Friday, October 12, 2012

Trying Corpses


Le Pape Formose et Étienne VII ("Pope Formosus and Stephen VII"), 1870. Note the latter is now called Pope Stephen VI.
trial of the cadaver of Pope Formosus
I have always disliked Jimmy Savile and felt there was something creepy about him. Now he is
dead accusations and revelations seem to abound but there is something creepy about putting a corpse on trial, though of course media are trying the BBC and other institutions that gave him access to the vulnerable. There are obviously parallels as Fr Tim has drawn out with the situation of the Church.

A few commentators have suggested values and attitudes have changed, that sexual assault in the work place were common up until a couple of decades ago. Even violent rape against women was often not reported, if it happened against children, at a time when violent physical assault against them was part of official school discipline, it was not believed. Juries sought to excuse sexual crimes, the judiciary was far from sympathetic and the police ..., well I remember a women who had been raped saying to me her interrogation by the police was like being raped yet again.

Savile rose to fame against a culture which extolled sexual promiscuity and deliberately pushed the bounds of sexual taboo. Women and girls were expected to be sexually available. Pop culture tended to dehumanise and demean women: baby, doll, bird come to mind from the libretti and popular culture of the time, the time when we "let it all hang out". Conversation in the workplace was peppered with sexual innuendo, as much the walls of the workplace, at least where men worked, were plastered with semi-erotic imagery.

At the moment we are trying individuals and certain institutions but some groups claim that as many as 1 in 4 people have been sexual abused as children. In some environments, such as where there is stepfather or a succession of "uncles" it seems, possibly, to be even higher. It is significant that allegations are bought into the open only after Savile's death. There is an unstable silence amongst victims when they feel isolated, when society in a sense conspires to silence and isolate them, so much so that it is only after two or three dare to speak out that there appears to be a feeding frenzy.

The Catholic Church in New York paid out huge reparations for abuse victims, the New York City Council refused to accept allegations concerning its public schools service claiming it would bankrupt the city. Some people when allegations are made about priests suggest the police tend to go on a "trawling" expedition to find other allegations. personally I see no problem with this, I just wish it could be applied to the rest of society as easily as can be applied to a Catholic parish.

Indeed what the Savile allegations suggest is that sexual abuse is indeed deep seated in society but so too is a culture of cover-up. We need to replace that culture with one of disclosure, but what our society will look like if we did, and whether it would be pleasant to live in or riddled with whispers and suspicion is another matter.

Maybe, too we need to put on trial the cadaver of 1960s/70s then in 40 or 50 years our generation can be dragged to the dock too.

8 comments:

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

  Blimey, well, from a psychologists (acquaintance) POV the1970s are still responsible for mostof the 'online' porn (courteousy la revolution). If the 20th had been spared the basil-(apologiies) basel-bully-if you want my therapeuteee?????, leave the Church! whom a lot of knock(turn away before the door is opened) sticks are terrified of venturing beyond, the kinsey - seriously kreepy-kinsey - report, might have had less of an impact on unsuspecting Catholics.

PS - the new Egyptian 'democracy' wants to secure necrphilia under Islamic law. V-v-la-not even in jest.

Pablo the Mexican said...

Allowing our passions to overcome us always leads to sin.

Society is now insane because the amount of unbridled passion has increased to epic proportions.

A constant barrage of immoral sexual activity through media has helped to make deviant behavior 'acceptable'.

People are no longer outraged by crimes that cause the Holy Angels to cry out for revenge.

The anchor has been disconnected from the ship.

That disconnect began for Holy Mother Church at Vatican Council II.

Things were going bad well before then, but Vatican II was the catalyst for the destruction of souls; the moral breakdown of Society.

We can drag a corpse out of it's grave, but it is our participation with continual sin that drags Society further into the abyss.

We are participants when we do not stand up to immorality.

Averting our eyes makes us accomplices.

The way out of this hole we find ourselves trapped within is to start at Christ crucified.

Our Priests must say the Tridentine Mass, they must provide proper sacraments and catechism to us.

They must properly feed us, their sheep.

A good Priests is one that jettisons everything the Springtime has wrought upon the Faithful, and feeds them from Tradition.

*

nickbris said...

We must be thankful now that we have the technology the "Saintly" types like SIR JAMES will be exposed before they die.

We must pray for his family who must be suffering more than anybody could imagine.

Adrian said...

When the activities of errant vicars, schoolmasters and scoutmasters were revealed in the press in the sixties and earlier, they were treated in a rather 'Nudge, nudge' jokey sort of way (even though the individual would feel the full force of the criminal law if caught). The fabric of society and the family was stronger then and generally better able to deal with the emotional fall-out of interference and 'least said, soonest mended' might well have been the best policy as far as the young person was concerned. With the dilution of moral restraints in the precise period in which Saville became popular and famous, this security was taken away and the young far too often left responsible for their own moral welfare. The rather hysterical reaction today towards this kind of abuse (rather than neglect or cruelty)is a symptom of society's inability to deal effectively with the dark side of the liberalization that has been so highly vaunted for the past forty years.

The Bones said...

The Kinsey Report was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Just thought I'd let wwh know that.

Physiocrat said...

The next thing we know will be that someone will suggest putting King Henry VIII on trail and de-throning him if found guilty.

Genty said...

I am afraid we are seeing one of the consequences of the sexual revolution. The big lie was that women, especially girls, would be liberated. In fact, the opposite happened and the real beneficiaries were predatory men. (NB I am not suggesting that all men are predatory).
Some of the most enthusiastic pedlars of this fiction were educated, confident women whose endless proselytising tipped their more vulnerable sisters into the cauldron of concuspiscence.
Savile's family do, indeed, need our prayers in their distress as will other families when the scale of this serial predation is revealed.

Fr Ray Blake said...

Nick,
I think one needs proof before mentioning names.

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