Aug 16, 2008

Attention ++Rowan Williams: Murderous Violence Against Women is VILE, Criminal and Insane!


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Originally uploaded by emma_em
I don't know how to tell this REAL LIFE story...it's a "close to home" story and it's filled with emotional and spiritual sickness and sexual depravity, violence, desperation of every kind and hate/self-loathing.

This REAL LIFE story is related to the GRAVE and IMPORTANT Worldwide "Violence Against Women" issue that Suffragan Bishop Catherine Roskam/New York was speaking against/exposing two weeks ago at The Lambeth Conference/Canterbury...her words were not-so-well received by many male Bishops who became defensive and annoyed...do you wonder why? I think they are accomplices to crimes of violence, prejudice and stark hate.

Read on.

Although Dr. Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury, "touched" on violence against women at his 3rd and final Presidential address at The Lambeth Conference, he ought be reprimanded for spending over two weeks witch-hunting and plotting and perpetuating ignorance (refusing to allow other Bishops to review the corrupt Lambeth 1.10 document) against many of his fellow Anglicans/Christians/others. MOSTLY ++Rowan ignored the REAL crimes of hate (including the fatal one directed against Michael Causer in Liverpool, England as Lambeth Conference was IN SESSION) in OUR World.

OUR Christian world is running rampant with everyday thugs and murderers. Murderers who are quietly "sanctioned" by the likes of weak and cowardly/slothful clergy and politicos. Despotic clergy and politicos who refuse to speak/preach out against the REALITY of deadly injustice, thievery, corrupt cultures with forms of "accepted" abuse by bullies, greedy criminals and dangerous politicians.

Leaders/Preachers who exploit their fellow citizens/flock...often, grandstanding opportunists or simply muddled thinkers.

Rowan Williams joins a group of spineless/spiteful "religious leaders," in my opinion, as he ignores the visciousness of Anglican Primates, Akinola, Orombi, Kolini and others while running from conflict...++Rowans seems to turn his throne around so it faces away from "sensitive" yet "crime generating" social issues...where is his moral leadership? Where is Dr. Williams? What does Dr. Williams have to say about gross abuses at The Anglican Communion? Does Rowan Williams only have "selective" ethical integrity? Why doesn't Rowan Williams teach, insist and demand the violence must stop?

Yesterday I was walking in the center of my village on the Calle Real (High/Main Street) and noticed many people walking toward me and high carrying a coffin down the middle of the street...in my village it is the tradition for family and friends to leave the home with the "departed" in the coffin (always a very recent death as there is no embalming and probably after a all-night or early-morning vigil) and hand/high carry on their shoulders the coffin to the Catholic Church in the Main Square....then after Mass, onward to the pueblos cemetery. Sometimes there is a little brass band following the mourners playing heavy funeral music/durge...yesterday, as the coffin approached me, I stopped, positioned myself to pay "respect" and watched as this particularly grim group of mourners approached.

This humble wood plank coffin was carried by stricken looking men (normally a womans coffin is carried by women)...there was even more of a bleak feeling about this funeral procession than I have ever noted before...the coffin was a barely nailed together affair with only streaks of reddish wood stain trying to make it look "suitable" to be inside the Church for Mass, the coffin was trying very hard to "look nice"....after I crossed myself and the procession passed me by, a ancient old indigenous women, with heavy black head covering, came up to me, touched my forearm, paused and gave me a long and deep look of hurt...a look that said without words: "this is what happened, this is the result of the vileness, of injustice and violence and this is what happens right here in OUR VILLAGE and we are lost as to know what to do." I looked back into her eyes, touched her arm...she moved back into the group following the coffin that was heading to it's final home.

Shortly afterward I learned the ghastily story of the brutal murder of the women inside the small/make-shift coffin.

There is a small "cantina" almost directly accross the street from where I live...it's a tiny place without much business because only poor people are clients there. It seems that a well known women suffering from periodic alcoholism had made her way to the bar in the evening...she was a women in her mid-forties with grown sons and lived up the hill in a ghetto area near a very big finca. She was very poor. She left the bar and was apparently followed up the hill and through the little passage ways toward her home. They jumped her and smothered her by putting dirt in her mouth and into her throat and covered her mouth with theirhands...she silently choked to death (people live all around) and they they spread her legs apart in alley way and raped her...they raped and raped her repeatedly.

There is more to write and say.

I don't know what the authorities are doing about this but I blame ignorance. I blame spiritual depravity. I blame desperation. I blame sexually twisted sexual thinking. I blame the diseases of alcohol and substance abuse. I blame violence against women. I blame Dr. Rowan Williams and his ilk for their denial of the REAL MORAL issues impacting OUR lives everyday. They PRETEND "life" is different than it really is while scurring around and plotting to exclude LGBT people and Heterosexual WOMEN from all levels of Churchlife/everyday life...it's time that ++Rowan takes responsibility for his own failed leadership actions and ability to identify REAL and common "abominations." OUR World needs moral leadership and not more cowardly priests who are afraid to face up to dangerous bigots, drugged (prescribed and not prescribed) lunatics and self-righteous religious thieves/extremists posing as puritans both inside and outside of The Anglican Communion.

Pray for our sister, the murdered Lady from the aldea of San Sebastian...pray for REAL and BRAVE moral leadership at Church/beyond.

Pray for the departed soul of Our Lady of barrio San Sebastian and pray her murderers find their way to accountability, justice, sanity, repentence and the possibility of final forgiveness for all they have done, and may yet do, to more Christians/others before they die. Lord, stop the abuse and stop the violent crimes of hate. Lord hear my prayer.

8 comments:

Padre Mickey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Oh Leonardo, I am so sorry. This is so very tragic and so very brutal. That poor woman.

This is very upsetting, and now I am worried about you, too.

Anonymous said...

Now I'm upset. That's good. I should be. The woman who came up to you in the street, LR, do you know each other or how did that happen. I think you should snail mail this story to the ABofC.

I'm going to a conference on "how to work the Church" next month. My guess is that what I learn there will be applicable in many other institutions and on many other issues. You are giving me ideas about how I might use what I learn. Thank you, friend.

Bonnie said...

Hi Leonardo--May she rest in peace and in all God's tender mercies.

Rape is never a crime of passion. This brutal murder, like the brutal murder of Michael Causer is something that the Rowan Williamses of this world, living in their ivory-towered, privileged luxury can just turn their backs on. Easier to do than to admit that they may be helping to perpetuate this behavior.

I hope the police will warn women not to go out alone until they catch these men. They will be looking for another victim. Maybe some of the men could form an escort service for women who have to be out alone at night for any reason.

Heart and hugs and love for you. And thanks for your never ending courage.

And, congratulations on THE Padre award.

Leonard said...

Thank you Bonnie.

I believe Our Lady of San Sebastian was especially vulnerable because of her sometimes active alcoholism...mostly the streets are silent and empty around here after 9:30 or 10:00 P.M every night...right now there is not a sound but earlier there were police cars with distant sirens up near the finca where she died...who knows what's going on but often vigilantes take charge where police dare not go in this country.

We have a little outdoor chapel on the 1/2 point landing where our staircase goes up to the second floor...it's simple and very lovely with a statue of The Virgin Mary and she is surrounded by Juan Carlos's Bonsai Trees...tonight we have lit a candle that will burn in memory all night for the lost lady of barrio San Sebastian.

I think fighting domestic/racial/sexual/religious violence is as important as any other MDG's...I'm very unhappy with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the GAFconning old goats...we can do much better just using our collective and Godgiven common sense.

Frank Remkiewicz aka “Tree” said...

First, we must make our place safe for EVERYONE! I noticed, as I hope everyone else did, that despite the saber rattling and some goofy stuff nothing of import happened her in DSJ until ++Jefferts Schori was elected. Then suddenly, we needed to leavethe province and find a "safe place for us to worship". MY question to Mr. Schofield is when will everyone have a safe place to worship?

Prayers ascending for this woman and all those that suffer injustice in body and soul. Lord, bless and guide those who are marginalized so that they may be protected from all harm and all evil. Cloak them in your love and compassion.

Fran said...

Dios ten piedad.

Oh what a heart and gut wrenching tale you have presented to us here, in all of its stark reality. That and all the many reasons why things like this continue to happen. It is as much from our own benign silence as to the much more conscious malicious acts of others.

May that lady rest in peace and rise in glory.

fs said...

I can't stand living in the same world with people who do things like that. Something is so wrong in "human nature." The safety we think we enjoy may be little more than chance.