Catholic Church Demands Apology for Pete Davidson Joke

How is the Catholic Church in any position to demand an apology from a comedian for making a joke about how they are no better than R Kelly when they objectively have far more victims than R Kelly???

This demand needs to be laughed off the planet. It was a joke at the expense of a hypocritical men's club with a history of enabling child rapists among their members. It's an entire criminal organization, promising yet again to not be criminal any longer. Were it a chain of schools or daycares, it would be shut down around the globe. And yet it doesn't want to be laughed at. Once again, religion hates being laughed at. There is nothing worse to a faith than not being taken seriously. Sadly, that looks like the worst that can be done, because authorities will never treat the Catholic Church like any other organization that harbours and enables sexual predators. Religion gets special treatment, and demands more.

They shouldn't be trying to censor comedians.

They need to be honest with themselves...the Catholic Church has a horrible problem of child sex abuse. They are more than a religion though, Catholicism is a culture, around the world - and the vast majority of Catholics and even clergy, are not predators. I'm not sure it's fair to write off the entire Catholic Church and Catholicism because of them.

The entertainment biz is also a culture - a bizarre one. Because of people like R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey and Michael Jackson - can the entertainment industry redeem itself? I think the music industry - especially 70s and 80s Rock and pop stars - is going to be taking a fall next.

I'm going to start a thread about MJ.

WTF with that last part. Ridiculous complaint, maybe they should put that effort into preventing abuse instead.

This is a good article - it’s an interesting blog/ webpage in general actually...written by a Catholic who disagrees with the church’s complaint.


Also, as the article states, Davidson was raised Catholic.

He doesn’t need to apologize.

Cartoons, cartoonism, etc. are deep ... why the superficial doesn't grasp em ... at least on the face 'veit!

I think the fact that the church's former treasurer, George Pell, just got 6 years for molesting choir boys says it all. No apology is owed for telling the truth.

The Roman Catholic Church church has brought itself down...not some comedian.
As far as there being many Catholics that are good people, it's probably true, but this is what happens when good people do nothing and church bureaucracy is allowed to continue to cover up well known facts.

Waterfall said:

The Roman Catholic Church church has brought itself down...not some comedian.
As far as there being many Catholics that are good people, it's probably true, but this is what happens when good people do nothing and church bureaucracy is allowed to continue to cover up well known facts.

Click to expand...

I don’t think they necessarily did nothing. A few in the high up ranks who are either guilty or protecting the church’s reputation have done too little. The abuse claims have been surfacing for years and journalists have covered it, and movies have been made. The Catholic Church has a billion members who identify as Catholic and most of them either just have church in their life like every other denomination, or they culturally identify with some of the usual traditions and culture of their families. There are whole countries where the majority identify as Catholic and they are the general population there. The problem is the shroud of secrecy engrained in the church...it’s so big and not transparent the average person wouldn’t know exactly what’s going on. Just like the pope voting and smoke stack thing in the Curia...it’s shrouded in strangeness and secrecy when they should just drop that s**t and be open. Like the inner workings of government and corrupt and dangerous decisions that are made there, nobody knows what gets discussed in their meetings. And abusers can hide behind the secrecy in the upper ranks. Which is maybe why it attracts abusers. They need transparent and more democratic governance if they are going to redeem their church.

Kimmio said:

I don’t think they necessarily did nothing. A few in the high up ranks who are either guilty or protecting the church’s reputation have done too little. The abuse claims have been surfacing for years and journalists have covered it, and movies have been made. The Catholic Church has a billion members who identify as Catholic. The problem is the shroud of secrecy engrained in the church...it’s so big and not transparent the average person wouldn’t know exactly what’s going on. Like the inner workings of government. And abusers can hide behind the secrecy in the upper ranks. Which is maybe why it attracts abusers. They need transparent and more democratic governance if they are going to redeem their church.

Click to expand...

That's a tall order for them, though. Their whole concept of reality is based on hierarchy, so naturally the church is a hierarchy. Every attempt at reformation, such as the Reformation, has tended to end with the reformers going their own way and the RC church carrying on carrying on. IOW, a successful reform movement would likely end in a schism, not an actual revamp of the church. It has to happen if they really want to put an end to situations like this, but the collapse of the church is as likely as a reformed one which is likely to make them, even potentially reform-minded ones like Francis, continue to be timid about reform.

The Pope would have to lead the transformation/ reformation, and he would surely get attacked from several directions for trying.

Kimmio said:

The Pope would have to lead the transformation/ reformation, and he would surely get attacked from several directions for trying.

Click to expand...

Francis is the most reform-minded pope they've had since Vatican II and even he's barely touched the abuse problem, focussing instead on other issues in the hierarchy. My guess is that a more likely scenario is a moderate Pope like him being forced into reform by the threat of a schism by reformists. However, I don't really see any concerted efforts at a "New Reformation" right now and, in fact, the most likely schism would be traditionalists breaking away because they thought he was too liberal, which wouldn't fix anything.

Mendalla said:

Francis is the most reform-minded pope they've had since Vatican II and even he's barely touched the abuse problem, focussing instead on other issues in the hierarchy. My guess is that a more likely scenario is a moderate Pope like him being forced into reform by the threat of a schism by reformists. However, I don't really see any concerted efforts at a "New Reformation" right now and, in fact, the most likely schism would be traditionalists breaking away because they thought he was too liberal, which wouldn't fix anything.

Click to expand...

What if he has been trying to make reforms that have been blocked or impeded by attacks on him? I’ve suspected that at times. And also, that he has to make reforms in other areas so he can get to this...like cleaning up the corruption in general, then focusing on the specifics of it, because there may be people involved in several types of criminality...like the mafia is. That, I think is the problem. The ‘mafias’ that get formed when people have undemocratic power and money and can buy or bribe their way out of crimes. Not unlike powerful governments.

Kimmio said:

What if he has been trying to make reforms that have been blocked or impeded by attacks on him? I’ve suspected that at times. And also, that he has to make reforms in other areas so he can get to this...like cleaning up the corruption in general, then focusing on the specifics of it, because there may be people involved in several types of criminality...like the mafia is. That, I think is the problem. The ‘mafias’ that get formed when people have undemocratic power and money and can buy or bribe their way out of crimes. Not unlike powerful governments.

Click to expand...

Right, which is why I am suggesting that reform isn't going to come from the Vatican alone, but will require some kind of pressure that is outside the main hierarchy but still inside church (it's too insular for outside pressure to have much impact). A massive populist reform movement, basically liberation theology on steroids, would be the sort of thing I have in mind.

I think traditionalists breaking away could fix quite a bit. It’s the hard core traditionalists that are protective of the hierarchy that keeps the crime going on.

Kimmio said:

I think traditionalists breaking away could fix quite a bit. It’s the hard core traditionalists that are protective of the hierarchy that keeps the crime going on.

Click to expand...

Oh, quite likely. I don't think they really want to break away, though. Gives up too much power, or at least potential power.

Mendalla said:

That's a tall order for them, though. Their whole concept of reality is based on hierarchy, so naturally the church is a hierarchy. Every attempt at reformation, such as the Reformation, has tended to end with the reformers going their own way and the RC church carrying on carrying on. IOW, a successful reform movement would likely end in a schism, not an actual revamp of the church. It has to happen if they really want to put an end to situations like this, but the collapse of the church is as likely as a reformed one which is likely to make them, even potentially reform-minded ones like Francis, continue to be timid about reform.

Click to expand...

I’m sure he doesn’t want to be the guy who ushers in the collapse of the entire Roman Catholic Church, on his watch, and would prefer reform. But, because of the former possibility, is timid. I agree.

What about Benedict/ Ratzinger? Is it possible that when he dies, Francis can do more/ be more effective at reform? Maybe then some of the traditionalists protecting the hierarchy will leave or get fired.