Johann Hari: The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil
This enforced 'respect' is a creeping vine: it soon extends from ideas to institutions
What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion. In the past week we have seen two examples of how people can begin to behave in bizarre ways when they decide it is a good thing to abandon any commitment to fact and instead act on faith. It has led some to regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand "respect" for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children.
In 2005, 12 men in a small secular European democracy decided to draw a quasi-mythical figure who has been dead for 1400 years. They were trying to make a point. They knew that in many Muslim cultures, it is considered offensive to draw Mohamed. But they have a culture too – a European culture that believes it is important to be allowed to mock and tease and ridicule religion. It is because Europeans have been doing this for centuries now that we can no longer be tyrannised into feeling bad about perfectly natural impulses, like masturbation, or pre-marital sex, or homosexuality. When priests offer those old arguments, we now laugh in their faces – a great liberating moment. It will be a shining day for Muslims when they can do the same.
Some of the cartoons were witty. Some were stupid. One seemed to suggest Muslims are inherently violent – an obnoxious and false idea. If you disagree with the drawings, you should write a letter, or draw a better cartoon, this time mocking the cartoonists. But some people did not react this way. Instead, Islamist plots to hunt the artists down and slaughter them began. Earlier this year, a man with an axe smashed into one of their houses, and very nearly killed the cartoonist in front of his small grand-daughter.
This week, another plot to murder them seems to have been exposed, this time allegedly spanning Ireland and the United States, and many people who consider themselves humanitarians or liberals have rushed forward to offer condemnation – of the cartoonists. One otherwise liberal newspaper ran an article saying that since the cartoonists had engaged in an "aggressive act" and shown "prejudice... against religion per se", so it stated menacingly that no doubt "someone else is out there waiting for an opportunity to strike again".
Let's state some principles that – if religion wasn't involved – would be so obvious it would seem ludicrous to have to say them out loud. Drawing a cartoon is not an act of aggression. Trying to kill somebody with an axe is. There is no moral equivalence between peacefully expressing your disagreement with an idea – any idea – and trying to kill somebody for it. Yet we have to say this because we have allowed religious people to claim their ideas belong to a different, exalted category, and it is abusive or violent merely to verbally question them. Nobody says I should "respect" conservatism or communism and keep my opposition to them to myself – but that's exactly what is routinely said about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. What's the difference?
This enforced "respect" is a creeping vine. It soon extends beyond religious ideas to religious institutions – even when they commit the worst crimes imaginable. It is now an indisputable fact that the Catholic Church systematically covered up the rape of children across the globe, and knowingly, consciously put paedophiles in charge of more kids. Joseph Ratzinger – who claims to be "infallible" – was at the heart of this policy for decades.
Here's what we are sure of. By 1962, it was becoming clear to the Vatican that a significant number of its priests were raping children. Rather than root it out, they issued a secret order called "Crimen Sollicitationis"' ordering bishops to swear the victims to secrecy and move the offending priest on to another parish. This of course meant they raped more children there, and on and on, in parish after parish. Yes, these were different times, but the Vatican knew then that what it was doing was terribly wrong: that's why it was done in the utmost secrecy.
It has emerged this week that when Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich in the 1980s, one of his paedophile priests was "reassigned" in this way. He claims he didn't know. Yet a few years later he was put in charge of the Vatican's response to this kind of abuse and demanded every case had to be referred directly to him for 20 years. What happened on his watch, with every case going to his desk? Precisely this pattern, again and again. The BBC's Panorama studied one of many such cases. Father Tarcisio Spricigo was first accused of child abuse in 1991, in Brazil. He was moved by the Vatican four times, wrecking the lives of children at every stop. He was only caught in 2005 by the police, before he could be moved on once more. He had written in his diary about the kind of victims he sought: "Age: 7, 8, 9, 10. Social condition: Poor. Family condition: preferably a son without a father. How to attract them: guitar lessons, choir, altar boy." It happened all over the world, wherever the Catholic Church had outposts.
Far from changing this paedophile-protecting model, Ratzinger reinforced it. In 2001 he issued a strict secret order demanding that charges of child-rape should be investigated by the Church "in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret." Since it was leaked, Ratzinger claims – bizarrely – that these requirements didn't prevent bishops from approaching the police. Even many people employed by the Vatican at the time say this is wrong. Father Tom Doyle, who was a Vatican lawyer working on these cases, says it "is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse and to punish those who would call attention to these crimes... Nowhere in any of these documents does it say anything about helping the victims. The only thing it does say is they can impose fear on the victims, and punish [them], for disclosing what happened." Doyle was soon fired.
Imagine if this happened at The Independent. Imagine I discovered there was a paedophile ring running our crèche, and the Editor issued a stern order that it should be investigated internally with "the strictest secrecy". Imagine he merely shuffled the paedophiles to work in another crèche at another newspaper, and I agreed, and made the kids sign a pledge of secrecy. We would both – rightly – go to prison. Yet because the word "religion" is whispered, the rules change. Suddenly, otherwise good people who wouldn't dream of covering up a paedophile ring in their workplace think it would be an insult to them to follow one wherever it leads in their Church. They would find this behaviour unthinkable without the irrational barrier of faith standing between them and reality.
Yes, I understand some people feel sad when they see a figure they were taught as a child to revere – whether Prophet or Pope – being subjected to rational examination, or mockery, or criminal investigation. But everyone has ideas they hold precious. Only you, the religious, demand to be protected from debate or scrutiny that might discomfort you. The fact you believe an invisible supernatural being approves of – or even commands – your behaviour doesn't mean it deserves more respect, or sensitive handling. It means it deserves less. If you base your behaviour on such a preposterous fantasy, you should expect to be checked by criticism and mockery. You need it.
If you can't bear to hear your religious figures criticised – if you think Ratzinger is somehow above the law, or Mohamed should be defended with an axe – a sane society should have only one sentence for you. Tell it to the judge.
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Comments
I will not be told by the law that I have to respect these religions. I won't. I don't. And I never can. But stop thinking of them as anything spiritual, they are not. They are political organisations who dress themselves up as Faith in order to quell criticism from the outside world.
The men at the top of these religions send their drones out over the planet, killing, hiding abuse, dealing in organised crime, whilst all the time claiming that they have devine rights and authority to do these things. Maybe some of them even believe it. There is no difference between many of the World's organised religions and secular belief systems. They want power and they want to keep it.
Every individual and group should be able to be held accountable for their actions.
The problem when 'Christian' groups do this sort of things is also that they have generally sought to take a moral high ground, and really should be vigorous in applying their own principles and beliefs to actually deal with problems responsibly rather than try to sweep them under the carpet and thus become participants as well. The same could easily be said for politicians though who generally lecture us on morality, legality and so on and then bend or break those principles to suit their own purposes and hide behind parliamentary privilege.
I'll share this page on my Facebook profile, and I'm going to tanslate it for all the people I know whose English's not good enough to understand them. Unfortunately, I can't do anything for all the people who's rationality isn't good enough to understand.
Anyway, thank you for saying something that should be clear in every mind, but that an awful lot of paople can't think alone.
I have railed against ths fake respect, demanded and commanded by religious people all my life.
This is not new - the "Christian " religions have done this since..well...Jesus was born !
This "respect" and virtual slavery to ludicrous religious notions has led to the slaughter and misery of millions.Often due to policieis dictated, or at least influenced by, religious leaders.
I recall the worst moment on Brtish TV was the sneering attack by some bishop (name long forgotten !! ) in a purple dress and with a cross round his neck that a haevy metal band would love - along with that sh*t Malcolm Muggeridge ( I chose the word very carefully) - on the film
The Life of Brian.
The very idea that a comdey film should go on "trial" like that is insane.
By what right do people like that command the rest of us to abide by their rules.?
Believe what you like - that is the respect you get.
Agree with everhhting you believe ? not a chnace
Do what YOUR religion demands ? Never - and you have not right to enforce that.
Why - for many years - was I prohibited from buying gorceries on a Sunday ?
Not the worst religious crime ever - but indicative that the religious brigade can
dictate what the rest of society can and cannot do - and its banality seems shocking to me.
It pales into insignificance compared to the crimes aginst people committed - but it shows
that society simply accepts as "normal" that the organsied religions ought to have a say in
our daily life - in schools - in the law - etc etc etc
Private Eye summed the recent cartoon hysteria very well.
" A cartoonist has suggested Muslims are linked with violence ? Let's KILL him !!!"
Of course not all Muslims are violent - but if you apologise for the religious terrorists
- you are part of the problem and give encouragemnt to religious lunatics.
This pieces sheds light on yet more of the hideous consequences. Great work!
Mr Hari appears to be a thoughtful person, yet the article suggests that he has never read Jonathan Haidt's ideas on why different people have such varied, incompatible, and most importantly immutable ideas of what is or is not moral.
He should.
We here very little about the situation where you are.
Can you enlighten us or is that difficult?
The Buddha said - "Do not accept anything by mere tradition ... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures ... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions ... But when you know for yourselves � these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness � then do you live acting accordingly"
You cannot insult my faith as I don't have any! Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. If you don't wish to respect Buddhism - that's fine I'm not asking you to. It does not have any impact on my life at all.
Yes these may be in "retaliation" for LTTE attacks (for example on The Temple of the Tooth), but I fail to see how retaliating against innocent shopkeepers etc on the basis of them sharing the same religion as the LTTE is a fair "moral....blameless...praised by the wise....conducive to well-being" action in response.
Anyway, I digress...excellent article Johann, but I note the absence of any mention of another current story in the news: The expansion of Jewish settlements in Occupied Territories and the religious "justifications" of Zionism for that.
As usual Hari you are all talk. No thinking person goes along with the nonsense of religion.
Hari says that some of the cartoons he finds stupid. Maybe the turban bomb was one of them. And even if he liked that image, the article isn't about reproducing them. It's about the right to create them. They are easily found online.
The two are entirely separate, if the religion cannot stand up to criticism & ridicule then it has no basis.
But peoples individual faith is their business/life & their personal lifestyle should be respected but they are often as ridiculed as that in which they believe.
I suspect people with 'faith' are no different to sexuality ie its a personal physical/mental situation that is basically inherent & has bugger all to do with anyone else.
Conversely those with faith who either preach or speak of tolerance need to ask themselves why that tolerance is not always extended to sexuality or gender.
Its a difficult subject because it is basically abstract thus open to any form of debate/humour, the problem is thsoe who criticise are often worse in their overview than the fundamentalist & just like the zealot cannot see their own failings>
But then that's probably true of all of us?
You've fallen into the dread mistake of confusing peoples' right to believe any nonsense with acceptance of or respect for such nonsense.
If not, why not?
Print the pics again and The Indy will have my full support.
Yes, it does, on both counts.
"At the end of the day science and rationalism are themselves based on assumptions that can either be taken on trust or not."
But the assumptions of science are REASONABLE, and based on LOGIC and EVIDENCE. The assumptions behind religion are not.
And the nature of science is that its assumptions are always being tested, and revised or thrown out when new knowoledge comes to light. The nature of religion is that its fundamental assumptions are NEVER questioned, NEVER tested, NEVER revised and NEVER thrown out, because they are IRRATIONAL DOGMATIC BELIEFS that, in the words of Sam Harris, 'float entirely free of reason and evidence'.
Those are some pretty fundamental differences between relgion and science, and only a naive cultural relativist cannot see the distinction between the two.
You seem to remember "publish without fear or favour."
No more. Terror works - especially on the press.
This type of clear unambiguous unapologetic writing on sensitive subjects is exactly what is needed in other spheres of our public life. Too often journalists seem to be either in thrall or in fear - Hari is neither.
Take a bow!
AJH
Disenchanted.
Ireland.