The Bad Samaritans

The Bad Samaritans

Different Perspectives in the Wake of the Iraqi Orphan Scandal.

An “infant asylum” in Quebec circa 1935

Are “children of sin” considered human? Are severely handicapped children considered worthless? When Original Sin is not considered enough to stigmatize infants and children, what will?

In the wake of the Iraqi orphan abuse scandal, I struggled with two images in particular: the ones with the smiling women amongst the curled-up, naked and emaciated bodies of some of the children. Even though I live in San Francisco, I was, in fact, too close to the situation.

You see, I was born in an orphanage in Chicago, "but for the grace of God” I narrowly escaped becoming a Duplessis Orphan:

The 40s,50s and early 60s were hard times for the people of Quebec. Many children were given up by their parents to orphanages and even more “children of sin” (illegitimate) were born (as I was) in “infant asylums.” Moreover, it was a time when the Catholic Church dominated all of the area’s orphanages and insane asylums. In 1988, a child abuse scandal rocked Quebec: in order to receive more money from the government for the orphans’ care, the Church doctored medical records and declared a number of orphans as either insane or retarded. Thousands of normal children were shipped to asylums, medically experimented upon and, in some cases, given lobotomies. Many were physically and even sexually abused. Shock treatments were common. There were 52 such faith-based organizations in Quebec Province. Over a period of three decades, more than 7000 lives were ruined.

And some didn’t survive at all: an unmarked gravesite at one of the asylums is still being investigated: the survivors – calling themselves the Duplessis Orphans (after the corrupt premier of the Province at the time) – want to have autopsies performed to shed light on the extent of the abuse, but the Catholic Church has strongly objected. In an interview conducted by CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company):

He [Cardinal Turcotte] says that the church was the sole institution willing to help the orphans. He also states that the church shouldn't be held responsible for systemic abuse.

Quebec Premier Bernard Landry: "It was the acceptance by our society of a somber episode in our history."

Back in Iraq, one article placing the blame on American propaganda quoted a government official as saying “these children were lucky to be taken in. They’re lives were saved.”

From IraqSlogger.com:

Taking part in the press conference was the director of the orphanage, Dhiaa’ Abdul Amir, who had fled after U.S. troops found the center. He denied that there was any abuse of the children, adding that the photos released by the U.S. military focused on two boys suffering from skin infections but that the rest of the children were healthy.

"Those handicapped children were abandoned by their families and we are trying to save them from death.”

Iraq and Quebec: so different and yet oddly similar. In Iraq, even though the women in the pictures were not Catholic nuns, they were given the same charge: “These helpless children now depend on you.” They were also given something else: unbridled respect for their positions. That is what makes the two cases so similar: unequivocal trust and respect. Good Samaritans are never criticized – or investigated. Both the nuns of Quebec and the Iraqi women thought that they were doing nothing wrong. Both probably thought to themselves “they’re lucky to be here at all! Food and services are wasted on them!”

In both cases, they abused trusts as well as children.

God, Karen Armstrong and a Pair of Speedos

Irritating Annoyance #453: “So what do you believe in?” Unfortunately, “Why do I have to believe in anything?” is not an answer people are satisfied with, so…

I believe in God, humanity and Karen Armstrong.

I also believe in Bart Erhman, John Boswell, Elaine Pagels, Morton Smith and Gary Wills. I believe in Biblical scholars. I’ll listen to people who have studied ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, Assyrian, Sumerian, Aramaic and maybe a little Coptic. Also: the anthropology, geology, archeology, ancient history and sociology of Palestine and Mesopotamia.

I believe in a spherical earth. I believe the earth rotates on an axis (some don’t – read this:
http://www.fixedearth.com/)

I believe in the Greek virtues: Knowledge, Wisdom, Compassion, and Love. Oh, and the gay virtue: looking great in a pair of Speedos.

I believe that man was created to survive and, as a result, he has a mandate to help everyone survive by making the earth a better place to live.

I believe that hatred is man’s most absurd emotion. Anything that negative and counter to survival is abysmally stupid. There is only a small difference between hating someone for what they've done and hating a piece of furniture you crash into in the dark. However, “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is against human nature. That’s why Christ was considered such a rebel: he was the first to tell the Jews to love their enemies. To be fair, however, Socrates and Confucius came up with the idea 300 years before Christ. I don’t think Christ was that original. Looking back at its history, Christianity wasn’t all that original either.

I believe in pure, unequivocal compassion: writing about the Axial Age which began our religious traditions, Karen Armstrong states:

What mattered was not what you believed but how you behaved. Religion was about doing things that changed you at a profound level….The only way you could encounter what they called “God,” “Nirvana,” “Brahman,” or the “Way” was to live a compassionate life. (Armstrong, The Great Transformation, p.xvii)

Now for the “don’t believes”:

I don’t believe in religion as entertainment, so I don’t believe we need megachurches. Spirituality and connection with God do not need fog machines, rock bands, or congregations singing the latest Kumbaya.

I don’t believe in faith-healing or glossolalia (speaking in tongues). I think there’s a hooker near where I live and she might be named Glossolalia, but she only speaks English (I think).

I don’t believe in automatic “reverence” for a person just because they have “Reverend” in front of their name. Same for “Dr.” I don’t believe in Pat Robertson, Creflo Dollar, D. James Kennedy or James Dobson. "Dr." Jerry Falwell received not one, but two honorary "doctorates from unacredited colleges. He never corrected anyone. And donations don’t necessarily have to go hand-in-hand with respect.

I certainly don’t believe in Beverly LaHaye.

I don’t believe in Original Sin. I think it was an invention of St. Augustine. After all, he felt so guilty about stealing pears from a neighbor’s garden when he was a teenager that he felt everyone else in the world must be born in sin. Original Sin (like “The Rapture”) isn’t in the Bible. Look it up. Human beings aren’t born with black marks against them. It’s the biggest guilt trip ever perpetrated by Catholic nuns and televangelists. And it’s insulting to assume that anyone is a sinner just because they were born. While no one should be told they were born perfect, guilt of self and fear of God have done more damage to the human race than anything else.

Again, I believe in God, humanity and Karen Armstrong.

Oh, and I believe that looking great in a pair of Speedos should become a religion.

Oh! The Horror of it All!

June 1, 2007


- by Dan Vojir

Once a week, I stare in shock as people struggle against a horrible monster: knowledge. You see, (to me at least) the scariest moments on television occur during Jay Leno’s segments called “Jay Walking”. These are on-the-street interviews questioning people with such profound queries as “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” And although the most astonishingly stupid answers come forth, the most frightening aspect of the show is that these people are actually walking our supposedly civilized streets as average Americans. Actually, they may all be afflicted with gnosiophobia (fear of knowledge) so I shouldn’t be too harsh.

On the other hand, there’s the new Creation Museum: I’m not afraid of the huge animatronic dinosaurs cavorting with Adam and Eve, but I am scared to death that people actually believe they did. When I first saw videos of people at the grand opening making statements like “finally, a place where we can come to show our children what really happened in creation” I had the same sense of horror as when I see someone at the supermarket buying a copy of Weekly World News because, you see, they believe that the front page photo really IS Bigfoot’s baby!

Ninety-five percent of today’s evangelical Christians are Bible illiterates: they can’t tell you how the Bible was written much less relate who Athanasius* was. I’ll bet that very few people at the opening of the Museum could cite all Ten Commandments.

Imagine: 4000 people in one place who insist that the earth is only 6,000 years old, that the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah’s Flood and that Adam and Eve, along with Pebbles and Bam Bam rode on the back of Dino for fun. I’m getting chills just thinking about it.

An article by Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins crowed about a Gallup Poll stating that 31% of the Americans believe the Bible to be literally true – word for word. Fortunately, the poll also indicated that the higher the level of education, the smaller the percentage. Perkins forgot to mention that. Still, the level of ignorance in America is at an all time high.** Our schools no longer graduate future scientists or anthropologists; instead, they graduate biblical literalists who eschew history and politicians who promise to keep America Christian. And America stands proudly in its ignorance: the Creation Museum showed the world how reverently we treat such grandiose stupidity. Other less Christian countries are already talking about our new “Yabba Dabba” science. This means that in a few years, Ecuador may be ahead of us in medical breakthroughs.

Are you scared yet?

I am. I’m frightened beyond belief.

*Saint and Early Christian Church Father (d. 373) who dictated which books of the Bible were Scripture. He was also (allegedly) head of an ”ecclesiastical mafia” which violently enforced his ideologies.

**State senators in Texas and Georgia have actually tried to stop schools teaching that the earth rotates. They based their beliefs on one very “scientific” website: www.fixedearth.com