A Question of Faith

Just seeing the above trailer is enough to make you reconsider some things if you are Catholic and raising children. The cat is out of the bag now, so to speak, so you wonder how much of this is really still going on. However, having actually seen this documentary it is enough to break your belief in the Catholic church. It certainly broke mine.

Without a doubt a majority of priests were not child rapists, I certainly encountered none of this as a kid and to my knowledge, neither did any of my friends. It is challenging though to identify yourself as a part of an organization who remained complicit in one of the most disturbing and shocking revelations in the 20th and this century.

This isn't the first time that Catholicism has been under the gun for controversial reasons. If you know your history, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, it isn't that hard to find these days with all the information of the internet at your fingertips.

So, as I approach the age of 30, and while my wife and I are planning for kids getting my head around the prospect of taking my children before a church that not only turned a blind eye to these actions but circumvented the law and allowed these monsters to remain free and continue to practice their form of dirty religion is a challenge to say the least.

One thing you have to understand is that my family and my wife's family are both stout Italian (mostly) Catholic families. Our parent's generation isn't quite as hardlined as our grandparent's, however revealing to our parents that we are deciding to take our children in another direction as far as faith goes would be shocking to them.

So the question remains, how hard have people fallen into this with the Catholic church? Is it certain that Lutheran ministers or pastors at Baptist churches haven't raped children? Of course not. It's a big world out there and anything (unfortunately) is possible. Are people so fearful still of Hell that defying the church somehow puts them in an unjustifiable position with God? Does challenging a corrupt and problematic organization somehow cause you to fall out of favor with God? These I suppose are good questions to ask, but there lies the problem with the Catholic church in general. There is no room for such questions. This, coupled with the history, could make for one of the largest and long standing criminal organization with the best of intentions in the history of the world.

New Year

I am starting my sixth year on the blog which started on MySpace, then eventually migrated to its current residence when I figured out that MySpace was sooo immature. At least compared to Facebook. I'm not going to do a yearly recap, nor will I lay out resolutions I know I wouldn't be able to keep. Predicting the future was something I was never really adept at.

I will share that I am forming a new sports obsession that will no doubt get some ridicule from my friends. Soccer, or known to the other five billion people on the planet as football. Or futbol. I'm getting my toes wet by watching some Premier League games and learning the terminology, which is more difficult than I originally anticipated.

I figured since English football fans are so passionate about their clubs, I'd better pick a side and move forward. I figured cheering for Manchester United was like discovering the NBA and cheering for the Celtics in the 50's, or the Yankees in pretty much every decade in the past century. I thought Chelsea could have been a good choice, and they are one of the best clubs in the Premier League right now. But I think I'm going to settle on Arsenal. More on why later. For now, it's because their home uniforms are red, which works for me. It's my favorite color. Or colour.

Along with soccer my other Euro-passion will begin it's testing phase later this month. Formula 1 racing is something I have been very into for the past few years. I've gone on a few times about why it's much better than watching left hand turns all day, while beer swilling, redneck, racist homophobes cheer the "sport" on. So, much to be excited about despite college football commencing for the year.

School begins on Monday, so my schedule is about to become more hectic. Last semester about killed me, but the schedule will not be quite so grueling. To add to things, my unpaid internship in the Park Athletic Department begins this semester as well, which I am looking forward to with a ton of anticipation. Here is to hoping the great "go back to school" experiment pays off.

And just to show that turning 30 this hasn't detached me from being completely immature, I give you this...