New Brunswick Religious Groups That Will Get Canada Summer Jobs Grants

A couple of days ago Michael Coren published an article with the numbers on religious applicants to the Canada Summer Jobs program.

There were a lot and more than half were accepted.

So that kinda puts the lie on media, Church, and Conservative screeching about anti-religion/anti-Christian bias.

Official documents show that of the 2,728 faith-based organizations that applied for summer jobs funding this year, 58 per cent were willing to sign the attestation. Of the 115 Anglican groups that applied, only 10 refused so sign, and only two of the 199 United Church-affiliated organizations refused. Even more startling, none of the 89 Jewish or 130 Muslim groups withheld their support. Which leaves evangelical groups and, of course, Roman Catholics.

Opposition to abortion has become an absolute of conservative Catholic opinion even though, it should be noted, Canadian Catholics in general do not share this view and progressive Catholics have a far more nuanced approach.

Also, there is far more ambiguity in the Catholic response to the program than we have been led to believe. Contrary to what many critics of the policy have claimed, of the 365 Catholic organizations applying for funding, the overwhelming majority signed on, with less than a third (32 per cent) refusing to do so. When we break down those figures, a clear pattern emerges.

In all of Quebec, only nine Catholic groups refused to sign and a massive 108 agreed to the attestation. In Ontario, 63 groups refused to sign, with 32 agreeing to do so, and the vast majority of dissenters, 52, in Toronto.

That's a lot a Catholics.

Coren doesn't mention New Brunswick but there are many Catholic organizations here too. The Knights of Columbus again!

So, here are the New Brunswick religious groups who applied for and will get summer job grants.

The usual reminders on process: I was going by name only, quite literally. All (known) religious groups got tagged. Others that sounded "churchy" got checked. Caps and quotation marks from original document. Where "no website" is noted I could not find a website for that particular group. (Obviously there is a website for "United Church of Canada" but sometimes I couldn't find one specific to that riding.) Where a link is not provided, it is elsewhere in this blogpost. I haven't done the hyperlink thing, because there are too many. Sorry, you'll have to copy and paste.

Asterisks indicate a Catholic organization.

Most of this was compiled by a diligent volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous. And of course thanks to the Data Monster again.

Acadie-Bathurst
MP Serge Cormier, Lib
Comité de Sauvegarde Église de Bas-Caraquet, http://www.sauvegardeeglisebc.com/ ***
St. Lukes Presbyterian Church, http://pccweb.ca/stlukes-bathurst/
Bathurst Pastoral Charge, http://www.firstunited-bathurst.ca/
Paroisse Saint-Nom-de-Jésus, http://diocesebathurst.com/web/fr/paroisses/beresford-st-nom-de-jesus ***
Paroisse Saint-Polycarpe, http://diocesebathurst.com/web/fr/paroisses/petit-rocher-st-polycarpe ***
L'Évêque Catholique Romain de Bathurst (X5) http://www.diocesebathurst.com/
Sanctuaire Ste-Anne-du-Bocage, http://www.upstjeaneudes.com/pastorale/stanne.html ***
New Bandon Pastoral Charge, https://marconf.ca/presbyteries/miramichi/new-bandon/

Beauséjour
MP Dominic LeBlanc‎, Lib.
Paroisse Saint Jean Baptiste, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_st-jean-baptiste.html ***
Lutes Mountain Church of the Nazarene, http://www.lutesmtnchurch.com/
Paroisse Saint-Thomas, http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14295.htm ***
Paroisse Ste-Thérèse d'Avila, http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14280.htm ****
Paroisse Saint-Ignace-de-Loyala, http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14321.htm ***
Islington United Church, Sackville no website
Sackville United Pentecostal Church no website
Immaculate Conception Church, http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/rexton-immaculate-conception ***
The Roman Catholic Archbishop, Shediac http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14328.htm ***
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/moncton-office-closed-by-roman-catholic-archdiocese-1.1854667
Corporation of the Anglican Parish of Shediac, https://www.anglicanparishofshediac.com/
Paroisse Notre-Dame du Mont Carmel, http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14323.htm ***
Paroisse Sainte-Anne de Kent http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/sainte-anne-de-kent-sainte-anne ***
Paroisse Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur, http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/notre-dame-de-kent-notre-dame-du-sacre-c-ur- ***
Paroisse Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague, http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/richibouctou-saint-louis-de-gonzague ***
Paroisse Saint-Louis-des-Français, http://saintlouisdesfrancais.ca/ ***
Archeveque Catholique Romain de Moncton http://www.diomoncton.ca/ ***

Fredericton
MP Matt DeCourcey, Lib.
Wilmot United Church, http://www.wilmotuc.nb.ca/
St.Paul's United Church, http://www.stpaulsunited.ca/
Pathfinders Christian Fellowship, no website
Forest Hill Pastoral Charge, http://www.foresthillunited.com/
United Pentacostal Church of Geary no website

Fundy Royal
MP Alaina Lockhart, Lib.
Hampton Bible Camp, http://www.hamptonbiblecamp.ca/
Rothesay Baptist Church Inc, http://truelifenb.com/

Madawaska-Restigouche
MP René Arseneault, Lib.
Paroisse Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, http://diocesebathurst.com/web/en/parishes/campbellton-notre-dame-des-neiges ***
Campbellton Pastoral Charge, https://marconf.ca/presbyteries/miramichi/campbellton/
Knox Presbyterian Church, http://presbyterian.ca/
Campbellton United Pentecostal Church, http://www.spiritofpentecost.com/
Paroisse Saint-François d'Assise, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_clair.html ***
L'Évêque Catholique Romain - Cathédrale Immaculée-Conception https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_cathedrale.html ***
L'Evêque Catholique Romain d'Edmundston, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/index.htmln ***
Paroisse St.-Jean Marie Vianney de Dundee, http://diocesebathurst.com/web/fr/paroisses/dundee-saint-jean-marie-vianney ***
Paroisse Ste-Trinité, http://diocesebathurst.com/web/en/parishes/eel-river-crossing-sainte-trinite ***
Paroisse Notre-Dame des Prodiges, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_kedgwick.html ***
Paroisse Saint-Basile, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_st-basile.html ***
Paroisse du Très Saint-Sacrement, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_st-quentin.html ***
Paroisse Catholique Saint-Joseph https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_st-joseph.html ***

‪Miramichi-Grand Lake‬
MP Pat Finegan, Lib
The Roman Catholic Archbishop - Paroisse Immaculee Conception, https://www.diocese-edmundston.ca/fr/zp_cathedrale.html ***
Paroisse Sainte-Anne, http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/Parishes/Fredericton-Region/Paroisse-Sainte-Anne-des-Pays-Bas.aspx ***
Camp Sheldrake, https://www.campsheldrake.ca/ ***
Saints Peter & Paul Church, http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14364.htm ***
Parish of Newcastle/Nelson/Hardwicke, http://www.miramichi.jesusanswers.com/
"Diocese of Saint John, St. Raphael's Parish" http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/Parishes/Miramichi-Region/St-Raphael-s-Parish.aspx ***
Chipman United Church, https://marconf.ca/presbyteries/woolastook/chipman/
Camp Wegesegum Inc., http://www.campwegesegum.com/
"Paroisse Notre-Dame-de-Fatima, Collette", http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14282.htm
Knox Presbyterian Church, no website
Évêque Catholique Romain de Bathurst(X2), http://www.diocesebathurst.com/ ***
"Knights Of Columbus, Council 3502", http://www.knightsite.org/kc9496/kc9496nb.htm ***
St. Michael's Basilica, https://stmichaelsbasilica.com/ ***
Catholic Health Partners Inc., http://www.rhsj.org/en/miramichi_735_-21.php ***
RC Bishop of Saint John St. Mary's Parish http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/Parishes/Miramichi ***
New Hope Community Church, http://www.newhopemiramichi.ca/index.html
The Salvation Army Community Resource Centre (Miramichi), http://www.miramichisalvationarmy.ca/
Saint James Parish, http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/Parishes/Miramichi-Region/St-James-Parish.aspx ***
Paroisse Saint-François-de-Sales, http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/Parishes/Saint-John-Region/Paroisse-St-Francois-de-Sales.aspx ***
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Saint John, http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/
St. Stephen's United Church, http://www.rbuc.ca/category/st-stephens-church/
Paroisse Saint-Joseph http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/pointe-sapin-saint-joseph ***
St-Peter's Church, http://www.gcatholic.org/churches/canada-east/14330.htm ***
Newcastle United Church https://faithlife.com/nubc/about

Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe
MP ‎Ginette Petitpas Taylor‎, Lib
Paroisse Saint-Anselme, http://www.diomoncton.ca/fr/parish/dieppe-saint-anselme ***
Paroisse Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/dieppe-notre-dame-de-lorette ***
Paroisse Sainte-Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus, http://www.diomoncton.ca/en/parish/dieppe-sainte-therese-de-l-enfant-jesus ***
THE SALVATION ARMY IN CANADA,
First Moncton United Baptist Church http://www.firstmoncton.com/
Moncton Wesleyan Church http://mw.church/
St. Paul's United Churchhttp://www.stpaulsriverview.org/
The Corporation of the Parish of Riverview no website
Religieuses Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur no website ***

New Brunswick Southwest
MP Karen Ludwig, LIb.
Diocesan Synod of Fredericton http://anglican.nb.ca/
Kirk-McColl United Church https://marconf.ca/presbyteries/st-croix/st-stephen-kirkandmccoll/
Oak Hill Christian Centre Inc. http://www.gatewaycathedral.com/ohcc.html
Roman Catholic Bishop of Saint John http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/ ***
Sandy Cove Bible Camp http://sandycovebiblecamp.ca/
St. Augustine's Parish http://www.dioceseofsaintjohn.org/Parishes/Saint-John-Region/St-Augustine-s-Parish.aspx ***
St. Stephen's Association for Christian Education http://ssu.ca/
St. Stephen's University http://ssu.ca/

Saint John-Rothesay
MP Wayne Long, Lib
Corporation of the Anglican Parish of Lancaster http://www.anglicanparishstandrewsnb.ca/about-us/
Saint John Jewish Historical Society Inc. http://jewishmuseumsj.com/home.html
St. David's United Church http://www.rothesayunitedchurch.ca/saintdavidsunited/
St. Mark's United Church https://stmarksunited.ca/
The Corporation of the Anglican Parish of Saint John https://www.anglican.ca/about/organization/dioceses/
Sisters of Charity I.C. Ruth Ross Residence http://www.sistersofcharityic.com/associates.html **

Tobique-Mactaquac
MP T. J. Harvey, Lib
Carleton-Victoria United Pentecostal Children's Camp, http://www.bannoncamp.com/
Calvary Tabernacle Inc, http://calvarytabernacle.ca/
Nashwaak Valley Pentecostal Church Inc, https://www.nvpctaymouth.org/
Calvary United Pentecostal Church (Woodstock) Inc. http://www.calvaryupc.com/

All errors are mine. If I've asterisked as Catholic a group that is not, let me know in the comments and I'll fix it.

Make Up Your Minds, Guys

It seems that some Catholic agencies in Canada did not get the memo, which reads in part, "The government has handed us a perfect opportunity for a persecution shit-fit. No Catholic group is to interfere with this martyrgasm."*

That opportunity is, of course, the new attestation required for applicants to the Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) program.

The CSJ program will ‎not fund organizations whose primary activities:
• involve partisan political activities; or 
• do not respect – seek to remove or actively undermine – established individual human rights in Canada.

Pretty simple, eh?

The link above leads to the "Supplementary Information" the government issued when it was made clear that some groups were deliberately misunderstanding the original wording.

But it seems that many religious agencies understood perfectly well what was intended. They applied, presumably ticking the attestation box, and were approved for CSJ grants. The successful applicants, listed by province and riding, were released recently.

I have been going through this list to find obviously "churchy" sounding names. I have found a lot, including some with "Catholic" in the title.

Well. The Catholic Church has been doing some research too. Yesterday, Canada's bishops demanded that successful Catholic groups give back the dough. Other bishops weighed in too.

Make up your minds, guys. Are you being persecuted by the government or by your own agencies? Do you want the money or not?

Here are the groups that defied the Church. (I used the keyword "Catholic" so some without that word may have been missed.)



Note that the MP for this riding ML is Scott Simms, the Liberal who voted with the Conservatives to scrap the attestation. Hmm.













The Church seems to be in a bit of a pickle.

Or as Kayle Clark put it,

So a bunch of catholic groups got summer job funding and bishops are freaking out because it really counters their “persecution” narrative. #cndpoli https://t.co/ZgEXdcLV3U

— Kayle Clark (@kaclk) May 9, 2018

What a message. They're saying: "The Catholic Church does not respect established human rights in Canada and seeks to remove or actively undermine them."

Well, we in the pro-choice and LGBTQ2S communities knew that.

* I made this up.

Bait and Hate

On March 8 2015, International Women's Day, the Harper government's Minister for Defence and Multiculturalism tweeted this:

Journalist Glen McGregor caught the mendacious tweet and investigated whether the misleading images were duplicitously used.

An article in La Presse has an interview with a scholar based at l'UQUAM, regarding the authenticity and provenance of images used in Jason Kenney's tweet. He deplored the lack of rigour shown by this tweet as well as the misrepresentation of what the images actually portray: the dramatization of a religious historical event (much like Catholic Good Friday re-enactment) and the public recitation of Coranic verses.

The press secretary to Minister Kenney, who is also responsible for Multiculturalism in the Harper government, declined to respond directly to requests for clarification regarding the choice of photos.

"This type of question obscures the real issue: [Daesh/IS] is a threat to women and minorities; it is a genocidal terrorist organization, a threat to national and international security," wrote Lauren Armstrong in an email sent to The Canadian Press.

That photo in the upper right hand corner is a still shot from a short video that Karren Brown found:

Kenney's tweet implied that the tearful girl is a terrified child bride of a Wahhadi Daesh fighter.  She isn't.

Watch the video. The girl is competing in a contest of memorization of religious text.  Her head is not covered.  Her audience is composed of supportive community members who encourage her.

Though there are other religions who do justify potential endangerment and harm to children because ... their ideology rules. Three years ago we wrote about the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board and how it facilitated such activities.

Yes, it's April and those three boys are exposed to the elements.  The board has now removed the photos from its Brampton school's website (child pornography?) but Andrea Houston got a screen cap which she kindly provided.

Kenney is a fundamentalist Catholic. My co-blogger is very fond of this video of a young and rabidly zealous Jason.  He didn't complete his undergraduate program.  We suspect that the Jesuits were far too liberal for his proclivities.

Need we remind our readers, as well as befuddled Harper Cons, that the Catholic Church facilitated, tolerated and enabled mental, physical and sexual violence exerted against thousands and thousands of children for centuries.  In countries like Ireland, the Philippines and El Salvador, women are still struggling to cast off the oppressive control of the Vatican's misogynist ideology.  They have uncovered great injustices and loudly demanded accountability from the Church.

Nonetheless, Harper Cons are putting all their communication eggs into one basket: systematically deploying fear mongering tactics to incite hatred and fear of Muslims as they ramp up to a fall election campaign. Also: fundraising!!!

On Monday evening, the leader of the Liberal Party

[..]accused Harper's Conservative Party government of blurring the line "between a real security threat and simple prejudice." In particular, he criticized the decision of a judge in Quebec to refuse the case of a Muslim woman who wore a hijab to court, arguing that it was a "troubling trend that Mr. Harper seems keen to accelerate and exploit" and linking it to the Conservative government's proposed ban on the wearing of Islamic face veils during the oath of citizenship. 

Trudeau told his audience. "So we should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy toward Jews in the 30s and 40s, being used to raise fears against Muslims today."

On Tuesday Harper's dog-and-pony show continued in Parliament, as his Minister for Public Safety obliquely referenced Islam during his presentation on Bill C-51 in committee.  Blaney justified this, claiming that "hate speech" sows the seeds that culminate in horrific events like the Holocaust. He rambled on, even alluding to the mass slaughter of Tutsi by Hutu.

The minister compared jihadist declarations to Nazi propaganda, saying "the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words." 

"Violence starts with words," the minister repeated. "Hate begins with words. I can talk to you about the genocide in Rwanda that began on the radio."

He was taken to task by NDP MP Randall Garrison who suggested Blaney was trivializing the Shoah. Later, the minister's office denied that he had paraphrased verses from the Qur'an. 

Since we're on the topic of hate speech, biblical text are still used to justify violence against women. The actions demanded in Deutoronomy 22:21 that Gary Pearson partly cited above may no longer prevail in law, but they persist in the stigma attached to sex work and in the shaming of women who refuse to let their sexuality be controlled by religious ideology.

"then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father's house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father's house. In this way you will get rid of this evil."

None of this is happenstance. Ordinary secular political parties are not seized by urgent, totalitarian needs to foment ethnic fear and religious hatred against muslims in order to stay in power.  But a party that is in thrall to Evangelical christian religious fundamentalism and bankrolled by foreign interests, as Harper's CPC is, certainly would be. 

The last words belong to Jed Bartlet, _The West Wing_ fictional president inspired by Jimmy Carter with some daubs of JFK.

Deploying religious text to expose the ugliness of religious fundamentalism.

Of interest to those with no particular religious adherence: the word TERROR entered the political vocabulary during the French revolution as these events unfolded. A demonstration that any ideology, even anti-religious, can be used to justify violent government repression.  

UPDATE: The hoax photos that Kenney deployed misrepresent their original use. Taken from an anti-Muslim hate-inciting site. Thoroughly deconstructed here.

PEI: Still Lubing up for the Catlick Church

It seems the CBC got its hands on a leaked business plan to bring abortion to the "Gentle Island."

A leaked business plan for a twice-monthly clinic prepared by Health PEI shows the province could have saved $37,000 a year providing abortions on the Island, rather than paying for them to be performed at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Science Centre in Halifax.

In addition, women using the service would also save tens of thousands of dollars.

Currently, PEI is the only province that has zip zero nada abortion services and forces women to travel at their own expense.

So, while sensible people worked out a way to make this common but time-sensitive medical procedure available, saving both the government and Island women money, not to mention the stress and hassle, the government nixed it.

With zip zero nada explanation.

In a follow-up story, CBC tried to get government spokespeople to account for the idiocy. They would not.

CBC PEI has requested to speak to [Health Minister Doug] Currie and Valerie Docherty, the minister responsible for the Status of Women.

Currie refused to be interviewed and his office issued a statement, as did Docherty.

"My role is to ensure that the voices of all Island women are considered during policy discussions," Docherty wrote in an email.

"As Minister Currie has noted, Government is meeting its obligations to offer abortion services on a regional basis, similar to the same way we offer other health services, such as cardiac rehab, vascular and pediatric services."

Shorter PEI government: "STFU. We know what's best."

On Twitter, though, a clue was provided by @esseleblanc.

@teesock @fernhilldammit Seems the PEI gov. is still under the church’s thumb. See “Closure” section. http://t.co/tVNiaSEGBn

— Stéphane (@esseleblanc) October 21, 2014

From Wiki:

In 1982, after 102 years of service, the Charlottetown Hospital closed its doors when the Queen Elizabeth Hospital opened.

The opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1982 also saw the end of abortion services in the province, which had been provided at the Prince Edward Island Hospital since the late 1960s. One of the conditions that the Roman Catholic Church placed on the provincial government of Premier James Lee for merging the Catholic-affiliated Charlottetown Hospital with the secular and publicly operated Prince Edward Island Hospital into the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital was that all abortion services in the province be discontinued.[1]

And that footnote takes us to a story from The National Post, November 16, 2011.

Isn't that sweet? The Catlick Church stomped its widdle feet over thirty years ago and the pusillanimous politicians are still bending over for them.

According to StatsCan, there are about 58,000 Catholics and 57,000 other Christians out of a total population of just over 137,000.

Looked at another way, this means that a minority is holding 79,000 non-Catholics -- and no doubt some sane Catholics as well -- hostage.

Prince Edward Island is *just* like Ireland -- blithely exporting its abortion "problem" and pretending it doesn't have one.

Time to join the 21st century, little island.

HUGE Vatican FAIL

As long as I've been blogging on reproductive rights and justice (about seven years), there's been wrangling in Philippines over basic contraception and family planning.

And now it's over.

The Supreme Court in the Philippines has approved a birth control law, in a defeat for the Catholic Church.

The law requires government health centres to distribute free condoms and contraceptive pills.

The court had deferred implementation after the law's passage in December 2012 after church groups questioned its constitutionality.

Supporters of the law cheered as the court found that most of the provisions were constitutional.

The government of President Benigno Aquino defied years of church pressure by passing the bill.

It says the law will help the poor, who often cannot afford birth control, and combat the country's high rates of maternal mortality.

The provisions will make virtually all forms of contraception freely available at public health clinics.

Sex education will also be compulsory in schools and public health workers will be required to receive family planning training.

There will also be medical care for women who have had illegal abortions.

Abortion of course will still be illegal.

Here's the view from Manila.

The Catholic Church, which counts over 80 percent of the country’s 100 million population as members, had led street protests denouncing the law as “evil”, and at one point in its opposition campaign threatened Aquino with excommunication.

One of its hardline opponents and a petitioner to the court, former senator Francisco Tatad, said allowing the law to take effect could force Catholics into an open revolt.

“This means civil disobedience at the very least, actual revolt at the most extreme,” Tatad wrote in a commentary in the Manila Standard on Tuesday.

“Some of us will want to defy the power of the devil and die as martyrs, if need be, in the only cause that gives us a chance to fight for something much bigger than ourselves.”

Big talk.

All bullshit.

Nevertheless, many Catholics have embraced less conservative views in recent decades.

A recent survey carried by the respected Social Weather Stations polling group said about 84 percent of Filipinos agreed that the government should provide free family planning options such as contraceptives.

It said 72 percent were “in favor” of the law.

Another Vatican Taliban FAIL.

Protest against Gendercide: The Perfect Opportunity to Inculcate Misogyny in Children

The annual March for Lies is scheduled for this Thursday, May 9. It is always held on a weekday so that hundreds of Catholic schoolchildren can be bussed in for an educational day of indoctrination in misogyny.

Read what Amanda Watson, former Catholic student and participant, has to say about the event.

A year ago, when a young girl, no more than 16 years old, extended a sign to block my path that read, “Maybe if you kept your legs shut you wouldn’t need an abortion,” I decided to take myself home.

Awww, isn't that sweet? Encouraging witless young women to attack other women on a subject about which they know nothing.

But hey, when your agenda is race-baiting or gender-baiting, it is Standard Operating Procedure to get a member of the targetted group to lead the hate-filled chants.

Thus, female children are the perfect messengers, especially since the theme of this year's bunfest is 'gendercide'. Yep, aka Motion 408, or the aborted Warawa's Wank.

Watson notes that this year the counter-demonstrators plan to keep silent. There is no arguing with these poor brainwashed kids, so they will quietly stand in protest.

Even more, the rage and pain of pro-choicers should be respected as we watch a generation of children learn to slut-shame fellow women, particularly via the dozens of women at the front of the march, wearing oversized yellow sandwich boards with the shaming words, “I regret my abortion.”

The kids learn their lessons well. This is how last year's event ended for our reporter.

As I scuffed through the grass from Parliament Hill, eyes swelling with tears, I stared at my feet so I would miss the poster displays of mangled fetuses and hordes of chanting students, some waving malicious signs my way. A girl yelled “Slut!” in my direction and tears spilled down my cheeks, not for her, but for the machine that pits women against each other over our freedom to control our bodies.

The irony of using slut-shaming in the service of 'protecting girls' is totally lost on them of course.

All the usual suspects are are on board. Mark Warawa himself, who declined to use his first hard-won opportunity to speak about abortion in the House, will avail himself, funnily enough on March for Lies Day.

The day after the Speaker’s ruling, Warawa deflated expectations when he stood up to give a statement about a talent contest in his Langley, B.C. riding.

The timing wasn’t right, he said Monday.

“Timing is everything, and the time had moved on as far as me speaking on the issue of gendercide,” he said.

“I thought it was more appropriate to deal with something that was important at that day at that time…but I will continue to speak out on the issue of gendercide at appropriate times.“

Warawa will also speak on Parliament Hill Thursday at the pro-life event organized by the nonprofit Campaign Life Coalition.

Of course he will.

Timing is indeed everything. And it's never too early or too late to teach children to attack and judge others.

Catholic parents, I hope you're proud.

Watson's piece seems to have hit at nerve at Gender-Baiting Central, aka ProWomanProLife, wholly-owned and funded subsidiary of Focus on the Family.

OH NOEZ!

Is Blob Blogging Wingnut, aka SUZYALLCAPS, the new pontiff's Twitter coach?

Reactions were mixed.

As one said: "No need to shout, your holiness."

This does not augur well.

More information about the Catholic Corporation's new CEO, Francis 1st.

Sanctifying Mother Teresa is a PR stunt

to distract from all the scandals in the Catholic Church.  Also, she raised millions of dollars for the Vatican Taliban - which is actually why they're canonizing her, I suspect.

Here's the latest about her.

A study conducted by Canadian researchers has called Mother Teresa "anything but a saint", a creation of an orchestrated and effective media campaign who was generous with her prayers but miserly with her foundation's millions when it came to humanity's suffering.

The controversial study, to be published this month in the journal of studies in religion/sciences called Religieuses, says that Teresa - known across the world as the apostle of the dying and the downtrodden - actually felt it was beautiful to see the poor suffer.

This was posted at DJ! about Mother Teresa, in response to yet another drive-by smearing of Margaret Sanger by the usual bunch of lying antiChoice zealots.

The conclave to elect the new pope is scheduled to start Tuesday.  Meanwhile, Canada's very own Ayatollah Ouellet is performing for the Vatican Taliban: 

This media circus around the election of a new Church CEO diverts public attention from its sordid history of sexual violation and abuse of women and children that continues unchecked in many countries.

Very recently, this occurred at an Ontario school under the jurisdiction of a Catholic school board.

Some parents in two Durham region Catholic schools were shocked when their elementary schoolchildren came home bearing a letter from their parish priest that included provocative questions. The letter, a call to return to Catholic practices, came with a two-page “examination of conscience” and invitation to reflect on sins before going to confession.

Have I committed adultery or fornication?

Have I become intoxicated?

Have I been disobedient or disrespectful to my husband?

Have I taken active part in any non-Catholic worship?

Other sins included: “Have I done unnecessary servile work (physical labour) or shopping on Sunday?” and “Have I denied my spouse his or her marriage rights?” 

Catholics. Once upon a time in Ontario, pressure from Francophone communities and Catholic organizations led to the creation of *Separate schools*, which set a precedent, in allowing the establishment of other publicly funded religious educational institutions. 

There are now many French non-denominational school boards that offer education in French in all regions of Ontario without the religious indoctrination. 

The time has come to remove public funding from the Catholic schools, as the Church appears to consider them their own property. Let the Vatican support them financially, since they exploit them as an extension of their propaganda arm, the notorious Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  Let them direct their staff to do fundraising with the promise that if they succeeded as well as Mother Teresa did, they will be canonized too. 

ADDED: Someone retweeted this of mine. An apt reminder of the other disturbing aspect of Catholic School Boards, which is to authorize child abuse, and the portrayal thereof, when it suits an ideological agenda. It's okay if you're a *good* Catholic.

Please note the presence of a Knights of Columbus official in the background, not currently demonstrating against the purported abuse of zygotes, embryos or fetuses, by women or medical professionals.

Pope: we hope the next one keeps the brand name.

As our readers may have noticed, DJ! has a love-hate relationship with the Catholic pontiff.

We love holding Maledict's misogyny and homophobia up to ridicule; we hate the abusive power wielded by this patriarchal, ideologically fundamentalist religious leader.  And we rigorously noted his obdurate justification of priests' pedophilia.

Our response to the news of his renOOOnciation (I can't help but imagine that word expressed as Preston Manning did with refOOOrm) was varied.

We wondered if it was something we said:

Also:

Though it's tempting to suggest that the cumulative burden of ignoring decades of child abuse in dozens of countries by Catholic clergy and laity, as well as maintaining a hard line on controlling women's sexuality in servitude to men was all too much for Maledict...

This recent news report about the loathsome financial manipulations of the Church (via Pale) is sadly typical of its hypocrisy, in all matters that threaten its considerable wealth.

So, why is he renOOOnciating his job as CEO of a wealthy multinational corporation? (He probably gets to keep most of the luxurious perks.)

Luna thinks that he may want to influence the selection of his successor.  She also has other thoughts, which appear to be badly received by thin-skinned, thick-headed Catholic zealots.

Go check out the rest of her twitterstream here.

The Québecois cardinal that DJ! has dubbed the Ayatollah Ouellet appears to be a fore-runner in the papal selection process.

Father Raymond Gravel was interviewed on Radio-Canada with regard to the Pope's resignation and Ouellet's prospect.  He was gentle and respectful as he shared his observations on the personal quandary as well as the formal letter tended by the pontiff.  On the topic of the suitability of Ouellet for the position, he was definitely chilly, pointing out that the Catholic Church needed a leader, a unifier, someone who had worked as a parish priest, who knew how to connect with the faithful and that the Québecois cardinal had none of those attributes.

All that we at DJ! require of the next Vatican Taliban head poobah is, to quote fern hill: "at least half as evil-looking as Maledict. Too much to hope for, I suppose, for someone so often captured with pure malice blazing from his eyes".  My humble wish is that the new pope will decide to honour his predecessor by choosing the name Maledict ... err, ... Benedict XVII.

The last words on this whole international hoo-haw surely belong to the Queen. Yes, this one.

Unholy Hell

I knew absolutely nothing about the Magdalene laundries until I saw The Magdalene Sisters in 2002. The film is set in Ireland and I thought the horror stopped there.

Magdalene laundries are in the news now because of a report.

Ireland has officially recognised the state's guilt in the "enslavement" of more than 30,000 women, most of whom were sent against their will into church-run institutions where they received no pay, no pension and no social protection.

Labelled the "Maggies", the women were sent to the Magdalene laundries where they worked for nothing, serving in some cases "life sentences" simply for being unmarried mothers or regarded as morally wayward.

Dig this bit.

The inquiry into the Magdalene scandal was finally prompted by a report from the UN committee against torture in June 2011. It called for prosecutions where necessary and compensation to surviving women.

Torture.

Just now, I learned that the racket was imported to the US.

@fernhilldammit @tabathasouthey Canada and Australia also had Magdalene Laundries. The survivors have been silenced! I hope to change that!

— Jerome Elam (@JeromeElam) February 10, 2013

(Here is Jerome Elam's website.)

Canada too?

And then I remembered.

Like most 14-year-olds, I was a handful. I wasn't quite (yet) into drugs and sex but I was getting into trouble in school, mouthing off, skipping out, hanging with friends. I bleached my hair, experimented with makeup. Nothing particularly outrageous.

But Maman, divorced since I was seven, had a new boyfriend. I didn't like him and he didn't like me.

So a plot was hatched. Boyfriend did the research -- I found the list in his handwriting years later -- on 'tough' Catholic boarding schools.

A shortlist of the toughest emerged and appointments were made. My presence was required.

We weren't Catholic, by the way.

I was shocked. My friends were shocked. A counter-plan was hatched.

A friend lent me a 'motorcycle' jacket. (Motorcycles were considered agents of Satan.) Scripts were written and rehearsed.

On the evening we were to drive to the first place (I've repressed the name; it was near Hamilton, Ontario), I rolled the waistband of my already-too-short skirt, slathered on makeup, and donned the jacket. My mother told me to wash my face and change my clothes. I told her that if she were going to force me into this, I was doing it my way. Huge fight, but I stuck to my guns and won that round.

Silence in the car.

We were taken to Head Nun's office. Short meeting with Maman, boyfriend, and me, then they were asked to leave. Head Nun wanted to talk to me alone.

Truth to tell, I was scared shitless, but I put on the performance of my life. Alternately truculent and foul-mouthed, I tried to be the baddest-ass girl of all time.

I told her that I was smart -- she had school records so she knew that -- and that I would use every single IQ point I had to make her life an unholy hell.

There was more of course and I probably wasn't nearly as bad-ass as I thought, but when adults were summoned back, she said she didn't think that Name of School could do anything with me.

She declined my challenge.

Silence in the car going home.

But there was still The List.

It took me a few days to realize that the Remove Fern Hill from the Family Home Project had been quietly abandoned.

And today, I'm wondering exactly what kind of unholy hell I had averted.

As a sad bonus, read what Sinéad O'Connor has to say. It explains much.




ADDED: I've always loved Sinéad O'Connor.

Singer Sinead O'Connor has said she has been excommunicated by the Catholic Church and said she wanted a certificate from the Vatican to prove it.

"Apparently I've been excommunicated but the only place you'll find this is in L'Osservatore Romano, their newspaper which nobody reads," she told the Sunday Independent.

"But I want something to show my grandkids. I've been tweeting Pope Benedict about this but I've heard nothing back yet."

Catholic Church: Facts matter when money is involved.

This was in the news yesterday.  As you can imagine, it has been the topic of pro-choice discussions since, as we've written many, many times at DJ!, the US Catholic Church has been one of the best-financed and insistent organization to lobby politicians, in its opposition to abortion and birth control.  All of it involves indirect actions and proxy groups of course, as the Vatican Taliban doesn't want to imperil the tax-exempt status its churches enjoy.

The Catholic Church is on record stating that life begins at conception That is the basis of their opposition to abortion in all circumstances. It’s the basis on which they argue that Obamacare violates their (and their followers) religious freedoms (which of course trump any rights or freedoms anyone else may have.)

[...]Sometimes, actions tells us just how deep a religious conviction in the sanctity of life really is. It turns out that at least for one Catholic healthcare provider, that deeply held religious belief suddenly becomes less important when a few dollars are at stake.

This story began on New Years Day in 2006. Lori Stodghill was 31-years-old and seven months pregnant with twins. She went to St. Thomas More Hospital, suffering from nausea and shortness of breath. Her obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, was on call that night – but never answered his pager. Stodghill’s main artery to the lungs was clogged, resulting in a heart attack. She died within an hour of arriving at the hospital, as did the twins – some time later. Stodghill’s husband, Jeremy filed a wrongful death suit on behalf of the couples then 2-year-old daughter, Elizabeth and himself. Their lawyers argued that Stodges should have made it to the hospital or at least ordered the emergency room to perform an emergency c-section.

From here.

[...]when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

Above from here; text below from previously quoted.

The thing that smells in this case is the hypocrisy. On one hand, the “sanctity of life” matters when it comes to denying a woman access to reproductive health. The women’s life is secondary to that of a zygot or a fetus in the name of religious freedom. A woman’s dignity is secondary to that same religious freedom. But, when a few dollars are at stake, suddenly these deeply held religious beliefs don’t matter.

One might think that the gospel, and all those deeply held religious values really are only wallet deep.

SHRIEEEEEEEEEK!!! It's what you'd expect from the likes of SUZYALLCAPS at Blob Blogging Wingnut, right?

Curiously, no. All is silent over there, except for a short riff on a piece of glurge about the bishop of Denver SHE posted on January 22nd, the day before the damning news story above was published.  Coincidence?

We provide no click-links to BBW because if we do, SHE will re-direct all traffic to pictures of human anatomical detritus, aka fetal p0rn.

In case you think that we exaggerate when we say so-called "prolife" is pro-lies, note that in HER blogpost, SUZY states that the bishop of Denver studied medicine.  

Wrong, incorrect, false.

The man himself says that he worked as an orderly in a hospital.

Prevaricate much, SUZY?

Today's BBW blogpost demonstrates how SHE deigns to hold up a woman's exemplary choice to carry a pregnancy to term because that particular choice fits HER object lesson of the day.  Although this woman is a lesbian, SHE conveniently decides not to address that ideological inconsistency - HER Catholic homophobia has been on display in many previous posts - because shut up.


ADDED by fh on January 25: From Daily Kos

Now, lest you think that an attorney representing a Catholic organization that manages a Catholic hospital does not actually speak for the Church, and therefore, the arguments in legal documents do not represent the Church itself, au contraire, smarty pants. Let's go below the fold to review the Taco Bell rule, shall we?

The Taco Bell rule was first offered by Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, when the bishops were hissy-fitting themselves over insurance coverage of birth control. Under this rule, there is no distinction between the Catholic Church, Catholic-affiliated organizations, or privately owned companies that appear to have no religious affiliation, but that are owned or managed by someone who claims to be Catholic. Like, say, someone who opens a Taco Bell franchise. Under this rule, it's all the Catholic Church, according to the Catholic Church, and should all be afforded the exact same legal protections as the Church itself.

A trio of bishops are going to 'review' the argument.

But what's that saying about closing a barn door after the horse has left? The defendants already made the argument—and won. So what's the plan? The bishops are going to decide the legal argument is invalid and the widower is owed a payout for the wrongful death of his wife and twins? If there's one thing we know for certain it's that the Catholic Church will go to very extreme lengths to avoid legal or financial accountability, including, but not limited to, obstructing criminal investigations.

So regardless of what the bishops determine with their review, they lost this fight. It's over. A fetus is not a person and should have no rights or protections under the law, and that's how it should stay. Amen.

As they say: awkward.

Vatican Taliban FAIL

I'd say that a nominally Catholic country that legalizes abortion in the face of the shitstorm hurled by the Vatican Taliban is on its way to happier days.

Good news! Uruguay just joined the club.

Latin America is home to about half of the world's Roman Catholics and the Church is opposed to abortion under any circumstances. But Uruguay, a country of 3.2 million people, has a strong secular tradition.

Perhaps surprisingly, civil unions for LGBT folk are legal too.

The new regime is not perfect, of course.

Under the bill Congress passed, a woman can end her pregnancy during the first 12 weeks of gestation, but she must meet with a team of health professionals, who, by law, should discourage the abortion. The woman must then reflect on the decision for five days.

"This process is complicated and legally unjustified," the nonprofit Coordinating Group for Legal Abortion said in a statement. "This means there's no recognition of a woman's right to decide freely about her life and her maternity."

Here we learn something of the politics behind the move.

The developments however come under the government of a president who is a doctor by training, Jose Mujica, and a deputy health minister, Leonel Briozzo, who is an obstetrician.
. . .
Uruguay is now only the second South American country to legalize abortion, after English-speaking Guyana in 1995. Cuba, a Latin American nation in the Caribbean, did so in 1965 and procedures are also legal in Mexico City.

"The explanation is that Latin America is the last outpost of the Roman Catholic Church," Briozzo said.

There's a cool re-organizable chart showing Catholicism by country here.

By percentage of population, the top four Catholic countries are East Timor, Malta, Honduras, and Venezuela.

The raw numbers create a different list. Brazil, where 65% are Catholic, has 123.3 million adherents. Mexico is 83% Catholic with 95.5 million. Philippines is next at 81% and 75.5 million. Then the US at 24% and 74 million.

This news from Uruguay adds to the good news from Northern Ireland last week.

The cracks are appearing. Slowly but slowly.

For sheer religious misogyny -- outside the Islamic world, that is -- Philippines takes the communion cracker.

Abortion is illegal, of course, but the Church is adamant that Filipinos remain pig-ignorant on matters sexual.

Sensible people there have been trying for 14 fucking years to pass the Sexual and Reproductive Health Bill

The bill was first introduced some 14 years ago, but has been languishing in legal limbo since. It would extend sexual health education in school, make contraceptives more widely available and improve pre and post-natal care. The bill would not legalize abortion.

.
The local branch of Christian Sharia is having none of it. They've fraudulently labelled it an 'abortion bill' and insist that its passage will lead to promiscuity, infidelity, and MORE abortions.

And now election season is about to begin there and the bill will likely get sidelined again.

Ah well. Two steps forward and still playing Statues in Philippines.

Catholic Church only *protects* The Fetus©™, not girls.

At DAMMIT JANET! we write a lot about pedophile priests since it's one of the perfect examples of the utilitarian character of Catholic doctrine that claims to defend and protect the interests of the unborn - zygote, embryo, fetus - yet abandons children to the sexual vicissitudes of its clergy.

Here's the latest example of Vatican Taliban hypocrisy.

She was a 13-year-old girl, fifth child of seven in a devout Catholic family in suburban Roslyn whose mother attended Mass once or twice daily.

But the girl dreaded Sunday mornings.

Not because of a crisis of faith but because she knew it would mean another morning of groping by the Rev. Albert T. Kostelnick.

The woman, now in her mid-50s, told a Philadelphia jury this morning about how Kostelnick, now retired, fondled her for two years as she worked in the rectory of St. John of the Cross church in Roslyn - and then did the same to two of her sisters who followed her into the job.

"I didn't know what to do," the woman told the Common Pleas Court jury. "I felt helpless and trapped. My parents expected me to work."

The woman's testimony continued the prosecution's effort to show how Msgr. William J. Lynn and other church leaders shuffled and protected priests suspected of sexual misconduct or abuse.

Lynn, who as secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004 ran the office that recommended priests' assignments, is the first church official nationwide to be tried for allegedly enabling or covering up clergy sex-abuse.

His codefendant, the Rev. James J. Brennan, is charged with attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

Both have denied the accusations.

Although Kostelnick is not criminally charged in trial, city prosecutors are citing his case and others to show a pattern in which Lynn and officials of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia showed concern for the sexually abusive priests, but not their victims.

"... a pattern in which ... officials of the Archdiocese ... showed concern for the sexually abusive priests, but not their victims ..." Multiply that by thousands and thousands, in every country in the world, since the first century.

ShriEEEk!!! Only Anti-choice freedom of expression allowed.

Seven students at St. Patrick's Catholic High School in Thunder Bay were suspended for wearing handmade pro-choice stickers on white t-shirts during a school sanctioned pro-life 'Day of Silence'.

Students were asked by the school to sport white t-shirts that said 'Life' in red tape, which in and of itself is a bit odd. Telling kids to become billboards for the church's policy...

So fifteen-year-old Alexandria Szeglet along with 23 other kids that disagreed with the event decided to sport green stickers that said "choice."

The school asked them to remove the stickers... 17 complied and the seven who didn't were suspended.

Imagine that... a school in Canada suspending kids for taking a position that is actually legal in Canada.

From here.

Have anti-abortion students been prevented in secular schools from wearing a Tshirt that simply said: "Life" ? I don't think so.

Added: the predictable abortion-criminalizing spin, claiming the "Choice" students were disruptive.

Also: contrast and compare - a number of posts at DJ! about those elaborate sham displays titled "Echoes of the Holocaust" (produced by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform) that have been challenged wherever they have bullied their way onto university campus.

War on Women: Next Phase

Our Canadian -- and non-Merkin, for that matter -- readers may not be aware of the latest misogynist insanity roiling in the Excited States.

Having crapped all over abortion rights, the Thugs are taking the next logical step. They are going after birth control.

Last year was not a great one for abortion rights. First, congressional Republicans attempted to deny statutory rape victims access to Medicaid-funded abortions (twice). Then GOP-dominated state legislatures pushed record numbers of laws limiting abortion rights, including proposals that could have treated killing abortion providers as "justifiable homicide."

Yet in the past six months, social conservatives have widened their offensive, and their new target is clear: Not satisfied with making it harder to obtain legal abortions, they want to limit access to birth control, too.

"Contraception is under attack in a way it really wasn't in the past few years," says Judy Waxman, the vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center. "In 2004, we could not find any group—the National Right to Life Committee, the Bush campaign, anyone—that would go on the record to say they're opposed to birth control," adds Elizabeth Shipp, the political director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. "We couldn't find them in 2006 either, and in 2008 it was just fringe groups. In 2010, 2011, and this year, it's just exploded."

The current issue is whether employers, including Catlick universities and hospitals, must include prescription birth control in employees' health insurance without a co-pay. It's a matter of religious freedom, you see, despite the fact that 99% of Merkin women -- and 98% of Merkin Catlick women use contraception.

Amanda Marcotte nails it:

No matter what, this fight needs to be rubbed in anti-choice noses. They revealed that they're anti-sex, not pro-fetus. #neverforget

— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) February 10, 2012

Make no mistake, Canadians, if we give the misogynists a centimetre on abortion rights, this is the metre they'll claim next.

UPDATE: Obama did not cave to foot-stamping bishops and misogynist thugs. White House officials are not calling this a compromise, but rather an 'accommodation'.

Under this plan, every insurance company will be obligated to provide contraceptive coverage. Administration officials stated that a woman's insurance company "will be required to reach out directly and offer her contraceptive care free of charge. The religious institutions will not have to pay for it."

Immediate reaction on Twitter: relief, disappointment that treating contraception separately is stigmatizing, and in this tweep's view well-played by Obama.

Basically, Obama got the GOP to come out hard against birth control, then yanked the rug out from under them.

As commenter k'in says: PUNKED!

By the way, the average Merkin woman will save about $600 a year under this plan.

Shrieeek! Where is the fetus lobby?

Doctors in Peru said they would operate today on a 3-year-old boy to remove the body of his would-be twin.

Isbac Pacunda has the body of his twin inside his stomach – bones, eyes and even hair on the cranium. Dr. Carlos Astocondor, a plastic surgeon at the Las Mercedes Hospital in Chiclayo, told the Associated Press that the partially formed fetus weighs about a pound and a half and is 9 inches long. He and a team of 12 doctors will surgically remove the tissue from the boy’s stomach today.

From here.

So, why is it the Vatican Taliban has not threatened to excommunicate the doctors and the parents of Isbac Pacunda for allowing this fetus to be surgically removed?

Oh. Wait. He's not a 9 year old girl who was raped by her step-father.

I wonder if photographs of Isbac's twin will make their way into Blob Blogging Wingnut's gallery of fetal remains?

Why is the Catlick Church so adamantly anti-abortion, anti-contraception?

Because they cut into its bottom line.

Today's shocker comes from Spain, but it's not at all a unique story.

What began as a trickle of revelation about General Francisco Franco’s ideological cleansing by taking children from their parents is now a fully engaged scandal in a country wracked by debt, unemployment and civil unrest. As many as 300,000 babies, Spaniards have been told, were wrested from their mothers between 1960 and 1989 by a network of doctors, midwives, priests and nuns who then sold them to infertile couples for huge sums.

The scandal emerged four years ago, when a dying father revealed to his son, Juan Luis Moreno, that he and a childhood friend, Antonio Barroso, had, in fact, been bought from a priest and a nun for about 200,000 pesetas each in 1969, money that could have bought a small flat. Pesetas were the Spanish currency until 2002.

Nobody knows for sure how many children — and parents — are living false lives. Nearly 1,000 lawsuits have been filed in courts ill-prepared to handle them. And with the scandal has come a stream of shocking details — tiny corpses kept in freezers as decoys to show grieving parents; nuns with million-dollar real estate holdings and caskets exhumed after decades found empty.

Same story in Australia with added misogynist glee -- torture.

More than 50 years have passed since Betty Mills was kept in solitary confinement and forced to give birth without medical help, but time has done nothing to erase the pain she was forced to endure in giving up her child because of her status as an unwed mother.

As a 21-year-old she was forced into a maternity home for six months where she was forbidden to have contact with other mothers and gave birth in a small bedroom alone and unassisted before having to relinquish the son she so dearly wanted to keep.

Her story of abuse and loss stayed a painful secret for decades but it has become a familiar story for the Senate Community Affairs Committee, which has been going through submissions for an inquiry into the Commonwealth's contribution to former forced adoption policies and practices.

The accounts received by the committee date from the 1950s to as recently as 1987.

The Australian Relinquishing Mothers Association has told the committee that many of its members had experienced being shackled or tied down, denied pain relief and told they must ''suffer for their sins'' at government- or church-run homes in Australia.

''As young and vulnerable women we found ourselves banished from our homes and communities because of a sense of shame,'' the group told the committee.

''Governments, churches, schools and employers all played their part in separating and isolating us from our families, peers, partners and support networks, reinforcing a sense of shame and the need for secrecy and causing severe emotional distress.''

ARMS said in a written submission that some mothers were never allowed to hold their babies and some could not even see them because a screen of pillows was put in front of them while they gave birth.

Others were wrongly told their children had not survived the birth when they were in fact alive.

In July this year, the Catlick Fucking Church actually apologized.

The Catholic Church in Australia has issued a national apology over past adoption practices that have been described as a "national disgrace".

The apology was prompted by an ABC investigation into claims of abuse and trauma in Newcastle.

It is believed at least 150,000 Australian women had their babies taken against their will by some churches and adoption agencies between the 1950s and 1970s.

Psychiatrist Geoff Rickarby has treated scores of affected women, and says it is a stain on Australia's history.

"It sounds like some totalitarian country somewhere hundreds of years ago, but in fact it's Australia only 35, 40 years ago," Dr Rickarby said.

But really, should we in Canada be surprised by lies, avarice, and child abuse by the Vatican Taliban?

Our national twist on the scheme was to label the children themselves defective.

Orphanages and schools were the financial responsibility of the provincial government but funding for mental institutions was provided by the government of Canada. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church which ran the orphanages, developed a scheme to obtain federal funding for thousands of children, most of whom had been "orphaned" through forced separation from their unwed mothers. In some cases the Catholic orphanages were re-labelled as health-care facilities and in other cases the children were shipped from orphanages to existing insane asylums. Years later, long after these institutions were closed, the children who had survived them and become adults began to speak out about the harsh treatment and sexual abuse they endured at the hands of the psychiatrists, Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and administrators.

Kinda funny, innit? We progressives are wringing our hands at the imminent prospect of becoming serfs in the new(ish) corporate feudalism. When, really, most of us have been mere incubators, sex toys, slaves, and commodities for centuries. Our owners have changed, that's all.


h/t for the story from Spain to Dr. Dawg