managing the brand
There are major religions and minor religions and new kids on the block they call cults. It can take hundreds of years before a cult gets drafted into the minors and it takes a powerful leader’s conversion to a minor religion to call it up into the majors. (Think of Constantine, a Roman emperor, adopting Christianity.)
Today when people gossip about Mitt Romney being a Mormom, we are working out amongst ourselves, in part, if Mormons and polygamy are ready to be big time. The recent arrest and conviction of Warren Jeffs shows that it won’t be an easy transition. (Leader of a branch of the church sentenced on rape charges, also tried for arranging marriages of young women to older men. Accused of incest by niece and nephew.)
A church must manage it’s brand, just like any large corporation. The Catholic Church has for years managed itself by moving problem (ie pedophile) priests to new communities. That strategy is a public relations disaster and the Catholic Church has paid more than 2 billion in settlements. Is a religion too big to fail? Ask a pagan. They’ll tell you they never die, they just fade into obscurity.
The Catholic Church needs a policy change. How about letting priests marry so they have a normal sexual outlet?
“In 1966, psychiatrists Franz Alexander and Sheldon Selesnick described problems involving monasteries: “Centuries of imposed celibacy had not inhibited the erotic drives of monks or nuns, and underground passageways were known to connect some monasteries and nunneries. Townspeople often had to send prostitutes to the monasteries in order to protect the maidens of the village.”Â
Teach someone a woman’s sexuality is sinful and maybe they’ll start grabbing little boys. Look at what happens to straight men in prison: there’s only one outlet. Priests found a safe sexual outlet in children who could be manipulated and silenced.
Religion either does this to people or allows it to happen. I’d wager it allows it to happen, because rape and incest can happen without religion at all.
The dirty church in the photo is a place of hope for innocent people looking to do good and find forgiveness and the men who lead them give them words of comfort and accept their money and reverence in return.