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H 39°, L 27°Last Saturday, The Capital Times ran a story on the murky nature of Wisconsin’s sex offender registry program. At the crux of the issue are people like James W. Smith, whose inclusion on the sex offender list comes despite never being convicted — or accused — of a sex crime. Instead, Smith, who is currently in prison, was put on the list because of his “false imprisonment of a child” conviction, which he received in 2000 (interestingly, both he and the “child” were 17 at the time of the crime). According to the courts, because many instances of false imprisonment have sexual implications, this isn’t a problem, even though the circumstances surrounding Smith’s case suggest no sexual motives.
But despite what our justices might say, this is not constitutional, nor is it ethical. The sex offender registry program is not an effective tool of justice, and if marking offenders as the sons of Cain is so important to society, we must find a more transparent means of doing so.
So let’s isolate sex offenders the only way the remnants of the Holy Roman West know how: by giving them collars and calling them Father.
Boom. All of a sudden, we’ve killed two birds — one of whom also goes by “the Holy Spirit” — with a single stone.
One of the more common criticisms of the Catholic Church in regard to the latest abuse allegations is its reluctance to admit any wrongdoing. It hides behind bureaucratic phrases like “proper protocol” and attempts to paint itself as a victim of an anti-Catholic hate campaign. It’s like it lacks a proper strategy to handle so much negative press.
Well now it has one: go all in. Stop tossing around hollow notions like “isolated incidents” and embrace what Catholicism means to the world at-large: the sexual abuse of innocent, impressionable children. Sure, there might not be a place at the Catholic table for homosexuals, anti-abortionists, Rick Majerus or those Greek Orthodox separatists, but the Holy See welcomes sex offenders like prodigal sons. So take all of them. The state government even set up a list, so you can know which ones are the best candidates.
Suddenly, Wisconsin’s inmate numbers don’t look so archaic, and mom and dad don’t have to lie awake worrying whether Johnny’s being taken advantage of during the long days at St. Dominic’s — because he is. It’s pretty much the new motto. But at least they’ll know, and that’s what’s important. Faith is all about easing fears of the unknown.
Next to politicians, there is no group of people more despised in this country than sex offenders. We do our best to keep them behind bars for as long as possible, and once they get out, we work hard to ensure they’re not sneaking into our neighborhoods. While the offender registry does serve some noble goals — ensuring that former convicts attempting to re-integrate into society can’t get decent jobs, for one — much of the impetus behind the system is simply to shame them. Your drunken FCBK photos aren’t exactly flattering, but it’s nothing like seeing the words “level two” next to your name online. After all, we aren’t playing video games.
But shame via Internet databases is complicated and unfair to the most judgmental human beings — old people. Now we can go back to shaming the way God, medieval sumptuary laws and middle schools intended: by clothing choices. See someone in black robes? He’s either looking for a Renaissance Festival or he’s molested an altar boy. That guy with the Bible and rosary? You do not want to go into a confessional with him. Heck, you don’t even want to go to confession; you’re Lutheran now.
Remember those pills from the dentist’s office that showed where your toothbrush missed by staining your mouth a dark, fleshy pink? We can do that, except we’re not exposing plaque; rather, the most terrible, untrustworthy human beings in our communities. And instead of looking up websites, we can simply look up at the skylines, and stay as far away from the steepled buildings as possible.
Sean Kittridge ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.
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Pretty funny Sean and you made a good point too! Two thumbs up for you!
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Congratulations. You have contributed nothing constructive to this discussion and have succeeded in becoming another talking head.
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I’m personally not catholic, or religious at all for that matter, and I think political correctness in America has gotten way out of hand, but this article seems to contribute absolutely nothing of value. I understand that this article seems to be somewhat satirical, but really its just flamebait to get people all up in arms. It’d be really nice to see a more constructive article, one that promotes healthy discussion, instead of one that generalizes a group of people (catholic clergy).
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I’m having a hard time deciding whether this is a satirical criticism of our current sex offender system, or whether you just really hate the Catholic Church.
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This is the funniest article I’ve read in a long time. Fuck Catholics.
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Come on BH comment editors. If someone wrote, “Haha. F* Jews” would it get approved? Double standard here.
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“Fuck Catholics” is not funny. you sir are not funny and this comment needs to be deleted. once again, failure on the part of the BH’s infamous “filtering process.”
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this was great. i grew up catholic and was never molested…i wonder if there is something wrong with me. ha, i mean wtf does a kid have to do to get a little hard earned abuse by his priest? i did enjoy entertaining the thought though, then at least we know where they all are and people could pay donations to the church instead of taking it out of our taxes…maybe NAMBLA could help fund the church from now on
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To be fair, the Catholic Church’s behavior surrounding the issue of molestation and sexual abuse of children and youth has been disrespectful of the communities, laws, and individuals that are involved. The church thumbs its nose at the law and at what is just morally right, which is to denounce and punish the priests we know to be guilty. So go ahead and paint them with a broad brush; if they want to remove the stain, its well within their power.
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Sean should become a priest. He is obviously a homosexual pedophile, just look at his picture.
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I’ve never known any one better at attracting troll vitriol than Sean Kittridge. where do all the haters come from?
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Haha. Best article of the year so far!
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Who is your daddy? “Romes sappers and miners” google it
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It is not funny how we as a collective, especially the youth, choose to victimize innocent priests. Even Christ was victimized by the youth. See for yourself: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/inappropriate_iconography.php
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Unbelievable, the hate and misconceptions that is spewed throughout this article is frightening and definitely written to provoke fear. What is more unbelievable is that the editors of The Badger Herald allowed this so called �senior majoring in journalism� the vehicle to serve out extremely deceptive comparisons. The Catholic Church and sex offenders are two separately very emotional subjects that should not be given a �comical� spin.
Sean Kittridge is obviously uneducated when it comes to the sex offender registry. He is unqualified to write about something unknown to him. I can guarantee he has not completed much if any research on the sex offender registry. His comparison of the Catholic Church to the Sex offender Registry is as preposterous as comparing sex offenders to chubby, pasty white men with dark hair and bushy unibrows.
I challenge Sean to seek out someone associated with the sex offedner registry, interview and research facts, and then re-write an honest and factual editorial, minus the satirical comparisons
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Why should the author take the issue seriously when the Holy See refuses to? Surely you don’t expect a college student to possess greater maturity than the Catholic Church?
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“His comparison of the Catholic Church to the Sex offender Registry is as preposterous as comparing sex offenders to chubby, pasty white men with dark hair and bushy unibrows.”
I challenge you to find a sex offender that doesn’t fit this description.
Why aren’t there more hot female teacher sex offenders, like Debbie LaFave? I prayed for one of those in middle school.
C’mon, ladies. Do your part.
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At least Sean got a new updated picture after extensive use of Proactive. Thank you for NOT posting his zit-riddled portrait anymore.
While we all recognize this is satirical, we all also recognize that it is a failed attempt at comedy. I have never laughed, nor even cracked a smile, at a column written by Sean Kittridge.
And for the record, there is no higher prevalence of child molestation in the Catholic clergy than there is in the general population. Though to be fair, I do think that how the Catholic church has responded to these allegations is incredibly disappointing.
To quote another person’s comment on one of Sean’s other awfully unfunny columns, “where did the BH find this pizza-faced mouth-breather?”
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I should have never taught you how to use the Internet, grandma.
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I think the article was very clever in its approach. He’s found a way to make points against the sex offender registry as well as the Catholic Church’s handling of the sex offender cases. By arguing that the Catholic clergy is the new sex offender registry, he’s justified jokes about either. It’s great!
Nothing constructive? I felt he argued that the Church has continually backing the priests through non-disclosure and re-assignment turns a serious problem into an absolute cluster-fuck, especially for followers trying to remain faithful: is my priest up to no good? Has he been guilty of past transgressions? If so, I’d never know.
Wanna talk about not adding anything constructive to the debate? Directing poorly developed and recycled comments about his appearance? To those people: At 20-something years old? Seriously? Wow aren’t you irrelevant to the world.
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lol
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This is the funniest article all year? Damn, the Badger Herald tries way too hard. Really the only funny part is his Catholic Priest Pedophile-looking headshot, which may or may not be intentional.
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The Catholic Church, as an organization, has shown in many instances that they put the reputation of the church ahead of the rights and safety of the members. Even the current Pope was involved with the shuffling of molesting priests to other parishes. So, while every priest may not be a child molester, the Church as an organization did nothing to stop the crimes and actively covered them up. Still stubborn? OK, even with the genocide, I’m sure SOME of the Nazis were really swell guys, just like your innocent priests.