Commentary

Religious leaders are humans and nothing else

By LEIGHTON WILLIAMS, Staff Reporter

LAST WEEK UNITED States religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a "terrific danger" to the United States.

While all the noise was being made about Robertson's outburst, I was reading about another religious leader and his family who did not call for people to be assassinated but did it himself.

The National Geographic in its story on poisons recently mentioned Rodrigo Borgia better known as Pope Alexander VI. Pope Alexander VI along with his son Cesare (a Cardinal) and daughter Lucrezia have been described by history as the first crime family partially because of the murders they committed primarily because of greed.

According to history, Pope Alexander VI and his children would invite wealthy landowners to dine with them and then poison them. By doing this, the Church would inherit all the land and wealth the person possessed because they died in their house.

History also has it that you could boast about going to dine with the Borgias, but you could not boast about surviving dinner with them.

While not defending Robertson's statement, or the actions of a sadistic clergyman, I have said all that to say this; not every person who preaches religion be it Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism or whatever, is of a pure heart. And, at the end of the day they are humans just as us.

Hence, they are prone to doing evil things despite what they want us to believe. In fact, you could say religious leaders are a paradox. They say one thing and do the other.

I believe as humans we have this notion that as long as the person is deemed to be appointed by a deity, then everything they say will be pure when we all know that the devil is able to sneak in a snide comment or sinister act on rare occasions or frequently, depending on the person. We fool ourselves into thinking they are incapable of faltering. Hence, there is usually this outcry when they do or say things contrary to what we have come to expect.

Let's face it. Apart from the Borgias who I just mentioned we all know that the crimes by the Catholic Church is enough to make us all look holy. From the Crusades in the early times to rumours of funding Hitler in World War II, we all know that many of the Popes, cardinals and bishops were no angels. I won't even bother to mention their relations with choir boys as that is like a bad cut that refuses to heal.

And, I won't even mention the past exploits of Jimmy Swaggart et al who all suffered from one innate weakness - their love of women.

Hence, last week's statement by Pat Robertson which brought a lot of outcry from the clergy and also had the White House issuing statements was not surprising to me.

But, since it could be argued that religious leaders should lead exemplary lives, then I can see where the outcry was coming from. I can also see why we throw tantrums when it is revealed that a pastor was cheating on his wife, or a Catholic priest is found to have an unnatural weakness for boys.

However, despite what we want to say or think at the end of the day they are humans and nothing else.