The Vatican Taliban beat goes on!

It appears the Fathers of the Catholic Church feel that their image needs a little public relations adjustment gilding. And they've found a guy who can help them with that!

The Vatican has hired an American journalist from the Fox News Network and member of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei to help improve its relations with the media, a senior Church source said on Saturday.

Burke, 52, a native of St Louis Missouri, has been working for Fox for 10 years. Before that he worked for Time magazine in Rome. He has also written several books, one about an Italian soccer team.

We presume that this recent legal decision in the US will be among those that will occupy Burke and require that he crank out a new flavour of bullshit to replace the old one.

Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former cardinal’s aide, was found guilty Friday of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.

The single guilty verdict was widely seen as a victory for the district attorney’s office, which has been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002, and it was hailed by victim advocates who have argued for years that senior church officials should be held accountable for concealing evidence and transferring predatory priests to unwary parishes.

With willfully deaf, blind and dumb faithful followers like this one, how can they possibly go wrong?

Added: A good overview of the pedophile priests issue in the US, here.