Swearing can be liberating. I do it all the time, sometimes unfortunately in front of the kids. Yeah I know, I ought to be more in control in the presence of the kids. Anyway, we are not talking about my swearing habits here. We are talking about the unusal outburst of a senior Catholic priest here.
Monsignor Geoff Baron, a senior priest in Melbourne, was recently filmed swearing obsenities to a group of young thugs. Worse, the short footage was posted on YouTube and circulated around the Internet. Naturally, such foul behaviour from a spiritual leader caused an uproar within the community. Parents were aghast and the press was unforgiving, demanding that the Church do something about it. The poor man apparently had to go into hiding for a while.
In the midst of all this, people seemed to have forgotten what triggered the abusive outburst in the first place. The abovementioned young punks had been taunting and tormenting the elderly priest as well as damaging church property for years. They had been warned repeatedly not to cause trouble but the warnings were ignored. They boasted about stealing things from parishioners and skated around the church compound in reckless ways.
So finally, on that fateful day, Monsignor Geoff Baron lost his cool and snapped, unfortunately in full view of many people and was caught on film. Well, he shouldn't have done that. But he is human after all and there is only so much shite a man can take. So in a moment of lapse, he did what many people do every hour of their lives. He swore. And he was damned because of that.
Come on. Where is the justice of this? The real baddies here were the young hooligans whom he'd tolerated for eons. If I were in his shoes, I would've throttled each and every one of them years ago! If anyone were to be punished, it has to be those useless punks whose lives obviously have no purpose on this planet. And shame on their parents too for doing such a lousy job bringing them up.
I say if a priest swears, so be it! He must have a good reason for doing so.
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4 comments:
Fookin hell la. If a Catholic priest is doing it, swearing is no longer rebellious or cool. Must find alternative ways to get me effing message acrosss . . . hmmmm
While frequent swearing isn't something that should be condoned, it can be liberating, I agree - personally, it gives me an outlet to vent myself instead of, say, knocking someone's head off, haha.
In the case of Monsignor Baron, I'm not so sure though...
As a senior priest, he should have exercised more self-control. Easier said than done, I know, but a man in his position has to give up certain "rights" (ie. the "right" to lose your cool every once in a while).
Leadership principle: As your public responsibilities increase, your personal freedoms decrease.
Even if he needed to vent his anger, he needn't have done it quite so publicly and spectacularly!
Not to be over-paranoid or anything but in this day and age of electronic gadgets and cameraphones and whatnots, you have to assume that someone somewhere is always watching.
Oi Julian, if anything the poor man's swearing just highlights the fact he was absolutely at the end of his tether. "Fook this for a laff, I'll be teaching these sods a lesson," he must've thought. Sorry, but Yobbos who vandalise places of worship . . .
Though having said that a Hindu temple & communityc centre in Canada was burnt down in the aftermath of Sep11.
The bastards who did it were apprehended & the judge in a insightful sentence ordered these hoodlums to help rebuild the temple! It was reported that the Hindu community have not held them in contempt but rather reached out to these misguided nazis. They are invited to eat with the rest of the people at the center & have been learning about the Hindus culture. Incredible Hallmark moment.
But if it were left to me, I would have fooking murdered them!!!!!
guess you and i aint the saintly type anfield devotee ...
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