The global community is facing dual crises – financial as well as of trust.
The Catholic Church is facing the gravest crisis of modern times. Serious allegations that members of its clergy were involved in child abuses stretch back nearly 50 years. This year, hundreds of cases of abuse of children by clergy have come to light in places like Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Ireland has been badly shaken by widespread reports of physical and sexual abuse, going back at least seven decades. In Norway, a former Catholic bishop admitted sexually abusing minors 20 years ago.
GLOBAL MORAL CRISIS
The allegations of abuse have deeply shaken Roman Catholic communities on nearly every continent. Of course, it has affected common man’s view of not only the Catholic Church, but every religious establishment.
The fallout from the sex abuse scandal has badly damaged the Pope and Vatican.
When the original cases of paedophile priests in America arose several years back, the moral authority of the Pope and the hierarchy at the Vatican was not challenged. The scandal was dismissed as if only some of the archbishops and cardinals were lax and involved in the cover-up. The then-Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope)’s involvement in similar cases in Europe, from Germany to Italy, has add a new dimension to this scandal. He had the primary responsibility for the cases for over two decades while serving at the Vatican.
First of all, the abuse is seen as systemic, and the response from the church leadership a deliberate attempt to hide the problem, and deny accountability. What we really see is a corporate, hierarchal response. Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger is vowing not to be intimidated by “petty gossip.” The fact that the Pope has gone on the offensive is indicative of a fight for his own survival. It shows how broken his pontificate has become.
The cumulative effect of the scandal across countries and continents has sapped the Church’s authority to lead the believers. As a result, the Catholic Church is experiencing a steep decline.
ATHEIST ANNOUNCES PLANS TO ARREST THE POPE
Richard Dawkins, the writer who has released a series of best-selling atheist books, has made plans to arrest the Pope when he visits the UK on a state visit. While this attempt is more theatre than criminal justice, Dawkins and his allies have asserted a legal right to turn over Pope Benedict XVI to authorities for “crimes against humanity.” Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, another atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
Is the same true of the current global financial crisis?
GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN
In a cartoon in which a teacher asks a student to create a sentence that uses the verb “sacks” (as in looting and pillaging), the student replies, “Goldman Sachs.” Sure enough, last week the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Goldman Sachs – one of a few giant financial institutions of what amounts to white-collar looting.
Most discussion of the role of fraud in the global financial crisis has focused on two forms of deception: predatory lending and misrepresentation of risks.
The big banks lured investors and home-buyers into taking out complex, expensive loans they didn’t understand – a process facilitated by US federal regulators. Existing rules failed to stop banks from abusive subprime housing loans.
The lenders didn’t hold on to the loans they made. Instead, they sold off the loans to investors, knowing well the potential losses. What the public is now becoming aware of is a third form of fraud.
Goldman Sachs deliberately marketed mortgage-backed securities, betting that such securities would plunge in value. This practice wasn’t illegal. The most reprehensible part was that the bank made sure an important client made money by betting on that failure.
Goldman isn’t the only financial firm accused of doing this. According to ProPublica, several banks helped market designed-to-fail investments on behalf of the hedge fund Magnetar, which was betting on that failure.
So what role did “fraud” play in the financial crisis?
The fact is that much of the global financial industry has become a racket – a fraudulent game in which a handful of people are lavishly paid to mislead and exploit human instinct to get rich quickly.
Is it enough to only lower the boom on corporate compensation practices or to report the paedophile priest immediately to the authorities? Of course not!
The two rackets will just go on. Greed and lust are innate to human nature.
The only way to suppress both frailties is to create God-consciousness among human hearts – a deep-rooted and sincere belief that all of us have to go back to our Lord, the Creator and the Sustainer and give our account to an All-Knowing God Who will reward us for our good behaviour or punish for our deviance.
This is where the Muslims have failed the humanity.