An Unholy Trinity: Money, Sex and Death

It’s always a toss-up as to what makes the most headlines and grabs the most attention and a bit confusing when fundamental issues go missing in the mix.

The Vatican Bank (Institute For Works of Religion as it is more formally known) story caught everyone by surprise when it broke late last week. Most major media outlets couldn’t resist the temptation to somehow link the freezing of Vatican accounts with the Clerical Sex abuse scandal. But while the cheap shot is simple the actual story about what is or isn’t going on at the bank is truly confusing. The Financial Times tried to put it all in some context but ends up with more speculation and some potted history. Granted the Bank has always confused people, even its Wikipedia entry is “disputed”, and proven the source and inspiration of a great deal of conspiracy thinking and novelistic thriller writing. What seems clear from veteran Vatican Watchers in the United States like David Gibson or John Allen is that all the evidence seems to suggest that the Bank, under the new leadership of Ettore Tedeschi is actually shaping up into a modern financial institution while avoiding some of the major mistakes so-called modern institutions have been guilty of over the past couple of years. Pope Benedict XVI has gone on record supporting Tedeschi’s work, which only stands to reason given Tedeschi’s status as a moral thinker and the author of a well-regarded commentary on Benedict’s Encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Ettore Tedeschi, and others, see much of the controversy as originating in other agendas, ones hostile to the Vatican generally.

The bolt out of the blue from the Ontario Superior Court striking down Canada’s prostitution laws has everyone shaking their heads. The Government announced an appeal but some thoughtful critics are calling for something more. This is an issue the Church has been out front of for some time now, with its persistent calls for a strategic effort to putting an end to Human Trafficking. It is ironic that while the media can obsess on what is seen in secular circles as the Church’s out-dated attitudes towards sex. But on an issue like human trafficking, which is at the heart of a great deal of prostitution, the Church’s leadership is ignored.

Margaret Somerville’s observations in the Catholic Register on the ‘targeting’ of Quebec as the next front in the Euthanasia movement is only unusual given the relatively little sustained coverage the story is receiving anywhere. When the current round of public hearings inquiring into changing the laws on assisted suicide and euthanasia began there was a flurry of attention but moral issues often slide by the wayside as ‘more pressing’ matters such as the machinations of Parliament or MacLean’s magazine’ cover story on corruption in Quebec push aside what maybe the fundamental issue of our time. Somerville isn't the only voice being raised on the issue, but she is one of the more consistent.