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.

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.

Too delicious to hide away.

Over at Dawg's Blawg, a lively discussion about pedophile priests in the comment box here, Christ 1; Church 0, has moved on and spilled over into this more recent one - Organized religion and child abuse, Part 3. The neo-con blogger known as Raphael 'Ruffles' Alexander who has achieved minor recognition for the shallowness of his knowledge as well as for his propensity for non sequiturs, misogyny and xenophobia offered the following nugget:

"The biggest obstacle I see to child abuse being cleansed in the Roman Catholic Church is liberal reforms that allow priests to marry, and becoming more accountable and responsive to allegations of abuse from those priests."

Huh? Child abuse can be "cleansed"? WTF does that even mean? And what's that about "liberal reforms" being the "biggest obstacle"? And whatever the point of that incoherent statement is, does it even begin to address the MASSIVE campaigns of sexual terror waged by serial pedophile priests such as Charles Sylvestre?

Nonetheless, Peter - a frequent commenter at Dr Dawg's - had a witty rejoinder to Ruffles:

"Yes, Raphael, we defenders of traditional marriage often argue that it's good for children, but I don't recall ever seeing that particular angle. I don't know if you are married, but if you are, do you silently thank your wife on your anniversary for helping to save the neighbourhood kiddies from you?"

That exchange was simply too delicious to leave tucked away in a combox.

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.

It's okay if you're a heterosexual pedophile Catholic priest.

Once more, the Vatican Taliban is under scrutiny for implicitely condoning child sexual abuse.

JJ at unrepentant old hippie has been writing and posting links to news items about Pope Maledict and how he may have played a role in facilitating a pedophile priest's access to children. As a German cardinal he wrote in 2001 a church directive instructing bishops to keep abuse cases "confidential". Decades of dissembling about the issue of pedophile priests has become the standard procedure, not for protecting Catholic children, but for saving the Church from public embarassment.

These cases usually come to light and provoke a public outcry when the victims are boys, since this highlights hypocrisy regarding two aspects of Church doctrine: obligatory clerical celibacy and edicts against homosexuality.

In Ireland, where MASSIVE numbers of girls and young women as well as boys were sexually assaulted by priests, powerful, upper-echelon clergy have refused to accept accountability for their actions. For example:

Ireland's senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Sean Brady, said Monday he would not resign despite admitting he helped the church collect evidence against a child-molesting priest — and never told police about the crimes.

Brady, as a priest and Vatican-trained canon lawyer in 1975, said he interviewed two children about the abuse they suffered at the hands of the Rev. Brendan Smyth. He said both children were required to sign oaths promising not to tell anyone outside the church of their allegations.

Smyth went on to molest and rape scores of other children in Ireland, Britain and the United States before British authorities in neighboring Northern Ireland demanded his arrest in 1994. The Irish government of the day collapsed amid acrimony over why Smyth had not been extradited to Belfast.

Brady admitted his role in gathering evidence against Smyth because he has been named as a defendant in a Dublin lawsuit filed by one of Smyth's victims. Lawyers in that case unearthed records of Brady's involvement in gathering testimony from two Irish victims who said they were abused by Smyth — one a 10-year-old altar boy, the other a 14-year-old girl — around 1970.

Brady said it was the responsibility of his diocesan bishop, as well as the leader of Smyth's separate Catholic order of priests, to tell police. But he said the church didn't do this because of "a culture of silence about this, a culture of secrecy."

"Yes, I knew that these were crimes," Brady said. "But I did not feel that it was my responsibility to denounce the actions of Brendan Smyth to the police. Now I know with hindsight that I should have done more, but I thought at the time I was doing what I was required to do."

Things have reached the tipping point in Ireland. On one hand, the Catholic Church ferociously lobbies against contraception, birth control and abortion and bleats piously about the unborn. On the other, it has in deeds been complicit in allowing thousands of children to be physically and sexually exploited and damaged.

From the Irish Times:

The other key reason people focus on the church and its appalling record of child abuse and cover-up is, of course, that this organisation retains central power over the running of our education system, through which it maintains contact with the vast majority of children in the country.

Take Bishop Jones, for example. He directly appoints the chair of the boards of management in virtually every school in his diocese of Elphin, which spreads from Athlone northwards across Roscommon and Sligo. He has a veto over the appointment of each and every other member of the boards. He likewise chooses the interview boards for each teacher in the schools. And, last but not least, he is in charge of the ethos of his schools, which means that he controls the kind of instruction given to the children in what is right and what is wrong.

Given the views of Bishop Jones that we should cease focusing on the church and its failure to protect children against serial rapists like Brendan Smyth, it is entirely reasonable for the parents of children in the Elphin diocese (and elsewhere) to ask whether he is a suitable person to exercise such influence over the lives of thousands of youngsters through his control of the schools in his area.

In the religious world, people can vote with their feet and decide for themselves what, if any, church they wish to be part of, and how and when they wish to worship. That is no one’s business but their own.

In the secular world, however, it is our clear duty as citizens to question whether a religious organisation whose Irish leader so palpably failed to protect children from a rapist should have any role whatsoever in the governance of our schools. It is a recurrent question. It will arise again and again as each scandal of church cover-up emerges.

The Irish State and Government can allow this poison to ooze out gradually, but relentlessly. Or it can intervene and engage in the now desperately needed process of extending the Murphy Commission inquiry process to each bishop and diocese in the State.

In Canada, adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of priests have created organizations that provide mutual support and challenge the institutional denials of the Catholic Church, who refuse to acknowledge that clergy engaged in criminal actions. This is the experience of one member - it is not unusual or rare, as last year's news item about former priest Charles Sylvestre in Ontario reveals.

***Un grand merci to CC's blogpost That's gonna leave a mark, which directed us to the opinion piece in the Irish Times.***

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

News flash: sexual orientation caused by pedophile priests?

According to the Pat Robertson (yes, THAT Pat Robertson) gospel:

"I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems. They're may be a very few but there are so many that have been made homosexuals because of a coach or a guidance counselor or some other male figure who has abused them and they think that there's something wrong with their sexuality so you need to get deep into why he is what he is instead of just saying "he's a homosexual so how do I handle him and how do I be Christian?" Well, I think you ought to tell him "Listen, son. Here's what the Bible says about this and it's called an abomination before God so I've got to tell you the truth because I love you." That's what I think."

Off-camera, Pat Robertson said he doesn't mind however when 'male figures' such as coaches, family members, neighbours, priests or ministers sexually abuse girls and young women because that would rightly make them heterosexual.


Okay, I imagined the last part though it's perfectly consistent with the perverse views of this gynophobic, doomsday-predicting, despot supporting, snake-oil selling, idiot religious fanatic.


Pat Robertson - because what the world needs right now is more hate speech from yet another religious fundamentalist crackpot.


Illustration from Bongo News.

"... self-serving secrecy ..."

If you guessed that this post will address the Catholic Church and its attitude towards pedophile priests, you are partly correct.

In Ireland, there is so much more behind that fundamentalist and dogmatic religious "self-serving secrecy".

Victims of child abuse at Catholic institutions in the Irish Republic have expressed anger that a damning report will not bring about prosecutions.

The report, nine years in the making and covering a period of six decades, found thousands of boys and girls were terrorised by priests and nuns.

Government inspectors failed to stop beatings, rapes and humiliation. ... The victims were among 35,000 children who were placed in a network of reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses until the early 1990s.

As always, the Catholic Church is God's bully when it claims to defend the interests of the fertilized ovum, the zygote, the embryo and the fetus. And after women have been forced to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term, a number of clergy have persevered in tormenting, beating and violating these children to remind them that the Church believes they are no longer the innocent unborn, but the product of their parents' sins and should be made to suffer for them.

More news stories about the Commission of inquiry into the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of Irish children in reform schools, orphanages and hospitals run by the Catholic Church.

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.

No-fault regrets profferred by Pope

Isn't that just so special? The Church Lady would have been quite pleased at Pope Benedict's performance at a private meeting held in the Vatican between the pontiff, Catholic clergy, Phil Fontaine and delegates from the assembly of First Nations.

Mr. Fontaine said the fact the Pope never used the word "apology" during the 20-minute meeting, which also included the Most Reverend James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and several B.C. aboriginal leaders, did not diminish in anyway the impact of the statement.

It would seem that the words "sorry", "asking forgiveness", "taking responsibility" or "pedophile priests" were also part of the vocabulary not ever used by the Pope, either in the private audience or in the public statement that the Vatican released. Chief Fontaine offered forgiveness, though the Catholic Church has never allowed individual priests to publicly acknowledge their crimes against the Aboriginal children who were entrusted to them. Some First Nations leaders took exception to the Pope's statement.

... Hereditary Chief Bill Wilson said Wednesday he was angry the Pope did not take direct responsibility for the harm caused by the residential schools experience. "There is no apology," Mr. Wilson said from Musgamagw Band in northern Vancouver Island. "He says he has great sorrow. Well, it's one thing to have sorrow for tragedies that happened in the world. It's quite another thing to accept responsibility for causing them. And the Catholic Church caused a great deal of misery and suffering in this country. And it's not apologizing for anybody."

One has to wonder if the pontiff was expertly coached by civil law specialists in order to ensure that no utterance could be viewed as an admission of guilt and thus be actionable.

Selling the sizzle cuz the steak is putrid.

Yesterday's blogpost was written about heterosexual pedophile Catholic priests.

Today, it's all about the Vatican Taliban cranking up its propaganda machine.

First, go watch "Catholics Come Home" advert at Feminist christian socialist and read what Luna has to say. She nailguns the propagandists to the wall.

Then, consider Pope Maledict's dilemma regarding the Legion of Christ:

As sex abuse scandals rock the Vatican, the results of an investigation into a rich, ultra-conservative and secretive Roman Catholic order founded by a priest accused of pedophilia and incest are due to be filed in Rome on Monday.The sordid story of the Legion of Christ, whose late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, was a close ally of Pope John Paul II before being forcibly retired by the Vatican in 2006, is a microcosm of the crisis currently enveloping the church.

Rich and ultra-conservative. Key words. Do you think a poor and progressive faith movement within the Catholic Church would have been allowed to thrive? Would its leader have been praised and anointed by the previous pope?

"Maciel was a sexual criminal of epic proportions who gained the trust of John Paul II and created a movement that is as close to a cult as anything we've seen in the church," said author Jason Berry, one of two reporters who broke the Maciel story in 1997 [...]

Interviews with former members of the Legion and Regnum Christi paint a chilling picture of Maciel as a sociopathic master salesman who knew how to charm the upper echelon at the Vatican as well as enlist the wealthy and elite to his fast-growing order, all while using cult-like techniques. Two of the most visible priests in America are Father Thomas Williams, a movie-star-handsome CBS News analyst, and Father Jonathan Morris, who is sometimes referred to as "Father Knows Best" on the Fox News Channel. They belong to the Legion of Christ but rarely identify themselves as such on camera.

"Dan Brown got the wrong group," said Genevieve Kineke, an orthodox Catholic who was a member of Regnum Christi, the legion's lay movement, from 1992 to 2000 and writes a blog about her experiences. "The Legion of Christ is the scary cult embedded in the bosom of the mother church. Not Opus Dei." [...]

That misuse of sex and power was an undercurrent that helped fuel the growth of the order, according to several former members of the Legion and Regnum Christi. "Maciel always told me to recruit the most handsome boys from the best families," said Vaca. "They were trained to approach rich women. I'm not saying they had sexual relationships with these women but they did know how to charm them." Kineke and others also said Legion priests are notoriously successful in winning over women to the church.

"They are spiritual seducers," said another former Regnum Christi member. "They are the only priests I've seen who have swept people off their feet. These men woo women because they want access to our children and our husbands' wallets."

That is very strong language from someone who will be monitoring how the Vatican Taliban deals with the findings of the investigation into the Legion. More here about that, and also here.

What kind of reception did Maciel receive in heaven when he died? Surely someone who masterminded such a MASSIVE grift in the name of Jesus deserves to be seated to the right of Lucifer? Oh ... wait.

Men In Fur, Again.

In the comments to fern hill's blogpost, "Anonymous" suggests that criticizing and ridiculizing the Vatican is the same as spreading hatred against blacks, Hispanics or Jews.

"Anonymous" conveniently overlooks the historical facts about the men in fur. The Vatican's clerics choose to elevate themselves above the rest of humanity, with their ritual, their pomp, and their arcane rationalizations for establishing themselves as religious royalty. They are the ones who exclude, judge, condemn others from their gilded palaces.

It is revealing that their ecclesiastical rule is rooted in principles that, century after century, conveniently dismiss the real harm and destruction that pedophile priests have caused to girls and boys.

Hold on to your delusions, "Anonymous". But if you - or the Vatican - can't stand a little heat now, just imagine what it'll be like when you arrive in the hell of your own vision and making.

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.

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!"

Raped for being a lesbian ...

And killed, as in the case of Eudy Simelane.

As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.

Her brutal murder took place last April, and since then a tide of violence against lesbian women in South Africa has continued to rise. Human rights campaigners say it is characterised by what they call "corrective rape" committed by men behind the guise of trying to "cure" lesbian women of their sexual orientation.

Now, a report by the international NGO ActionAid, backed by the South African Human Rights Commission, condemns the culture of impunity around these crimes, which it says are going unrecognised by the state and unpunished by the legal system.

The mindset and beliefs that support these forms of targeted violence are found anywhere where hatred against women exists in the mind of misogynist men. This happened a few months ago, near San Francisco, a North American city where it would seemingly be safe to be honest about one's sexual orientation.

The 28-year-old victim was attacked on December 13 in Richmond after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. Police said the attackers made comments indicating they knew the woman, who lives openly with her female partner, was a lesbian.

The attack began when one of the men approached the woman, struck her with a blunt object and ordered her to strip. He then sexually assaulted her with the help of the others, according to detectives. When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building.

She was raped again inside and outside the vehicle and left naked outside the building while her attackers took her wallet and drove off in her car, police said.

Heterosexuality is no protection against sexual assault however. If a group of men terrorize, sexually torture and assault a woman to teach her a lesson, those religious and cultural values that fuel their rage and hatred must be addressed and put on trial, just as its enforcers should be.

As it is with pedophile priests, the common element in these crimes is the institutional validation of the power to control and harm women and children.