Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Thursday 8 October 2015

"It's a Large World, After All! It's a..."

I have thought more than once lately, that I need to remember that not every Catholic lives in the south east of the United States, and my experiences are not universal, and what seems obvious or essential to American Catholics may not be so at all for Catholics in other parts of the world - the 4 year annulment process in Argentina? the polygamy situation in Africa? crony capitalism in the former communist bloc or in Latin America?
Image result for cher clueless
Not everything is about you, 
America, stop being so self-centered!

And some journalists and pundits who ought to know better take issue with Pope Francis's view of world affairs because he, obviously, sees things from a different point from us 'Muricans, not taking into account that, hey, we Americans are not necessarily more objective, (and if there is any nation given to the surprise when other parts of the world do things differently, isn't that us? don't tell me you've never seen someone trying to get coffee in a Chinese restaurant, I shan't believe you.)
Now, I'm not letting him off the hook entirely, while I think the statement from some Synod father or other about letting some doctrines be decided upon regionally is... what's the word? oh, yeah, CRACKED OUT.... there is something to be said for knowing your audience.
We've all met people who suffer from scrupulosity around whom no criticism must be uttered, because they, to whom said criticism does not apply, will be the only ones who take it to heart, and they, in fixing what was not in them broken, will go off the deep end and be covered with Crazy Glue.
And sometimes lack of specificity is just laziness - more than once I've been in a cast that during notes was told volume was a problem, and when questioned as to when and who was not loud enough a director just said, everything, generally.
Then next night in notes, inevitably someone is scolded, you're too loud now, you were fine before, you weren't who I meant.
Well, then.....?

But anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah...
If there were more proof needed that the nation from which cometh this Pope is not like unto ours, read this:
Two judges in Argentina have given a pedophile a reduced sentence because his 6-year-old victim had already been sexually abused and showed “homosexual tendencies”....
Court papers show that judges ... reduced the sentence of soccer club coach Mario Tolosa who in 2010 was charged with raping the unnamed boy. Tolosa’s sentence was reduced from six years to 38 months because the boy was used to such abuse from his father....
The two judges have a long record of reducing sentences for sexual and gender-based crimes. In the past, they have justified a pastor’s rape of two teenage girls because they belonged to a lower economic class, lowered the sentence of a man who raped his daughter because she gave contradictory statements in court and reduced the sentence of a man who murdered his wife from 17 years to 10 because the woman’s attitude was “almost provocative”.
Wow. A woman dared to be "almost provocative."
Wonder what the murderer would have done had she be actually provocative...


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