 |
Add to My Group
Rosaries, Rostrums, and the God's Awful Truth
By Ed Tubbs (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Ed Tubbs - Writer
Various movie moments stick just as vividly in my mind as if I were to
encounter someone with a saber protruding from the chest. "I think
you're gonna need a bigger boat," from Jaws is one. And Apocalypse Now's, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," is another. The one that this effort hearkens to is from A Few Good Men: "You can't handle the truth!"
Looking over the course of history, all the way to today, I don't think
we can . . . handle the truth. At least insofar as the truth tends to
impale many of our most sacred and endearing beliefs we can't.
When it comes to how someone has committed a most despicable act,
whatever opprobriums adhere garner from me not the least sympathy.
Quisling comes to mind. Vidkun Quisling helped the Nazis conquer his
country, Norway. Ever since, his name has joined the lexicon to
describe a traitor. But to smear the name of a person when there is an
absolute absence of evidence warranting the smear seems to me to be as
vile and shameful a misdeed as whatever the nature of the act he or she
was assumed to have committed might have been.
But to perpetuate the smear . . . over centuries. And to make no
genuine effort to correct those who suffer under possibly erroneous
beliefs when the benefitting party fully knows such smears are without
adequate foundation . . .. Yet, to use perpetuated smears that have no
evidence with which they might ever be validated as implements in the
furtherance of a specific doctrine . . ..
***
As difficult as it may be to believe, what follows is the truth. Try to imagine it, if you can handle the truth.
Perhaps it was on the sole say-so of a local religious leader, or
because parents felt their adolescent daughter was behaving too
precociously among the neighborhood boys, or the daughter found herself
pregnant outside the bounds of marriage. Whatever the reason, the
daughter, without the first right to a word of objection, to right of
counsel to hear whatever promulgated charges might have been levied, or
even given the opportunity to provide some explanation, is whisked
away, to be incarcerated behind 20-foot brick walls, the mortared tops
of which are laced with shards of glass.
Upon incarceration, the young woman surrenders her clothing, any and
all personal possessions, her name, and if pregnant, once the baby is
born, she surrenders that forever as well. Nor will she ever know what
name it has been given or where it has been sent. She wears sack cloth
and will thereafter be known by whatever name the religious leaders
prefer to bestow upon her. She is strongly admonished that speaking to
any other woman in the institution is absolutely forbidden, at
any time, for as long as she remains incarcerated behind the walls. If
she speaks at all, she speaks only in response to one of the religious
authorities in the institution. She awakes at 5:00 in the morning, to
attend and recite prayers. Following the 15 minutes of prayer, she next
has a meager breakfast of gruel. After that,she's to labor in the manual
laundry, scrubbing clothes on a ribbed washboard, rinsing and wringing
the clothes by hand, and then hanging the rather damp laundry on a line
to dry. If it is raining outside she is provided no protection against
the elements. Her workday in the laundry concludes at 7:00. From there
she takes a supper that was as meager and as tasteless as that of which
she partook in the morning, and then it is off to bed. Except for
beatings that can be levied at any time and at any whim and the suffered sexual debasement at the
hands of the institution's religious leaders, ostensibly for whatever
instructional value they esteemed would be most advantageous to her,
the routine remains unchanged through the year. Only the one High Holy
Day of the year -- devoted completely to prayer -- provides some reprieve
from the intensity of the manual labors. At no time
are any of the women paid anything at all for their labors. Ever.
And statistically, the chance she will not grow old and die
incarcerated and restrained is extraordinarily remote. If her parents
were the ones who sent her for religious education, it is unlikely their
hearts will soften. Certainly the religious leaders will not.
The Taliban? You may be musing, this has to describe some Moslem sect.
After all, the Moslem faith has been in the news a great deal for some
time. And with every utterance, it has been faithfully demonized, which certainly what has just been described is something spiritually demonic, right out of the 8th or 9th centuries.
Whether by Pat Robertson or Glenn Beck or others, the Moslem faith is
described as one of savage tyranny. Just a few days ago, Sarah Palin
opined on behalf of "profiling" Moslems, "if it would help save
innocent American lives."
Nope -- not Moslem at all. Not even 8th or 9th century. More recent than that. For 150 years the Roman Catholic Church operated Magdalene Asylums; for
every intent and purpose: slave labor institutions. The institutions
were physically as described, as was the barbaric brutality of the life
within. The "asylum" would take in laundry for local businesses and
institutions; the incarcerated women provided 100% of the labor, and
the Church kept the proceeds. The rationale behind the laundry work, as opposed to something else, was the notion that by doing laundry the women would also be cleansing their souls of their sinful thoughts.
The name, Magdalene Asylums, was derived by reference to Mary Magdala.
While no scholarly authority -- Catholic or otherwise -- has yet come
forth with unchallengeable evidence "Magdalene" actually means "the
penitent," that is what the Church has maintained for more than a
millennia. Without really acknowledging that in fact "Magdalene" does
translate as "the penitent," for the sake only of consideration here,
specifically why should it be attached to and associated with Mary,
Jesus' most adoring and faithful disciple? Of what should Mary have
been penitent?
The Big Lie, that Mary was a "fallen woman" or a "prostitute" has been
promoted by the Church and other Christian sects for so long that most
parishioners unquestioningly take it as gospel. The truth: Regardless what anyone or any "authority" tries to claim, all anyone knows of Mary
and any allegation of a deficiency of character comes via Luke 8:1-3;
". . . and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and
infirmities, and Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had
gone out . . .". That's IT! A long, long way to presume that any of
the "seven demons" connoted a "fallen woman" or one who had been a
prostitute.
What has any of this to do with anything today that might be important? 
1 | 2
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
 Contact Author |
Contact Editor |
 View Authors' Articles |
by Richard J. Ponzio
$9.95
Number of pages: 31
Publisher: Thomson Gale
by Michael Vlahos
$9.95
Number of pages: 9
Publisher: Thomson Gale
by J. R Jones
Number of pages: 46
Publisher: [s.n.]
by Oded Lowenheim
$27.95
Lowest New Price $20.00
Number of pages: 280
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
| No comments |
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||
Must Read (0) 
Well Said (0) 
News (0) 
Touching (0) 
Funny (0) 
Supported (0) 
Interesting (0) 
Inspiring (0) 
Valuable (0) Tell a Friend:
|
Copyright © 2002-2010, OpEdNews |
