Millenia of hypocrisy : Pope sentences child molesters to a lifetime of

prayer

Posted on March 6, 2017

I am scared. Because, in India, talking about such things is fraught with

danger. So, if you are a professional victim who thinks that the sanctity of
your superstition supersedes the rights of child abuse victims, kindly ignore
this article.

In an absolutely shocking move, Pope Francis has decided to grant mercy to

certified child molesters. You would think that a story like this would take our
breath away and lead to a collective gasp of condemnation

untitled

We are talking about pedophiles here, people! And here is the head of the
worlds largest religion making an open gesture of mercy to child
molesters. How horrible is this?

Can you imagine the message sent out by something like this? If more people
were to know about this, can you imagine how unsafe the millions of
Catholics in India would feel? If more people were to know about this, can you
imagine the effect on the minds of millions of Indian parents who send their
kids to Catholic institutions of learning?

You would think this story would get some traction in the Indian media. But I
am willing to wager that you havent even heard about this story.

The reasons are not hard to imagine. Because this is about a so called
minority religion. In India, the system of public morality enforced by liberals
is not blind to who you are : it checks the caste, religion and gender of each
person before judging him/her. And if injustices to victims of child abuse have
to swept under the carpet to defer to so called minority sentiments, so be it.
Im going to be even more of a heretic in the rest of this article, this time
challenging the beliefs of the Hindu right.

This story about the Vatican getting merciful towards child molesters and the
lack of outrage surrounding it also undercuts the belief of the Hindu right that
Muslims are always treated with kid gloves by mainstream discourse.
Sometimes, Muslims do get the short end of the stick and this story is a great
example of how. If this had been some kind of Muslim Mufti or Maulvi instead
of the Pope, it seems to me that the reaction from the media would have
been much sharper. The stereotype of the bearded Mullah out to destroy
civilization would have played in the minds of the people. Anti-Islamic
politicians everywhere from India to Europe to the United States would have
harped on the theory of a war of civilizations. But this is genteel Pope
Francis and the Catholic Church and so we are simply not going to see that
kind of rhetoric.

A similar paradox happens in India, where, if you go by the numbers, it is

actually the Commies rather than the radical Jihadis who are the greatest
internal security threat of all. Communist armies have occupied large portions
of several Indian states : Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh being the prime
victims, but also parts of Bihar and even Maharashtra. In Kerala, the
Communist party hunts down its opponents at will. In Bengal, the Communist
party rounded up its opponents on an island and massacred them all (read
here the story of the Marichjhapi massacre). Add to that the Communist
stranglehold on several elite colleges, art and film institutes and large
sections of media. The radical Islamist in India simply doesnt have that kind
of bandwidth and is more of a little brother who needs hand-holding from
Communists to get into campuses and on TV. Communists openly operate
two national parties, while ISIS clones are still in their infancy, tactically
disavowed even by their sympathizers for the sake of keeping up
appearances. The Communist in India needs no such disguises or pretenses.
He operates openly under his original banner with the dreaded hammer and
sickle.

So, theres my heresy.