It’s sad to see the Lebanese Maronite Catholic Church on a steady regressive path towards the Dark Ages whilst the rest of the Catholic Church has been revitalized and made relevant again thanks to the progressive steps Pope Francis has been taking that many people, Catholics or otherwise, would’ve never dreamed of seeing in their lifetimes.

Preaching tolerance, especially towards the church’s “traditional enemies” like the LGBT community, atheists and agnostics and other religions, Pope Francis has been a game-changer. From a church fading into oblivion and big only in places of the world where education wasn’t, it’s back to life after two severely conservative popes plagued with scandals and corruption turned many people away from the Church before Francis came in.

Unfortunately, in Lebanon, the Catholic church, more specifically the Maronite one, has been an absolute disgrace. Protecting convicted pedophile priests and commissioning TV shows idolizing their lives is probably their vilest crime, but not their only one. The Maronite church is the entity responsible for the most instances of censorship gone wrong, from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code to psychedelic trance parties, the Church is the number one crusader against the arts, culture and education in Lebanon.

From gems like “yoga is satanic”, to banning the airing of a TV show about the life of Jesus of Nazareth from a non-Christian point of view, the Maronite church has massive influence and power over the General Security’s Censorship Bureau. In fact, the bureau is ineffective in its censorship, save when a priest or archbishop calls in a favor because they misunderstood a piece of artwork or feel it threatens their archaic views of the world.

For me, the Mansur Labaki scandal was enough to make me realize how corrupt and evil the church in Lebanon is. They not only sought to cover up the truth, by banning access to victim support websites from Lebanese IPs, they also sought to overturn the verdict in the religious court and are producing a TV series to whitewash the predator priest’s ‘accomplishments’. However, a recent INTERPOL arrest warrant in Labaki’s name puts to rest any of the absurd conspiracy theories that his protectors would come up with to justify victim blaming and slut-shaming of victims of the predatory monster in black robes. Who can forget that other priest, who molested a woman with cervical cancer, telling her he needed “to touch it” so the Virgin Mary could heal her. That priest is still a priest, but the woman he molested? She was banished to Der El Saleeb, a mental asylum run by the church that is well-known for sub-human standards and regular human rights violations. So, a priest basically raped a woman by telling here he can do miracles, he stays free to do the same to other desperate souls, while she was forced into a mental asylum…

Anyway, Archbishop of Beirut Boulos Matar is unhappy with artists and bands being brought from overseas to perform in Beirut. Today, they’re having a press conference in Beirut titled:

“ندوة حول وضع ضوابط واجراء الرقابة على الفرق الفنية التي يتم استقدامها من الخارج”

which roughly translates to: “putting restrictions and implementing censorship on artist groups brought from abroad”

This comes only weeks after the same “Catholic Center” detailed in another disturbingly ISIS-like conference how homosexuality is a disease and how to fight it, given that even in Lebanon, several legal precedents have been made arguing that homosexuality is neither a “disease” nor “illegal” under Lebanon’s penal code.

It’s odd how the Lebanese church can behave in such archaic, hateful and honestly disturbing ways, while the rest of the Catholic Church gets with the times and behaves like it’s 2016 in the age after the Internet was born. How long will the church be allowed to censor and oppress what it doesn’t like? When will the undeserved power and jurisdiction they hold loosen and allow civil liberties to flourish? When will they start paying taxes? When will they mind their own business and leave “artists groups from abroad” and those bringing them alone? Who appointed the church to make that decision?