Pharyngula::Why isn't this cockroach in jail? Because he's clergy.

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Sunday, June 19, 2005

Why isn't this cockroach in jail? Because he's clergy.

PZ Myers • 42 Comments (last page)

What can one say about this story?

A Romanian Orthodox priest who ordered the crucifixion of a young nun because she was "possessed by the devil" and now faces murder charges was unrepentant today after he celebrated a funeral mass.

"God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil," Father Daniel, 29, the superior of the Holy Trinity monastery in north-eastern Romania, said.

He insisted that from the religious point of view, the crucifixion of Maricica Irina Cornici, 23, was "entirely justified", but admitted that he faced excommunication as well as prosecution, and was seeking a "good lawyer".

Sister Cornici was found dead on Thursday, gagged and chained to a cross after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police, who said she had entered the monastery just three months before, after visiting a friend who was a nun there.

Mihaela Straub, spokeswoman for the police in the province of Vaslui, said Father Daniel and four other nuns had claimed she was possessed and should be exorcised.

Before being crucified she had been kept shut up for several days, her hands and feet tied and without food or drink.

Vitalie Danciu, the superior of a nearby monastery at Golia, called the crucifixion "inexcusable", but a spokesman for the Orthodox patriarchate in Bucharest refused to condemn it.

"I don't know what this young woman did," Bogdan Teleanu said.

It's ghastly enough that this woman was tortured to death (shouldn't Christians be aware of what a horrible death crucifixion is?), but the really appalling thing is the way the authorities are hesitating and even making excuses for this evil psychopath. I don't know what that young woman did, but I can't imagine anything that would warrant slow, agonizing death.

And I really hope the funeral mass Father Daniel was celebrating wasn't Cornici's.

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Comments:

#29020: moioci — 06/19 at 11:26 AM
And I really hope the funeral mass Father Daniel was celebrating wasn't Cornici's.

I'll bet $1 million Monopoly dollars it was her funeral. This is very creepy indeed.

#29022: coturnix — 06/19 at 11:59 AM
I also bet you a hill of potatoes that it was her funeral.

Orthodox Christianity was quite subdued for the past 50 years or so (and one wonders why did all Orthodox nations become communist in the XX century!), and it is now waking up, feeling its hormones, and flexing its muscles. On one level, it is the most democratic half of Christianity (Catholicism and its offspring being the other half), on the other level it is the most,...well...orthodox, i.e., conservative, unchanging, inflexible and backward. It has already tried to ban abortion and to ban teaching of evolution in Serbia - unsuccesfully - but only time will tell. It may yet to become the most dangerous type of Christianity out there, depending on the particular leaders currently in charge and how they think and what they decide to do.

#29023: — 06/19 at 12:07 PM
Yes, it was apparently. The BBC have a picture of Father Daniel on their coverage of the story. It's not clear at what point that was taken though.

#29025: PZ Myers — 06/19 at 12:33 PM
OK. I give up on humanity.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#29026: PZ Myers — 06/19 at 12:35 PM
I'm also kind of grossed out that I used the word "exorcise" in my last article.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#29029: — 06/19 at 12:57 PM
If the Romanian authorities have any sense, they'll take firm and decisive action - given that Romania plans to join the EU in 2007-8, this is exactly the kind of negative PR they don't need.

#29032: John M. Price — 06/19 at 01:17 PM

"This storm is proof that the will of God has been done," Daniel said.

With that level of intellect, I am surprised that he is even seeking a lawyer!

#29035: yami — 06/19 at 01:44 PM
From the BBC article, it seems she committed the grave sin of suffering from schizophrenia. So of course she needed to die!

Ugh.

#29040: donna — 06/19 at 02:35 PM
My sister is mentally ill. Thank goodness she wasn't a Romanian nun. What a sick bastard.

#29041: Mrs Tilton — 06/19 at 02:35 PM
I'm not licenced to practice law in Romania, but I'll go out on a limb here and guess that he's not in jail because he has not yet been convicted of anything. Let's give the Romanian authorities a chance to find him guilty before bundling him off the dungeon, shall we?

(If you mean merely, why isn't he on remand awaiting trial -- mmm, dunno. Maybe it's because he's clergy. Or maybe it's because he made bail. I presume that either a court or a prosceutor's office would need to make an assessment as to how likely he was to flee, how likely to crucify other people if allowed to remain free pending trial, etc.)

That said, assuming the state can prove in a fair trial that he has done what the story claims (which shouldn't be too hard, as he himself admits it) -- and assuming it is not shown that his act was itself the result of serious mental illness (and I'm not at all sure this isn't the case) -- then he really does need to spend the rest of his natural as a guest of the Romanian state.

#29042: Mrs Tilton — 06/19 at 02:40 PM
Actually, PZ didn't even quote the worst bit of the story:

'Vitalie Danciu, the superior of a nearby monastery at Golia, called the crucifixion "inexcusable", but a spokesman for the Orthodox patriarchate in Bucharest refused to condemn it.

'"I don't know what this young woman did," Bogdan Teleanu said.'

(Emph. added.)

Yeah; she probably deserved it, the bitch.

#29048: — 06/19 at 04:35 PM
evolution is not working in all cases i'm afraid.

#29050: — 06/19 at 05:10 PM
The last couple of millennia only represents about 100 human generations - hardly much opportunity for evolution to work. Plus humans also have the habit of giving relatively useless individuals a free ride - which reduces any selectivity. However, one person in that cult is now dead and many of the others are presumably celibate. So they may be working on selecting themselves out of the population. The memes are another matter of course, since it seems at least one uber-boss tentatively approves.

#29051: — 06/19 at 06:15 PM
Somehow I doubt that this "Father" Daniel and his cohorts are representative of the Romanian Orthodox community, which numbered about 15,000,000 in the year 2000, according to the CIA Fact Book.

I would agree that fundamentalism generally is dangerous, not just among Christians. However, not all Christians are nut jobs.

#29052: PZ Myers — 06/19 at 06:19 PM
But a frightening number are willing to give evil psychos the benefit of the doubt if they invoke the name of Jesus.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#29053: — 06/19 at 06:31 PM
Credulity is a problem. I call it the "Springerization" of our society.

One time, as I was talking with a friend, it occurred to me that American scientific literacy has not progressed much since about 1850, because, I think, science has moved beyond the macroscopic and deterministic to the microscopic and statistical.

I constantly wonder how to address that, especially because my oldest son is about to enter 8th grade.

#29054: decrepitoldfool — 06/19 at 06:44 PM
"science has moved beyond the macroscopic and deterministic to the microscopic and statistical"

Hmm... that's a good explanation. Science, like religion, began to deal in things that could not be seen or easily grasped. Of course, science has predictive ability that religion lacks, and has yielded a steady improvement in the quality of life in the here-and-now. But when you only deal in anecdotes they look pretty much the same. And religion promises eternal life!

#29062: — 06/19 at 10:33 PM

OK. I give up on humanity

I gave up on em a long time ago

-----
"As with all of ID, the important thing is first to have the concept. Production can then follow as a matter of course.” -Dembski

#29072: — 06/20 at 06:16 AM
I think you need to take more seriously how very different the world-view of a real Christian is. From the cleric's point of view, he has saved the unfortunate nun from an eternity of torment; for this a few days' agony is a small price. The fact that it might cost him his career and liberty doubtless underscores his virtue.

#29075: Virge — 06/20 at 07:25 AM
Ahem... Larry, we're taking this "different world-view" extremely seriously. Here is a person so deluded by his faith and his certainty of being "right" that incarceration, torture and murder of a fellow human are justified in his mind. We're taking very seriously the fact that a spokesman for the faith refuses to condemn these heinous actions. That such extreme delusions can be shared is very frightening.

It's just as well these mystical ideas of "evil", and moral systems that condone torture have been expunged from most of the civilised world, isn't it?

#29076: decrepitoldfool — 06/20 at 07:27 AM
Larry, I think that person's worldview fits "real nutcase" more than "real Christian." I know many real Christians who take that eternity as serious as can be, but they follow what they believe to be Jesus' example of kindness and succor.

#29077: — 06/20 at 07:35 AM
Taking it seriously from this side (modern science, rationality, atheism etc) isn't the problem. It's a graphic example of what you get when you let people who believe in the supernatural and rely on cultural prejudices and superstitions rather than methodological naturalism run things. Those people are dangerous and they are the ones failing to take things seriously - from their faith and their morals to their responsibility for thinking. For example, if they genuinely took their faith seriously then they would merely have prayed for the nun to get better. Instead they display their hypocrisy and lack of faith by choosing to torture her.

#29078: — 06/20 at 08:31 AM
SEF writes: "Plus humans also have the habit of giving relatively useless individuals a free ride - which reduces any selectivity."

How true! They artificially inhibit the natural course of evolution and then use the bogus results to 'prove' that evolution never worked in the first place.

PZ writes: " But a frightening number are willing to give evil psychos the benefit of the doubt if they invoke the name of Jesus. "

That's why so many convicted murderers on death row 'find' Jesus. The thumpers care more about a potential soul-to-be-saved than they do about the victims.

#29093: — 06/20 at 10:50 AM
This is a logical consequence of the "demonic possession theory" of mental illness. After all, there is still a great deal of controversy about the cause of such major disorders as schizophrenia and manic depressive psychosis. In fact, some well respected psychiatrists deny that these conditions exist. At least one famous psychiatrist (Scott Peck) has used exorcism in his practice. So I'm wondering why the Discovery (sic) Institute is not pushing medical schools, university psychology departments and psychiatry resident programs to "teach the controversy" and to be open minded about demonic possession. After all, crucifixion was a respected therapy for many years, and what was good enough for our Lord is surely good enough for the rest of us...

#29119: — 06/20 at 01:58 PM
Here's an update - the priest and four nuns have been arrested and charged, though they're waiting for autopsy results before finalising exactly what they're going to be charged with (at the moment it's "depriving a person of liberty resulting in death".

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Sunday, June 19, 2005

Why isn't this cockroach in jail? Because he's clergy.

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