Putting my toe in the water

of Santorum’s remarks blaming the liberalism of Bostonian and Massachusetts politics for the Catholic Church’s horrific and criminal pedophilia scandals.

Careful: saucy language ahead.

Basically, here’s Santorum’s argument in a nutshell:

Hey, America – what did you expect the priests to do, what with society’s “it’s ok so long as it’s in your own personal life” mentality? Since American culture is so permissive, priests’re gonna do what priests’re gonna do: fuck little innocent boys in the ass. Especially in Boston. Bostonians’ll fuck anything in the ass.

Don’t believe me?

It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning “private” moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

Talk about moral relativism. It’s not the priests’ fault. They just can’t help themselves when exposed to such things as, I guess, gay guys in the South End or – I don’t know – public transportation.

Santorum should get out more. Boston sure is a big, blue-state, cosmopolitan city. Kind of like Philadelphia. Sure are a lot of different people from different cultures who mingle together whilst living different lifestyles and believing in different ideals. That sort of cosmopolitan-ness is what makes big cities vote blue and rural areas vote red. When you’re exposed to the “other” on a daily basis, it’s not quite as exotic or dangerous to you as it is to a guy in, say, Nebraska.

Santorum lets the priests off the hook completely. It is they that are to blame. Not the culture. The Catholic Church won’t marry you if you haven’t had your first marriage annulled. The Catholic Church will excommunicate females who become priests. The Catholic Church shuns gay people who are, in its eyes, an abomination.

But when a priest – who takes an oath of celibacy, mind you – fucks a boy in the ass, he used to get reassigned to another parish. In order to get fresh meat, I suppose. That’s Boston’s fault. Get it?

(My family would be Catholic if it was religious, but it hasn’t been since the turn of the last century. What used to be a bemused ambivalence about the Catholic Church has, since the priest scandal, become downright hostile. In case you didn’t notice.)

In any event, here’s what the Boston Globe’s Bryan McGrory has to say about it:

Santorum’s words about Boston, though written in 2002, weren’t highlighted until the last couple of weeks, when a Philadelphia Daily News columnist, John Baer, raised them in print and prompted a running political discourse in the blogosphere. Perhaps so many imbecilic statements flow from Santorum’s mouth and pen that this one was initially overlooked.

So I asked a Santorum spokesman whether the senator still believed what he said about Boston. I mean, guilt might be our greatest natural resource, but do we really have to fall on our collective sword over wayward priests?

”It’s an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases,” said Robert Traynham, the Santorum aide. ”I think that’s what the senator was speaking to.”

Of course. The whole thing is MIT’s fault. Why didn’t we realize this sooner? Maybe the Globe should give its Pulitzer Prize back because it failed to get to the root cause of the scandal: Cambridge-based rocket science professors.

I asked Mitt Romney about this. He’s starting to hang out in this crowd, raising money for a conservative political action committee in Washington just last night.

His spokeswoman, Julie Teer, called back and said: ”What happened with the church sex abuse scandal was a tragedy, but it had nothing to do with geography or the culture of Boston. What we know now is that the sex abuse was occurring around the country and around the world. Boston was just the first to find out about it.”

Good answer. Then I called Menino, who groaned. ”Typical of the guy who doesn’t understand the issue, doesn’t understand the Catholicism. He should come up to Boston and see what it’s all about. Maybe we’ll send a welcome wagon to get him.”

Please don’t, mayor. Please don’t. You’re talking about a senator who intruded on Terri Schiavo’s deathbed, and, after she died of what an autopsy determined was an atrophied brain that sent her into a permanent vegetative state, said she had been ”executed.”

He talked about ”man on dog” sex in once explaining to a reporter his opposition to homosexuality. He told The New York Times that gay marriage ”absolutely” threatens his own marriage.

Poor Orrin Hatch, John McCain, and Chuck Hagel, all thoughtful Republican senators who are tainted by Santorum’s mere presence.

What would he find up here, anyway? He’d find one of the most Catholic cities in the country.

He’d find academic institutions that are the intellectual engine of the nation, schools, by the way, that have churned out plenty of Republican leaders, George W. Bush among them.

And he’d find a city that is pretty much the birthplace of civil political discourse, a concept that Santorum essentially violates every time he opens his mouth.

Santorum is a national disgrace and a petty, foolish, and theocratic figure if ever there was one. Maybe all criminals should take a page from Santorum’s playbook and blame society for their crimes. I guess when it comes to certain crimes, people like Santorum aren’t for personal responsibility.