The Pope Fans Flames in African Witch-Hunt Craze

theprovocation.net

THE NEWS: Pope Benedict XVI is in Africa, where his agenda calls for warning the people about witchcraft and calling on them to turn away from the practice.

THE PROVOCATION: It continually amazes me how the Catholic Church has a tendency to cut off its nose in a valiant effort to spite its face - or, more precisely, to preserve outdated policies that really don't have much place in the modern world.

Exhibit A: The celibate priesthood. This is a policy that was put in place with a very specific purpose. Priests weren't allowed to marry so they couldn't have any heirs. As a result, they were expected to donate their estate to the church. This was significant because, during the Dark Ages and medieval period, sons of wealthy families generally had two choices: serve in the military or join the priesthood. So those who chose the latter course often had quite a nice inheritance to leave the church.

This policy has remained in place despite severe criticism, rampant adultery by priests (something else the church condemns for all its members) and scandals involving sexual abuse of young people by priests. And, interestingly, despite the fact that modern priests don't necessarily come from particularly wealthy families.

Pope Benedict arrives in Benin.

Exhibit B: The church's attitude toward on contraception. The Catholic Church is steadfastly against abortion, yet it continues to oppose all forms of contraception - except the so-called rhythm method. It isn't just against methods that induce miscarriage after fertilization. It's against condoms, too. This makes absolutely no sense, as the use of condoms has been shown to reduce the number of abortions - simply because those people who don't want children are being responsible enough to take precautions ahead of time.

By condemning these forms of contraception, it seems to me the church is complicit in one of the very things it's vehemently against: abortion. It also is discouraging the use of a device that can dramatically reduce the chance of spreading sexually transmitted diseases - such as the AIDS virus, which is of particular concern in Africa.

Which brings us to the pope's current trip there and Exhibit C: the church's attitude toward witchcraft. Certain parts of the continent have been plagued by false accusations of witchcraft, some of them even leveled against children. These individuals, once tainted with this scarlet letter, are often ostracized - permanently separated from their families and their village. They're sent to live in a sort of quarantine village where they can't "infect" others with their taint. Others are simply killed. Proof is seldom needed; mere accusation suffices.

Sounds a lot like Salem, more than three centuries later.

The pope's response to this is nothing short of unbelievable: He's warning people against witchcraft. If anything will fuel the superstitious paranoia that exists within African communities, this is it. The problem isn't witchcraft, it's the attitude toward it. Yet here's the pope feeding the fire by referring to witchcraft as a "scourge" and telling people to turn away from it.

As a belief in witchcraft is deeply ingrained in many indigenous cultures, such pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears. On the contrary, they're likely to encourage witch hunts by reinforcing the idea that witchcraft is evil and needs to be destroyed whatever the price - even if it means killing innocent people or ripping them away from their only support system. A far better course would be to educate the people about the dangers of false accusations and help them understand that witchcraft isn't really to blame for their woes.

The real enemy here isn't witchcraft, it's superstition.

The problem is, the Catholic Church itself is steeped in superstition. It's not condemning superstitious attitudes about witchcraft for a very simple reason: It doesn't consider them superstition. Like the witch hunters of Salem, the Catholic Church's official position on all this is that witches are tools of Satan and that, as such, they are to be fought with every means at the church's disposal. The church may not be killing suspected witches or casting them out, but its philosophical stand on the issue is no different than that of the Africans.

Michael Katola, a lecturer on theology, told Rob Kerby at Beliefnetthat "witchcraft is a reality; it is not a superstition. Many communities know these powers exist."

"Many of our Christians seek deliverance, healing and exorcism from other denominations because priests do not realize they have redemptive powers. If we don’t believe in the existence of witchcraft as Satanism, then we cannot deal with it."

A woman in a "witch village."

In other words, this is all about a competition with "other denominations" for followers. Just like the policy of priestly celibacy started out as a competition - with secular forces - for money. (Selling indulgences was another successful innovation along those lines.)

If the Catholic Church is so hell-bent on converting people to its cause that it becomes an accessory to the witch craze in Africa, it's clearly learned nothing in the 300-plus years since the medieval witch hunts. For all its talk about the sanctity of life, when the rubber meets the road, the church often seems far more interested in preserving antiquated dogmas and ideas than in actually defending the lives and human rights of the people it seeks to serve.

Instead of condemning those who falsely accuse suspected witches, the Vatican takes aim at witchcraft itself. That makes about as much sense as the idea of fighting abortion by restricting access to condoms. Or addressing sexual abuse of innocent children by steadfastly promoting the continuance of a celibate priesthood. In all these matters, the church has made itself an accessory to abuse, shame and even murder. And it wonders why fewer men are applying to be priests, attendance at Mass is falling and membership in the U.S. has been falling. (In 2008 alone, 1,000 parishes closed and membership plummeted by 400,000.)

The witch-hunt craze offers some potential insight. We stopped killing people for being witches a long time ago in this country. In Africa, it's still happening, and the Catholic Church is fanning the flames.