Kavanaugh and the Church, Compared

Kavanaugh and the Church, Compared   

Written October 2018

 

This essay compares the sexual-abuse scandals of Judge Kavanaugh and of the Catholic Church. These two scandals have much in common; in particular, both are three crimes deep. Both involve sexual violation; both involve mismanagement, and worst of all, both involve hubris.

          Both scandals are sexual; that's obvious, and what most people don't think past. In one case, three woman allege that a drunken degenerate privileged man-boy committed attempted rape, indecent exposure, and gang rape. In the other case, thousands of celibate yet pedophilic priests violated girls and boys. The proof of the priests' guilt was settled in thousands of court cases. The proof of Brett Kavanaugh's guilt was, for me, settled by the testimony of two character witnesses against him; Christine Blasey Ford, and Brett Kavanaugh.

          Kavanaugh and the Church had DARVO in common. DARVO means Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender. It is the standard response of rapists to confrontation with their crimes. Kavanaugh and the Church did DARVO too; which I read as negative character witnessing, and unwitting confession.

          I find it odd that Kavanaugh's crimes were public. Sexual assault is usually done in private, but he did it in while being cheered on by another lad, or a gang of them. This was male-bonding with the boys in his 'hood. The performative nature of his misogyny would have made it easy to find many witnesses to his crimes, if the Senate had justice on its agenda. It also exposes the repressed homosexuality of dudebro love. In his skeevy yearbook entry, Kavanaugh bragged of the "Devil's Triangle"; a threesome in which the two males involved are not to make eye contact, for that would be gay.

          Repressed homosexuality was also involved in the priest scandal, which mostly involved man-boy abuse. Note that the 'conservative' solution to the crisis of the Church is to repress its homosexuality even more. This brings me to the question of mismanagement.

          Both scandals were mismanaged. The men in charge tried to silence the scandals discreetly, but their attempts backfired. Omerta failed; what happened in the priory, or at Georgetown Prep, did not stay in the priory, or at Georgetown Prep.

          The Church's bishops moved pedophilic priests from parish to parish; but the geographic cure often failed, for the priests re-offended. Payoffs and threats extracted silence from the victims, but that created more secrets to cover up. It was a positive-feedback loop of lies and shame; leading inevitably to the bubble bursting, in a positive-feedback loop of revelation and scandal. The Church tried to whitewash the priests, but instead the priests smeared the Church; a PR backfire.

          The Senate mismanaged the Kavanaugh scandal. They had reports of the allegations against him; and since a Justice must be above any hint of suspicion, they should have handled the matter discreetly. They could have called him into closed session; then told him that these allegations exist; that they do not fit the image of sobriety and morality required of a Justice; that also the Senate can easily prove charges of perjury; that perjury is a disbarment offense; so withdraw or else, for we can do this the easy collegiate way, with accusations of mere rape, or the hardball way, with proof of (*gasp!*) lying under oath to the Senate. The next day Kavanaugh would have withdrawn his nomination, in order to spend more time with his family, and the Senate could have nominated another reactionary.

          So why _this_ reactionary? The boy who raped coeds grew up to be a man who deceived the Senate; and though this Senate will not defend a woman's autonomy, one would expect it to defend its own autonomy. What prompted the Senate to disgrace itself and the Court?

          They did so on orders from the President. Trump wanted Kavanaugh in particular, and none other, and why? Partly because Trump sympathizes with rich white rapists; partly because Kavanaugh waffled when asked about presidential self-pardoning; and partly because Trump does not like to correct any of his errors, for he believes that error-correction is a sign of weakness. That belief is hubris; and Trump's desire for self-pardoning is a symptom of that hubris. So are his rapey tendencies.

          The Church, too, shows hubris, in its doctrine of papal infallibility. If the Pope can do no wrong, then neither can his Church; so when it does wrong anyhow, then it must be made to seem to do right, even though creating this false seeming does more wrong. Thus the Church's mismanagement of its sex scandal.

          Hubris is insane self-pride; the self-righteous belief in one's own invulnerability. It denies any need for change, especially when the need for change becomes obvious. It is error-accumulation, and it leads to a positive feedback loop of exponentially-increasing chaos. Hubris has to destroy itself in order to save itself.

          And now what? No historian would end either tale here. The lies are exposed, the crimes revealed, yet the system carries on. Nothing to see here, folks, other than everything.

          Next up, change. But how? What is the bridge from revelation to revolution? When motive for revolution is sufficient, then what the people need are methods and opportunities. Suggestions welcome.

 

Postscript, added January 2022:

 

          Four years have passed. Trump is out, partly because covid is here. As opportunities go, covid is richly ironic, even by historical standards. As of now the forces of the law are converging on him; but Kavanaugh remains a Justice.

          The Church seems stable. Collapses this big take time. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.