Here is a fascinating insight into the mind of a Catholic apologist, his article is from 2011 before the Jimmy Savile scandal was unpleasantly inserted into our conciousness. The author of the piece is irate that the press would report on the death of a celebrity like Savile (who died in 2011) elaborating on his many charitable and voluntary acts but not reporting on where these things came from, which according to the author was the fact that Savile had "faith" and was a devout Catholic attending regular Mass. The choice of quotes in the article about the fallen star is (with hindsight) chilling, the author particularly likes the question Savile is reported as asking Broadmoor inmates, “what do you want to go round strangling crumpet for?”.
The problem with this kind of claim of course is what happens when it all goes wrong, as it invariably does, and the people you hold up as leading lights of your faith/political party/race/nationality etc. turn out to be nothing more than ordinary, weak, flawed and sometimes monstrous human beings. If religious people of any flavour feel inclined to attribute good things like charity, flowers, sunshine and puppies to their particular omnipotent Deity then they also need to accept the logical necessity of attributing the bad as well, suffering, disease, hate and child molesting ex-BBC presenters.
2 comments:
You're absolutely right, Steve. And it gives we Beaker Folk a problem. We've had to scrap our traditional liturgies for departed celebrities just in case, somewhere down the road, we find we have to hold an un-ceremony, suspect the same is true for people who are fans of all kinds of celebs, not just Christian ones.
AE, true, you can't be too careful who you put on a pedestal these days..
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