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.

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.

Hey SUZANNE! Is this what you mean?

Former Catholic priest James Boudreau took advantage of a young man’s friendship and another’s interest in the clergy when he sexually assaulted the two in the 1980s, a city courtroom heard Wednesday.[...]

Boudreau served as pastor at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, on Victoria Road North, from 1978 to 1985. He went on to work at six other Ontario churches, including Kitchener’s St. John’s Catholic Church.

One of the complainants was an active member of the St. John the Baptist parish in July 1984 and was a family friend of Boudreau when the sexual assault took place, said assistant Crown attorney Steve Hamilton.

From here.

So, if someone or some organization out there would like to continue with the project, let me remind you of the kind of information to gather that SUZANNE doesn't think is an invasion of privacy or likely to promote violence against individuals: photos, credentials and certificates, disciplinary records, news articles, videos, criminal histories, and more.

Though Blob Blogging Wingnut believes ALL abortion services providers in Canada should be documented, DAMMIT JANET! suggests a registry for Catholic pedophile priests should be limited to *only* priests suspected of, alleged to have committed, charged with or convicted of criminal sexual offenses against children and youth.

Oh, and Church Fathers like Bishop Bernando Alvarez must also be thoroughly documented; members of the Vatican Taliban definitively should be held accountable for lying about child abuse and shielding their priests from investigation and criminal prosecution.

When Wingnutz Are Wrong. . .

When I was a young bloggerling, I was unaware of many internet traditions. From my favourite bloggers, CC and JJ, I quickly learned, among them, of course, the wingnut's fave, moving the goalposts. (See also: Ross, Patrick, passim)

But moving the goalposts is just a tactic. Because the real crux of the matter is that wingnuts CANNOT BACK DOWN.

They take moronic positions and when vestigial logic circuits begin to send signals that they are getting the crap kicked out of them, they simply crank up the motorized goal markers.

There is a grand example of it going on right now.

SUZY ALLCAPSLOCK is in favour of Canada's adopting a nationwide anti-abortion hit list, but not, curiously, in favour of a nationwide registry of known pedophile priests.

SHE is having the crap kicked out of her on HER blogpost announcing HER enthusiasm for anti-abortion terrorism. (I'm trying an experiment here. Usually SHE redirects links to fetal pron, but it appears that SHE is powerless against a shortened link. Because this is an experiment, here's the link. Check back later to see if it turns gory.) **see update below.

Seemingly, amidst the dung-flinging, SHE had one tiny, immaterial thing right. Dr. Dawg looked, found he was wrong, and said:

On this point, it seems I owe you an apology. I found another link that does just what you said. Indefensible, even if the information was in the public domain.

You did not lie on this point, and I withdraw that accusation. I stand by everything else I have said wrt "Nuremberg Files v2.0."

SUZY goes all sanctimonious with:

Thank you for being big enough to apologize. You are forgiven. God Bless.

No, you silly twat*, it's not 'big' to apologize, it's 'big' to ADMIT you were wrong.

Something no rightwingnutjob can EVER do.

Why is that? Has anyone ever seen a wingnut back down in the face of facty-sciency stuff?

Ever?

For more hilarity, go to CC's and scroll down to 'Aftersnark 3'.

*I got into a twitter spat with another RWNJ yesterday who claimed I was sexist for using that word. I posted that link and suggested to the vocabulary-impaired twit-twat that he check it out. He didn't of course.

**Update from deBeauxOs: Yep, both links now lead to goriness instead of HER original post. In order to see HER blogposts and the comments, go to HER tweet and click on the link there.

SUZANNE - do you really want to go there?

Local fetus-lobbying, abortion-criminalizing Catholic zygote zealot @Roseblue aka Blob Blogging Wingnut SUZANNE FORTIN recently suggested her own project, based on this US initiative of a "hit-list" of abortion services providers.

Our blogging & tweeting colleagues Dr Dawg and Canadian Cynic responded.

Although the Vatican Taliban and Pope Maledict haven't honestly said so, most Church Fathers clearly believe all this nastiness about holding Rome and its powerful clergy accountable for their priests' abuse of children is inappropriate.

How will the Church be able to recruit and keep priests if not for the pedophile bait it once dangled in front of the right men?

Thus Catholics have been ordered to breed more and more, to satisfy dogmatic need to mold children, body & mind, and break their will so that they'll be blindly devout Catholic foot soldiers.

The organizations representing women and men who were physically and sexually violated as children by church clergy should start, as SUZANNE suggests, a registry of names and known addresses for pedophiles and abusers, as well as the names of the bishops, cardinals and other Church Fathers who facilitated their crimes and protected them from judicial prosecution.

That should end well, no?

Vatican Taliban lobbies politicians in US via its bishops.

Just in case you thought the innumerable attacks on reproductive rights for women in the US were all - you know - *accidental*, Laura Bassett delivers a splendid investigative piece about the blatant lobbying war the Catholic Bishops have waged on state and federal politicians.

From here:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently considering a list of insurance coverage guidelines that would mandate that all health plans under the Affordable Care Act cover birth control at no cost for women. The rules have a religious exemption for churches, but many Catholic-affiliated organizations such as charities, schools and hospitals would still have to offer plans that cover birth control for their employees.

The bishops argue that the exemption is too narrow.

"You have to hire and serve primarily people of your own faith [to qualify for the exemption]," Doerflinger said. "Jesus himself would not be exempt, because he treated Samaritans and Roman soldiers. It's absurd."

Absurd indeed.

What Would They Do to Jesus? They wouldn't let Him have access to healthcare-provided contraceptives, according to the man leading the catholic jihad against women.

Oh. Wait.

Just imagine if the Vatican Taliban had invested all that lobbying money and energy on a campaign to prevent priests (and other Catholic men in positions of authority) from sexually abusing girls and boys.

But then, its ideological imperative is to control women's sexualities and reproductive capacities and to *save* the pre-born. Children are required, to supply a target-rich environment to Church sexual predators aka pedophile priests and clergy.

To paraphrase Mark Steyn, it's sure convenient to have a tax-exempt religious institution to justify your pathologies.

NOT #elxn41 news: Pedophile Catholic Priests

From here:

"In one of the largest monetary payouts nationwide in the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis, and the largest one by a religious order, the Jesuit order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 abuse victims as part of its bankruptcy settlement," The Seattle Times writes.

As The Associated Press adds, the payments will go to "hundreds of American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused at the Catholic order's schools around the region. The settlement also asks the order to provide a written apology to the victims and to share documents with them such as their personal medical records."

There are MASSIVE resources at this website, about various forms of abuse by members of the Catholic clergy: news, updates, groups, connections, discusions - BishopAccountability.org

Pedophile priests, hockey coaches, and state senators

The people power movement in Wisconsin has moved on to the next stage -- recalling the state senators whose payments come from loyalties lie with corrupt billionaires and not their constituents.

When I saw this post from my virtual roomie, I thought she was already on the topic I wanted to address. In that she highlights the frustrations of prosecutors who want to go after child molesters but are hung up by statutes of limitations on the crimes, she is.

Let's have a look at one of those Wisconsin ReThugs touting those Family Values allatime and targetted by the recall effort.

Randy Hopper is a real piece of shit work.

Protesters were outside his house in Fond du Lac when his wife came out to tell them that the 45-year-old Hopper didn't live there anymore, but rather with his 25-year-old mistress in Madison.

The blogger reports that his maid -- ooh, he has a maid! -- signed the recall petition and suggested that his soon-to-be-ex-wife would probably also sign it. (The couple filed divorce papers last year.)

In addition to exposing the usual FV hypocrisy, this situation raises an interesting legal question of being a representative from one district while living in another.

But, wait, there's more. Like all FV creeps, he natters on about protecting children.

So, how is his record there?

Not good.

It was State Senator Hopper who arranged for the controversial testimony of businessman and Catholic Right ally, now U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), opposing the Child Victims Act.

The bill, which would have extended the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse to file lawsuits against their attackers, was vigorously opposed by the Catholic Church and the insurance industry. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice fingered Hopper as the recruiter who persuaded Johnson to help kill the bill.

Friend to the Vatican Taliban and the insurance industry? Check.

Crusader for Family Values and children? Not so much.

Pedophile priests and hockey coaches

Holding up photographs of girls and boys who were sexually violated by Catholic priests, parish members in the diocese of Philadelphia demonstrated outside the basilica to denounce church officials who engineered a deliberate cover-up and evasion of crimes perpetrated against children.

From here:

[...]the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese placed on leave 21 priests accused of sexual abuse of minors [...] The leaves followed a grand jury report last month that lambasted the archdiocese for allowing 37 priests to remain around children despite "substantial evidence of abuse." That report and the investigation that led to it were made possible because the diocese had supplied prosecutors with information following an earlier grand jury report in 2005.

The earlier report concluded that dozens of priests had sexually abused children dating back at least a half-century. But prosecutors were powerless to bring criminal charges because statutes of limitations had expired.

While prosecutors can't bring charges against the 37 priests due to statutes of limitation, prosecutors say the cases "show a pattern of the church looking the other way when it came to investigating these charges," said Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. [...]Critics [...] said church leadership continued to show a lack of understanding about child sexual abuse in the way it handled the suspensions. The archdiocese drew condemnation for, among other moves, declining to release a list of the priests, choosing instead to inform each parish. Local news outlets gathered and published the names this week.

The grand jury found that an archdiocesan board that reviewed allegations often judged as "incredible" or "unsubstantiated" allegations against priests who had been independently accused or flunked a lie detector test.

"These are simply not the actions of an institution that is serious about ending the sexual abuse of its children. There is no other conclusion," the report said. That the church provided the district attorney's office with information "is some sign of progress," although "much has not changed," the grand jury said.

"It's not unlike a chemical company that has toxic spills in 21 places around Philadelphia," and it won't say where they are, said Barbara Blaine, president of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "The priests only get removed when there's public pressure or publicity to make that happen, and we see that across the U.S. as well," she said.

More here.

Corporate types in the business of *creating wealth* for themselves - as recently observed from the actions of the Kochs and their koch-suckers in Wisconsin - will interven in government in order to protect their interests and increase their profits. When there is resistance and even push-back, they will fight tooth and nail to discredit their critics and to crush people who don't fall into line.

Institutions such as the Catholic Church and the NHL follow the same business and risk-management models. (In other news recently yet another adult survivor of adolescent sexual abuse suffered at the hands of Graham James stepped forward to tell his story.)

Pope Maledict, Gary Bettman and the Kochs have a lot in common, it seems.

To paraphrase yet again Mark Steyn: It must be convenient to have canon and business laws that oblige all your pathological greed.

Grievous bodily harm.

What do Robert Pickton, Fernando Manuel Alves, Daniel Katsnelson, Justin Fuminori Onzuka and Russell Williams as well as, allegedly Amitabh Chauhan and Suganthan Kayilasanathan, have in common?

They are predators and takers. They drugged women, they sexually assaulted them when they were unconscious, they preyed upon them by isolating them from other people and they exploited their vulnerabilities.

Consent is not a concept they understand or choose to negotiate with a potential sexual partner. These assailants select and use women who are unable to stop them or they take whatever means necessary to ensure they get what they want.

Three of the men mentioned are also physicians though Onzuka lost his license to practice medicine in Ontario.

Amitabh Chauhan and Suganthan Kayilasanathan have taken impressive means to dodge criminal charges laid against them. Nonetheless, the Toronto police suspect these alleged predators have done this before; this case has been publicized widely to encourage other women to report similar assaults.

Robert Pickton believed the women he drugged, sexually assaulted and in many instances also murdered and dismembered were "immoral, impure or greedy". He took what he wanted from them and he justified his crimes with selected passages from the Bible.

Though the men named may be sociopaths, their shared proclivity for sexual torture and terrorism is reinforced by a prevalent rape culture - which includes misogynist p0rn0graphy that dehumanizes women and children.

From here:

Fortunately, not all men are prone to abuse, violate, brutalize, and/or murder female family members, intimate partners, spouses, neighbours, work colleagues, parishioners, clients or acquaintances. Unfortunately, the minority of men who engage in these actions are recidivists and their level of violence tends to escalate if they're not stopped by their peers or the criminal justice system.

Unless systemic efforts are made to identify the reasons why violent misogyny rules some men and concerted strategies are taken to prevent its development in boys, incidents like this will increase.

The affidavit said the assault started after a 19-year-old boy invited the [11-year-old] victim to ride around in his car. He took her to a house [...] where one of the other men charged, also 19, lived. There the girl was ordered to disrobe and was sexually assaulted by several boys in the bedroom and bathroom. She was told she would be beaten if she did not comply, the affidavit said.

A relative of one of the suspects arrived, and the group fled through a back window. They then went to the abandoned mobile home, where the assaults continued. Some of those present recorded the sexual acts on their telephones, and these later were shown among students.

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands [...] said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record.

More relevant would be to question the parents of those boys who allegedly detained and repeatedly sexually violated this girl. Sadly, were the victim an 11-year old boy, it's unlikely members of the community would so easily absolve the assailants of responsibility for their actions.

As with pedophile priests, rape culture facilitates a knee-jerk response that shames / blames girls and women for the violence done to them.

Raymond Gravel & BBW

Who would have guessed that SUZYALLCAPS was into schadenfreude?

Here's the difference between Father Raymond Gravel & Blob Blogging Wingnut. SHE gloats, scolds and whines. Were the situation reversed and SHE had initiated a civil suit against an ideologically-bound, fundamentalist religious online publication, Father Gravel would not be writing that it was HER fault, that SHE deserved to be calumnized.

From here:

Fr. Rosica of Salt + Light TV felt the fury of LifeSiteNews in 2009 when he spoke out in defence of the Church’s decision to celebrate a funeral mass for Edward Kennedy, despite the senator’s record of supporting abortion rights. [...]

“At best, the activity of LifeSite is a form of unthinking activism akin to a shooting gallery. Now and then they hit a target,” he said. “More often, however, they leave a vast trail of collateral damage, character assassination and destruction of reputations of good people, including Cardinals, Bishops, priests, religious and community leaders.”

Fr. Rosica said he is no fan of Fr. Gravel and disagrees strongly with his political activism and activity. But he still seriously questions LifeSite’s treatment of the priest. “No matter how ambiguous, deplorable, scandalous and improper Fr. Raymond Gravel’s behavior is purported to have been in Quebec and in Canada, he remains a human being, and a Roman Catholic priest who has helped many people with their personal difficulties and crises. He has brought people to Christ,” he said [...]

It's evident in everything Fr. Gravel says and does that he follows the teachings of Jesus, that he does not stand in for God and jury and that he doesn't shove judgemental crap down people's throat as SHE does.

Raymond Gravel believes in rights, justice and dignity - and he extends that support to many members of society, as shown in the video posted below. He even expressed empathy towards catholic bishops who chose Canon law, ecclesiastical imperatives and the Vatican's interests over the lives of girls and boys sexually violated by pedophile priests.

Blob Blogging Wingnut believes in religious authoritarian orthodoxy.

Pedophile priests in Nova Scotia

The diocese of Yarmouth has settled with some of its former parishioners who were sexually assaulted as children by pedophile catholic priests. When these crimes were reported to them, church officials denied that acts of sexual violence were committed by members of their clergy. Then later on they denied that they'd covered up their priests' pedophilia. And sadly the legal system was often complicit in this travesty of justice, even when priests were charged and found guilty of such crimes, by recommending sentences that invalidated the gravity of the offense and the harm the sexual abuse had caused. From here:

[...] Father Theriault was convicted in 1993 of indecent assault against one of the plaintiffs, for which he received no jail time, but rather a two-year suspended sentence and 500 hours of community service.

Filing the lawsuits are sisters Jeanne Doucette (nee Deveau), 48, and Margaret Deveau, 56, who went to the RCMP in the early 1990s to pursue criminal charges against Father Theriault. Both women live in Yarmouth County.

Both women are seeking a full investigation into the actions of Theriault and the diocese. "Their goal is to expose the truth,” states a press release issued by the Ontario law firm of Ledroit Beckett [...]

The sisters are also hoping their stories will encourage other survivors of abuse to come forward. [...]

In the 1960s the Deveau sisters were growing up in the community of St. Alphonse, Digby County. They were raised in a close and loving Roman Catholic family and were parishioners of Saint Alphonse Parish and attended Saint Alphonse Catholic School. [...]

In the statement of claim filed on behalf of Jeanne Doucette, it refers to how, because of Theriault’s position as a priest, parents trusted him with the training, safety and care of their children. As a result, her parents permitted her to be alone with the priest, which included being unsupervised in a bedroom during afternoon naps.

The abuse, it’s alleged, began when the girl was approximately three years old. The statement of claim says the sexual abuse was ongoing and continuous over a period of several years.

In the statement of claim filed on behalf of Margaret Deveau, it’s alleged the she was first sexually abused, assaulted and molested when she was approximately eight years old. The abuse was ongoing and continuous over a period of around seven years, ending when she was 15.

The statements of claim allege that the diocese and archdiocese knew that the priest had the propensity to engage in deviant behaviours, and that they knew he was doing so based on a number of factors that included knowledge or complaints of Father Theriault’s activities with young people at his previous postings, the frequency with which the plaintiffs and other children were involved with the priest, the unusual interest he took in children and the frequency and duration that the priest would have them in his company at the church or rectory. “Despite their knowledge set out above, the Archdiocese and Diocese took no steps to stop the behavior or to protect the plaintiff(s),” the statements of claim read.

And still the Vatican Taliban beat goes on and on with implicit and explicit gynophobic policies; women must breed more catholics or recruit them (as Mother Teresa did) for the greater glory of God the Father and/or Pope Maledict.

Will Vatican Taliban defend pedophile priest?

After all, Eric Dejaeger was *hiding* in plain view, working for a Catholic pilgrimage organization in Lourdes, France, where he welcomed and guided Flemish pilgrims around the site. The former Arctic missionary was on Interpol’s international wanted list but it seems Catholic Church security officials do not read or respond to these requests.

And in accordance to official Catholic policy, canon law - which is claimed to be established by God - trumps any man-made law, including those found in criminal codes, prohibiting the sexual assault of children. From here:

A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials told the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they had serious reservations about the bishops’ policy of mandatory reporting of priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities. [...]

The letter was written just after a first wave of scandal over sexual abuse by priests in Irish Catholic schools and other facilities [...] By 1996, an advisory committee of Irish bishops had drawn up a new policy that included “mandatory reporting” of suspected abusers to civil authorities. The letter, signed by Archbishop Luciano Storero, then the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio — or chief representative — in Ireland, told the Irish bishops that the Vatican had reservations about mandatory reporting for both “moral and canonical” reasons.

Following Dejaeger's deportation from Belgium, he will be taken to Nunavut by RCMP officers.

Dejaeger came to Canada from Belgium in 1973. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest of the Oblate order and eventually began work as a missionary in the Arctic, where he served in several communities. According to court documents, Dejaeger pleaded guilty in 1990 to nine counts of sex crimes against boys and girls in Baker Lake, a small Inuit community...

More here.

More shriEEEEking about Development and Peace - now with update.

I read in today's headlines that Development and Peace has helped finance a documentary called Operation Diablo about how a Peruvian priest who opposed a mining project became the victim of harassment. It was produced by Stephanie Boyd. Is this what parishoners had in mind when they gave money to the organization? Give a western woman money to produce a movie? Does this really help development in the Third World? One wonders.

One does indeed wonder why Blob Blogging Wingnut called this a 'headline'. HER link takes the reader to a specialised catholic radio network. Does SHE have "Development and Peace" on google news alert?

Given HERs and SoConOrNuts' obsession with the organization, that should be expected.

HER claims are rife with truthiness. The documentary was developed, filmed and distributed by the Guarango Association, in fact.

Nor is this the first documentary produced about the struggles of peasants and farmers fighting the mining companies who extract gold and devastate their communities, which leaves them without the means to feed their families, as well as poisoned by the metal exploitation techniques.

But it seems that Blob Blogging Whinger is fine with all that. From HER perspective, those are not victims worthy of HER compassion and support.

However, parishioners blindly giving money to the Vatican Taliban so they can whitewash the findings by conducting their own inquiry into pedophile priests and child abuse in Ireland? Now there's a project SHE can support.


Update: One could not make this s**t up - though there's synchronicity at work.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bathurst, N.B., wants to be able to use money set aside to train future clergy to help compensate people sexually assaulted by a priest in the past. Rev. Wesley Wade, the bishop of the diocese, has asked the New Brunswick Court of Queen's Bench, which deals with such requests, to allow it to take money from a trust fund used to help educate people entering the priesthood. The trust fund consists of money left to the church over the years.

Got that? Years, possibly decades ago, parishioners willed money (kept in trusts) to pay for seminary costs and priests' training. Now the diocese wants to use the money to compensate victims of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of convicted pedophile priest Levi Noël. There appears to be a particular logic that applies, though I imagine it will provoke more shriEEEks from la SAINTENITOUCHE.

Like a horse and carriage - with dog (update)

We demonstrated there's little, if any, solidarity among the Lakritzes, the Kays, the Blatchies, the Somervilles except for their common delight of piling on feminism and feminists.

I thought Blob Blogging Wingnut would run to the defense of Sara "My Choice, My Childcare" Landriault.

But then Sara may have been well rewarded for providing the media with a shiny new distraction and thus moving the spotlight away from the Cons' cancellation of the long-form census questionnaire and the violence against peaceful protesters at the G-20.

There's some MASSIVE whining at Blob Blogging Wingnut's place where info from other blogs and news items can be spun to suit HER zygote-zealot-shrieking and Vatican-Taliban-fluffing agenda. SHE tossed off a homophobic screed that concluded with a favourite religious fundamentalist rightwing aphorism: Marriage protects women.

Like the catholic church protects girls and boys from pedophile priests, SUZY CAPS-ON?

Won't someone think of the children?

And why do anti-feminists hate women?

Update: This news item brought to our attention by TWFDS, is likely to cause jubilation for Pope Maledict. Using Stockboy Day's sampling and census-taking techniques, the Vatican Taliban can now declare a church that ordains women goes to the dogs.

BTW, Erika Ritter has produced a well-researched book on the woven mythologies of humans, dogs and religious institutions - The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath.

They're above "man-made" laws, don't you know?

For many people who are unfamiliar with the ideological premise of canon laws, the resistance of the catholic church with regard to accepting accountability for pedophile priests is a mystery.

In this blogpost, we provided a short explanation for the Vatican Taliban's sense of entitlement and privilege.

Today when police raided the Brussels headquarters of the catholic church in Belgium, the home of a recently retired cardinal and the offices of a commission established by the church to handle abuse complaints in order to search for documents, shrieeeks of outrage were heard. According to the NYTimes:

“The police came in and said the house would be searched because there were complaints about sexual abuse on the territory of the archdiocese,” he [Eric de Beukelaer, a spokesman for the Belgian archbishop] said, adding that he was present during the raid and that the police had temporarily confiscated his cellphone. The search continued past 7 p.m., Mr. de Beukelaer said.

No arrests were made, and no charges were announced. The Associated Press reported that the bishops had been prevented from leaving and even from making phone calls.

The authorities are investigating accusations that Belgian clerics sexually abused children, according to officials. Hundreds of such claims have been raised since April, when the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, admitted to molesting a boy and resigned.

This sort of activity “is extremely rare, very rare, especially in the house of a cardinal,” said Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican expert at Il Giornale, an Italian daily newspaper. “It’s enormous.”

Yes, one might even say it's a MASSIVE step for non-religious, civil authorities to refuse to play along with Pope Maledict and his minions' rules. Few of the news reports include comments from survivors of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic priests, with the exception of the NYTimes:

Barbara Dorris, outreach director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said in a statement that the raid was “precisely what’s needed, not just in Belgium but in other church offices across the globe.” Ms. Dorris added, “Police and prosecutors need to step up, and promptly and thoroughly investigate allegations against predator priests and corrupt bishops, and use their full powers to gain access to and control over church records that likely document the crimes and cover-ups.”

Indeed, documentation regarding the MASSIVE cover-ups, obfuscation and misdirection by catholic clergy complicit in these crimes against children and families needs to be examined.

Should women fall to their knees in gratitude?

Their Pomposities Ayatollah Ouellet and Archbishop Prendergass are multiplying their entreaties for those poor wimmin victimized by men, families and society that pressure them to submit to abortions.

No, the above is not satire. Ayatollah Ouellet, who flapped and flopped around in the last few weeks - issuing edicts, has been joined by Prendergass in some ecclesiastical round robin of "The More, the Fetus©™ Fetishizier".

And Ayatollah Ouellet (it's said he is grooming himself for popehood) is keen to wrap himself in the cloak of persecution by claiming his words were distorted:

On Wednesday, Ouellet told reporters that he was "a bit surprised by the magnitude of the reaction" to his comments, which he said had been "twisted" and taken out of context.

"They took one small phrase and created a weapon … to discredit me," Ouellet said.

From here.

In his press conference, Ayatollah Ouellet called on the different levels of government to provide pregnant women in distress with support and to enact laws that will limit women's access to a safe medical procedure.

In other news, the Vatican Taliban said that it would be happy to pay the bill for universally accessible and free 24/7 infant and toddler childcare but unfortunately, the religious institution is facing an increasing number of expensive lawsuits from women and men who were sexually abused as children, by Roman Catholic pedophile priests. "If only those wretches would find forgiveness in their hearts and drop their demands for a cash settlement, look what we could pay for!"

But, but, but ... Planned Parenthood! Shrieeekkk!!!

In the combox after Does the Catholic Church foster a Culture of Pedophilia? Steve left this comment -

Planned Parenthood is no better, frequently covering up rape. See one example below :http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/?p=6510 What you won’t see this on the cover of the New York Times. Don't drink the Kook-Aid.

That would be blogger Steve who, in his own words says he will "accept all the teachings of the Catholic Church and I look to the Pope for my marching orders".

Steve got his speaking points from SoConAndNutz. Take notice that he doesn't answer, refute or challenge a single word about the culture of pedophilia in his religious institution.

It's quite the claim, considering it originates with Lie-Là Rose's production company, by way of the National Cash Catholic Register.

This edited video recording is touted as "The New Sex Abuse Scandal - All Caught on Tape". It displays a time code that reads 2005.10.23 - although the content of the 'news release' at LiveAction suggests this a new undercover sting operation. (Earlier posts about Lie-Là Rose here.)

So. It's recycled and re-purposed material - a diversion tactic intended as a distraction from the evull New York Times' coverage of the obfuscation campaign the Catholic Church patriarchs are deploying to evade responsibility for the decades of harm that their pedophile priests did.

Sweet tap-dancing Babeee Jay-Zeus. Are there any straws left for these lying liars to clutch, in their frenzy to defend the Vatican Taliban?

But, but, but ... the feminists are oppressing ME - Shrieeek!!!

Blob Blogging Wingnut turns HER defense of Catholic patriarchs' refusal to respond humanely to criticism about Church tolerance and protection of pedophile priests, into a cause banale. As usual, it's all about HERSELF and how SHE is being persecuted.

SHE finds it hilarious.

"Oh woe is me. I'm so happy and fulfilled being Catholic. How can I be so blind to my own oppression? Fundamentalist men made me do it! They FORCED me to be Catholic by saying nice stuff about me. The nerve! Pushing me into the Catholic faith against my own will. Hilarious."

It's indeed hilarious. Here is someone who spends a MASSIVE amount of time disseminating religious propaganda and claiming that Abortion Is Murder©™ and that family is sacred.

Yet, as the Vatican Taliban feels the heat of criticism, it unleashes whatever odious weapons it can to preserve its most valued and cherished assets: power and wealth.

Not its Catholic families, betrayed by centuries of prevarication. The sexual exploitation of a child by a priest - someone said to be the official representative of God - is a physical assault that will damage that individual's mental, emotional, social and spiritual self for years to come. But the harm is not limited to the thousands of girls and boys who experienced sexual abuse at the hands of pedophile Catholic priests. Families have also been affected by recurring problems such as substance abuse, suicide attempts and other mental conditions caused by the trauma.

Sexually defiled children became adults who perpetuated the cycle of violence: priests, parents, educators, coaches, doctors who abused the children in their care. Research done into this phenomenon has investigated the profound and multidimensional impact of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse and the betrayal of trust by religious leaders on individuals, families and communities by their refusal to accept responsibility and deal with the pedophile priests.

Catholic Church fathers determined centuries ago that its clergy would be above the authority of “man-made” laws. This question divided Henry II and Thomas Beckett: "The clergy have Christ alone as King and under the King of Heaven; they should be ruled by their own law." It is now 2010 and the Vatican Taliban perseveres in following medieval principles and maintaining that its ecclesiastical rules are the only ones that are God-given and irrevocable.

As a result of this MASSIVE sense of entitlement produced by centuries of intellectual inbreeding, Pope Maledict and his Vatican Taliban could be taken down by the collective grief and anger of families.

For more about the Catholic Church ongoing stonewall, check out Canadian Cynic's Arrogance from yesterday and today, ... and then I hit my daily word limit, gosh darn it. which demonstrates how the Family Values©™ branding is really an empty rightwing religious zealot political tactic.

More propaganda from Blob Blogging Wingnut.

SUZY ALL-CAPS comes to the defense of the Vatican Taliban. Nothing new there. As a co-blogger remarked:

BBW has glommed onto the notion that many of the accusations of sex abuse are false and slanderous [...] That is no surprise coming from HER, as HER default position is to side with power, authority and orthodoxy.

"Won't somebody think of the poor maligned priests?" is the angle SHE exploits, opinionating that the Catholic Church hushed up all those MASSIVE accusations against pedophile clergy because some of them could be "false memories" or malicious slanders.

Here's a fact for you, SAINTE-NITOUCHE. For decades forensic scientists and legal scholars have been studying the incidence of people reporting crimes that have not actually occurred. Regardless of the nature of the alleged infraction (theft, vandalism, sexual assault, etc.) or the motivation (insurances scam, vengeance, etc.) the percentage of false accusations to crimes that are founded remains constant, in the 4-5% range. But don't let that get in the way of YOUR spinning in defense of those 95-96% of complaints against Catholic clergy who DID abuse and assault millions of children over the centuries.

'This is why the Church dealt with these issues in secret, but people don't get that.'

Suffering inflicted upon children is not YOUR cause, is it? YOUR overweening focus is fixated on the zygotes, the embryos and the fetuses, right?

Blog Blogging Wingnut links to this glurge and propaganda piece, published in the guise of a news item. The conclusion to this work of fiction offers the following: "Of the thousands of cases that I alone have worked on, there is one theme that rings through them all: The priest will continue to say, "I don't want to lose my priesthood, I just want to be able to say the Mass!"

Oh really? Then why are most of the accused re-assigned to pastoral work, despite warnings from medical authorities who treated them for their mental afflictions and pedophile urges?


Un grand merci to brebis noire who tipped us off to this despicable propaganda.