑roman hierarchy has not collapsed because the necessary “critique” is missing. This critique is the Bible, Christ as the very critique of all societies. This is also why the Vatican has not signed the U.N. Charter of Human Rights.
Hierarchy, which for us means the Roman Papal hierarchy, is a distributive system in which one’s job, reputation and role are strongly interrelated in word, if not in practice. Often the practice is lacking since pride of rank weakens willingness to serve. (The rank of a Pope or a cardinal will lead them to hierarchical arrogance in the role they fill, and it will, de facto, lead them to take priority of place.) A Pope who is protective and useful, one like Roncalli (called “the Good Pope”), is seen as a contradiction in terms and is called “good”. (It is a bit like a “benevolent despot”, where the adjective is used in antithesis to the noun.) There is no further way of justifying the hierarchical order and the theology that support it other than the unbiblical way the Pope is currently doing. Otherwise the whole structure collapses. I am inclined to think that the egalitarian doctrine of the “rights of man” is a product of, or was made possible by, this collapse. The feudal fortress was not attacked from without before it had been undermined from within. (This is the beginning of the Reformation). Or, to turn the metaphor the other way round, equality as defined by the priesthood of all believers grew out of the criticism of a failed hierarchy. Pedophilia will always grow and all will suffer if all of us, the Pope included, will not go to the Word and the Spirit of God, to Christ Jesus as the very critic of our thoughts and acts, to repent and to change in accord with the One who alone saved and saves through His Word and His Spirit. FM