"morally reprehensible"

"Morally reprehensible" is one of those nifty, thunderous expressions that requires the speaker to credit morality to some extent and to hope, in all probability, that s/he has or can create a loyal following. In other words, what is morally reprehensible requires that someone gives a shit. What is morally reprehensible is more often than not just what is repugnant.

No one with two brain cells to rub together would walk into a Mafia social club and discourse on the moral reprehensibility of killing other people. Killing is just the price of doing or protecting business. In a Mafia social club, finding excuses is not necessary.

Politicians and businessmen work a little harder to elude the lash of moral reprehensibility. Selling shoddy products works better when the products or programs are construed as worthy or good. A vocabulary of plausible deniability is kept handy for those times when the shoddy goods or programs fall apart or do inescapably-obvious harm to others.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna

All of this mental gum-chewing came to mind while trying to rein myself in this morning when reading about a meeting in Geneva between representatives of the United Nations and representatives of the Vatican in the matter of clerical abuse of children. It was "the first time the Vatican has had to publicly defend its record in what amounted to a courtroom cross-examination where no limits were placed on the questioning."

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke for the Vatican:

He was responding to a grilling by the U.N. committee over the Holy See's failure to abide by terms of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child which, among other things, calls for signatories to take all appropriate measures to keep children from harm. Critics allege the church enabled the rape of thousands of children by encouraging a culture of cover-up to defend its reputation....
The Vatican insisted it had little jurisdiction to sanction pedophile priests around the globe, saying it was for local law enforcement to do so.

The Vatican can create and defrock priests, change assignments and duties, elevate and enshrine, lay claim to the pronouncements of God Almighty, dissect sin and salvation, cut off the pay of those who come into disfavor, send missionaries far and wide, open hospitals and schools ... and otherwise wield an enormous power, but nevertheless has "little jurisdiction to sanction pedophile priests?"

The sheer balls of the assertion is enough to leave me all but speechless.

And that's where the "morally reprehensible" gum-chewing began. Wasn't this like the teenager who loves the benefits of getting laid but is no where to be found when pregnancy evolves? The shamelessness and irresponsibility beggar belief ... it is morally reprehensible ... or rather, I guess ...

I find it repugnant.

In spades.