So, it seems Toews has a reputation as a bully ...

A piece in the Winnipeg Free Press goes a long way towards explaining the media silence around the serial adulterer and, as we learned also sex predator, Vic Toews - minister of Public Safety in the Harper government.

We've blogged about the incidents that were not published in the media, even those on public record and more, about Toews.

Then, there's Toews' violation of the Manitoba Elections Act. We've come to expect that PMSHithead will appoint lying, unscrupulous CONs to his cabinet, since he did appoint a felon as his minister of Justice.

The Winnipeg Free Press piece is instructive. Who would guess Toews has no impulse control, sending unsollicited, hectoring email blasts?

This is a politician who has become renowned among a small audience of Manitoba political junkies for sending out long, rambling, emails to his "supporters," in which he angrily attacks opposition MPs, journalists and anyone else with the temerity to disagree with him. As a regular target of these emails, I have never responded to the tortured logic or his tenuous grasp of the facts. He is entitled to have his say. If anyone asked me for a reaction to his rants, I merely directed them to take note of the time the emails were sent -- which more often than not was somewhere around 3 a.m. -- and then expressed my regret that I had written something that caused Toews to lose sleep.

But that was before Toews discovered Twitter, a more immediate, pervasive and, we have come to learn, less thoughtful way of venting your most volatile thoughts the moment they burst into your skull. Toews slowly began to move from the innocuous to the abusive in his emails. He taunted the opposition, howled when they disagreed with him. When the opposition voted against a Tory crime bill, he accused them of helping child kidnappers. [...]

On Thursday, he alleged that NDP MP Paul Dewar, a candidate for the leadership of that party, was behind a campaign to exploit the details of the divorce file. This was based on the revelation that a provincial NDP staffer, who happens to volunteer on Dewar's leadership campaign, had examined the divorce file.

Toews is now in full attack mode on Twitter, lambasting opposition parties for not supporting his bid to get a full parliamentary committee investigation of @Vikileaks and the Anonymous videos. [...]

Unfortunately, this is where Toews lacks any perspective on his own tenuous place in the universe. If his reputation has been tarnished, it has been by his own hand as much as anyone's. His closest political advisers pleaded with him to stop sending overnight email blasts, which they viewed as conduct unbecoming a federal cabinet minister. Those same advisers can hardly be pleased with his stream-of-consciousness Twitter activity.

If tough journalists were intimidated by the minister's fury, imagine what it must have been like for a 17 year old girl. The former teenaged babysitter for the Toews family, who caved in to pressure from her employer and had sex with him, would well know how unpleasant refusing Vic's demands would be.

ADDED: a tweet from Errol Mendes reminded me that Toews, a swinish CONjob, once called internationally respected Justice Louise Arbour *disgraceful*.

Catholic Church can be held accountable, says SCC.

A holdout compared to other provinces in giving sexual abuse victims the benefit of the doubt, Quebec courts will now have to think twice before throwing out cases where the alleged abuse happened many years ago.

In what experts are calling a “partial victory” for victims, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Shirley Christensen, 37, a Quebec City resident who has been trying to sue the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec for the abuse she endured as a young girl at the hands of a priest.

The priest, Paul-Henri Lachance, pleaded guilty in 2009 to several charges of sexual assault against Christensen. Nearing 80 years old, Lachance was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

More here. And here. Also here. Here, too.

I personally know several women who were sexually abused by priests when they were girls. Those clerics are not gay, but they certainly are pedophiles.

Why would adult women want to sue the catholic church for harm and damage? For start, church authorities have demonstrated over and over again they are complicit in perpetuating clerical pedophilia when they cover up, lie and exculpate these sexual predators by blaming the girls for the priests' criminal actions.

That Tillman Thing.

Some facts, as reported here:

Court heard Tillman was supposed to be at a board meeting Aug. 6, 2008, but he was encouraged to go home by staff who thought he was "acting in an unusual manner."

Tillman joined the teen and his children at home. The girl bent over as she fed one of the kids, said Crown prosecutor Bill Burge. "When she stood up, the accused put his hands on her hips with his fingers in her belt loops and he pulled the rear end of the complainant into himself," said Burge. "While in that position there was physical contact that was clearly of a sexual nature. This occurred without the consent of the complainant and she told the accused, 'No."'

In my experience with legal issues regarding sexual assault, the significant element that would distinguish this action from something that could be dismissed as an unsollicited expression of affection is the position of the victim and the fact her assailant had an erection. That's likely why the police investigated, and charges were laid.

We don't know what other evidence the prosecutor would have presented at trial, because Tillman copped the plea (and a very good one, from his vantage point). He claimed he didn't want the girl to be subjected to the hardship of testifying and for his family to be exposed to the stress of constant media coverage.

Would his lawyer have tried to destroy the credibility of the complainant/victim, a common defense tactics with regard to sexual assault charges, to win his case? Perhaps merely floating that notion convinced the prosecutor that justice would not have been well served to let Tillman's lawyer use verbal and psychological assault on her in court. Particularly as one of the volatile elements of this case is that the complainant is a member of Regina's Aboriginal community, I've been told.

This case may be difficult to sort out for those who are not familiar with the horrendous history of patriarchal privilege that men of European ancestry have wielded against Aboriginal and Métis women and girls.

Those who get information beyond that published in media accounts of the Pickton trial, the murder of Aboriginal women in Winnipeg, and women who have disappeared along the "Highway of Tears" know that the judicial system is often weighed in favour of those charged with such crimes.

Tillman was treated with kid gloves. The drugs he took may have had the effect of reducing his inhibitions but they did not make him behave in a manner contrary to his impulses - or his values.

People convicted of sex offences are often required to submit a DNA sample to a national database. However, because Tillman's privacy and security concerns outweigh the public interest in having such a sample, there will be no such order, Hinds said.

Doesn't that seem like a good example of the privilege that being male and holding a powerful job with a football team will get you?

Priest enslaved girl he claimed was his orphaned niece.

Raoul Deveau was a Catholic parish priest, a predator and a pedophile.

It is claimed by two victims in Nova Scotia - there are likely more - that Deveau preyed on them with impunity and that Church officials and possibly others in positions of authority knew what he did yet let him continue.

Deveau told Linda Deschamp to call him "uncle" because parishioners and teachers asked him about the relationship; Deveau claimed that she was his orphaned niece. In fact she was a child neglected by her family; he gradually enslaved her by sexually abusing her and forcing her into servitude. She cleaned house and prepared meals for him for over 10 years. Deschamp was 12 years old when Deveau first approached her.

"This is so wrong. You're tired of hiding the secrets. They need to come out and people need to be made aware of that," Deschamp told CBC.

Deschamp said her large family was poor, so she was sent to work for and then live with Raoul Deveau, a parish priest in Shelburne. He died in 1982. She remembers him as a jovial person, a "community god" who seemed genuine about helping
parishioners. She trusted him.

"At first it was consoling and it was, 'poor girl,'" Deschamp said. "It kind of gradually built up — offering me food while I was there, and when you're hungry that looks pretty good as a child. And then it was clothing. And then of course there were trade-offs after that."

Deschamp said the abuse by the man she was forced to call uncle lasted for nine years. She ended up moving with Deveau to another parish. "He had me so dependent on him," she said. "He owned me 100 per cent."

From here. More information here.

Institutional collusion between the Catholic Church and local authorities, with regard to the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children, also occured elsewhere Canada. Hundreds of orphaned or abandoned children suffered like those in Ireland did, in the province of Québec.

Bruno Roy died last night; he was instrumental in leading the adult survivors (Duplessis' orphans) in a civil suit that held the government as well as the Catholic Church accountable for the harm that was done.

Catholic diocese accepts responsibility for harm done to children by priests.

This may well be the first time in North America that an official of the Catholic Church, the bishop of a Nova Scotia diocese, has accepted accountability in advance of a court judgement in favour of the victims of sexual abuse by priests employed by the religious institution.

Bishop Raymond Lahey of the Antigonish diocese, where the abuse is alleged to have occurred, said the agreement is the first step in recognizing the alleged abuse of children as young as eight years old.

“I want to formally apologize to every victim and to their families for the sexual abuse that was inflicted on them,” he said at a news conference in Halifax. “Money can never compensate fully, but we are trying ... to be fair, responsible, respectful and, most of all, compassionate.”

This is different from legal decisions rendered in the matter of individual priests, where the victims of childhood sexual abuse have won settlements that validated their claims against the perpetrator and the Catholic Church, such as the case of Charles Sylvestre.

Perhaps the Catholic officials in Ireland could follow the example of the diosese of Antigonish and its bishop and take responsibility for the decades of psychological and physical violence done to thousands of children in their care, as reported last May. But then, that might take a bite out of the corporate coffers of the Church and the Vatican Taliban would probably prevent such an action, compassionate and responsible though it would be.

Teaching Old Farts New Strategies.

In spite of decades of work done by feminists and women's organizations with police, it appears that there are lessons that many cops and their administrator bosses are unwilling to learn.

A women's studies professor is criticizing police for not warning women in Edmonton about a man who allegedly sexually assaulted four women within a week after luring them on a social networking site.

"It's quite possible had they alerted women that some of these assaults could have
been prevented. The police could have warned women using social networking sites or dating sites to be specifically careful of someone doing this particular thing," Lise Gotell from the University of Alberta said Tuesday. "And it's quite possible had they alerted women that some of these assaults could have been prevented."

Edmonton police first announced Tuesday afternoon that they had arrested a 22-year-old man in relation to four assaults that allegedly took place in the Millwoods area of the city. The suspect has been charged with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual assault with a weapon, three counts of possession of an offensive weapon dangerous to the public, two counts of unlawful confinement and one count each of robbery and theft over $5,000.

Police allege the man contacted the women through a social networking site, developed a relationship with them over several days, lured them to a remote location, threatened and sexually assaulted them.

Note that Gotell, an award-winning prof at the University of Alberta, is first identified through her association with Women's Studies which is an interdisciplinary academic program that right-wing conservatives often attack and attempt to discredit.

In Manitoba, cold cases and historical homicides of women are to be re-investigated.

Justice Minister Dave Chomiak first told the Free Press last month that the RCMP and Winnipeg Police were dusting off the old cases. The news came shortly after 17-year-old Cherisse Houle was found dead, face down in a ditch, and Chomiak
himself wondered if a serial killer could be responsible. ...

Former Vancouver police officer turned serial-killer profiler Kim Rossmo told the Free Press that it wouldn't surprise him if a serial killer was at work in Winnipeg.
"It would be shocking to think that in a city the size of Winnipeg, that you wouldn't have one or more serial killers preying on prostitutes over a 30-year period," Rossmo said.

Do cops become so hardened by their obligation to view prostitutes as criminals, rather than human beings - a consideration always generously awarded to their clients who are offered an opportunity to bypass criminal charges by enrolling in "John School" - that when women are butchered, they shrug it off? Don't they care that these are someone's daughter, sister, mother? And is the fact that many of them are Aboriginal women lead to a somewhat desultory investigation of their murders?

If there are other versions of Willy Pickton (and his suspected accomplices at the pig farm, who have somehow escaped criminal charges) who are stalking and killing women in Manitoba, the police don't appear very committed to finding him to stop his campaign of murder and terror.

Silence will not protect us.

Sitara Achakzai. Safia Amajan. And now, Natalia Estemirova.

The desolate field was on the edge of town next to a disused factory. I heard crows and distant traffic as we walked along in the dusk, marshland on either side.

"One of the women was wearing red boots," said Natalia. "There was very little grass in winter so you could spot her a mile off." My companion was a tall, determined-looking woman, who took big strides and talked at a rate of knots. Unlike most women in Grozny these days she wore no headscarf. Natalia was head of the Grozny branch of Memorial, the organisation that campaigns for human rights across Russia.

She had brought me to this dreary suburb to see the place where three women's bodies were found one day last November. The morning after that gruesome discovery, four more dead women were discovered around the Chechen capital. All seven had been shot in the head with an automatic weapon.

As we stood shivering in the dying light, I never dreamt that three weeks later Natalia, herself, would suffer a similar fate.

On Wednesday she was bundled into a van as she left her home. Her body was found later the same day in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia, with multiple bullet wounds. There is little doubt in Chechnya that her killing was connected to her investigative and campaigning work - including the case of the seven murdered women.

These three women knew that speaking out, denouncing violence against women, put them in the bull's eye of murderous religious fundamentalists who kill with impunity. Such violence is also seen in other countries dominated by religious rightwing ideology. Mexico, for example. From here:

Mexican activist & journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro has been arrested and jailed by police. Women's rights advocates are calling Cacho's arrest a 'counter-attack' in revenge against Cacho for having authored a book, 'Demons in Eden' that exposed the connections between a group of wealthy business-men and pedophile rings and child pornographers.

Cacho was detained for the supposed crime of defamation (a criminal offense in Mexico) resulting from a complaint filed by Nacif Borge, a Lebanese born textile
businessman who Cacho has linked with the leader of the pedophile gang, millionaire hotelier Jean Succar Kuri ...

Since the publication of Demons in Eden, Cacho has been harassed and has received death threats for her investigative journalism. Cacho is the director of the Center for Integral Attention for Women (CIAM) in Cancun, whose 40 member staff have also been threatened by forces apparently linked to the wealthy businessmen.

Brutal, systemic violence perpetrated in christian countries against women and children - with the collusion of state officials - has been well documented by Amnesty International.

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.

In 1 ... 2 ... 3 .... Shrieeek!

This was completely predictable, of course.

A Senior Vatican figure, Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares, prefect for the Congregation of the Divine Worship, this week appeared to downplay the findings of the Ryan report when suggesting that the millions of lives lost through abortion represent a much more serious crime against humanity than clerical sex abuse.

How candid. Feminazis that we are here at DAMMIT JANET! we thought that the logic behind his statement deserved a closer look.

Oh, looky here.

Christine Buckley, barely a month old was found guilty of being the child of an unwed mother. For decades, such “sins” were sufficient to land children — and more than 30,000 others — in workhouse-style schools for girls and boys run by the
Roman Catholic Church.

At such schools, according to a long-awaited report Wednesday, children were beaten, sexually abused and emotionally terrorized for more than half a century.

A “culture of silence” protected victimizers rather than the children in their care — consigning generations of Ireland’s poorest children to misery, Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse has concluded. ...

These are some of the findings of the controversial 2,600-page report unveiled in Dublin on Wednesday after a nine-year investigation. Drawing on the testimony of nearly 2,000 witnesses, men and women who attended more than 200 Catholic-run schools from the 1930s to the 1990s, the commission painted a damning picture of a church engaged too often in covering up misdeeds instead of rooting out their perpetrators.

The panel found that sexual molestation was “endemic,” committed by offenders who were often transferred to other institutions rather than dismissed or turned over to authorities. ...The five-volume report is a major blow for a religious institution that continues to wield significant influence on Irish society, especially on moral issues such as divorce and abortion.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t tough enough for some of the victims who lobbied long and hard for an official investigation. Many are angry that the report includes no names of alleged offenders, an omission that one of the religious orders under investigation fought for — and won — in court. Only pseudonyms are used, making slim the chances of criminal prosecution based on the report’s findings.

“I do genuinely believe that it would have been a further step towards our healing if our abusers had been named and shamed,” said Buckley, now 62.

She spent the first 18 years of her life in a Dublin orphanage where she said children were forced to manufacture rosaries — and were humiliated, beaten and raped whether they achieved their quota or not.

Rosaries, hmmm. Who knew the Vatican Taliban was concerned with the loss of enslaved child-labour in Ireland? It's no wonder then that Blob Blogging Wingnut is so ecstatic about the growing encroachment of Catholicism in China. If "sinful" women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, then it would certainly be financially salutory for such children born "in sin" to labour in rosaries-manufacturing sweat-shops run by the Catholic Church - covertly of course.

Try a Little Gentleness ...

Last month we blogged about how curious it seemed that the religious zealotry disorder-impaired somehow couldn't get behind campaigns for the purpose of preventing violence against infants, toddlers and children.

This in part demonstrates the connection between an adherence to religious authoritarism and support for using physical abuse as a form of discipline to exact obedience from children.

And then of course, there are those who defend, rationalize, justify and tolerate the decades of physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual violence that members of the Catholic Church clergy and those under their authority inflicted upon children in their care.

It's inspiring to see that the Canadiens hockey player Georges Laraque lends his support to efforts to educate parents about the dangers of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

They hate children, don't they?

Canadian Cynic: The Catholic Problem - pretty shaved ape has posted a cohesive and comprehensive round-up of the latest disclosures about the Catholic Church enabling and seemingly sanctioning the violence that members of the Roman Catholic clergy (or non-clergy under their authority) directed towards thousands and thousands of children in Ireland, as well the exalted bishops who rationalize somehow that it's not really evil but actually tolerable if you're a "good Catholic."

Go read it.

The only element missing, as the coup-de-farce would be the pope granting a MASSIVE pardon to the sexual predators who "regret" their actions.

As for those malevolent Catholic Church clergy and administrators who derived moral satisfaction from the savage physical, emotional and spiritual violence they inflicted upon the children in their care, they were merely enforcing religious doctrine, that is, they were faithfully "following orders".

"... 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.

Catholic doctrine will only protect women from harm when they're fetus.

A pedophile - heterosexual and Catholic - priest assaulted more than 70 girls and young women during the course of his life. In 2006 Charles Sylvestre was tried, and finally admitted his guilt to 47 charges of indecent assault and was sentenced to prison where he died of natural causes in 2007. Last week the Catholic Church settled with one of his victims.

An Ontario woman who was repeatedly raped by a Roman Catholic priest while she was a girl has received what is believed to be the largest individual settlement in a sexual abuse case in Canada — $2 million. The victim, Lou Ann Soontiens, was in grade school when the abuse began at the hands of Rev. Charles Sylvestre. It continued for seven years.

CBC's The Fifth Estate investigated the case of Charles Sylvestre. Given the scale of the abuse, harm and damage he inflicted to the daughters of devout Catholic parishioners, how is it that he was allowed to continue his campaign of sexual terror against little girls?

Only the continued complicity of his superiors in the arch-diocese can explain how, in spite of evidence such as sworn police statements, Sylvestre committed acts of physically, emotionally and spiritually violence against at least 70 female children for over 50 years.

Cardinal G. Emmett Carter, for example. A ferocious, even vicious abortion-criminalizer, the Catholic Cardinal seemingly considered attacks upon the physical, emotional and spiritual integrity of female children a lesser evil, or perhaps no evil at all if perpetrated by a priest in his diocese? Callous indifference to the lives of women, unless they are fulfilling their purpose as human incubators - or refusing to do so, appears to be a professional requirement for the clerics of the Catholic Church, especially the very ambitious ones.

Slow news day at the Beeb - maybe.

In order to get the blogging engines revved up, bloggers often check out a range of information sources for inspiration and intellectual grist. Sometimes the posts almost writes itself since a news item can provide a choice argument to a post in construction. Or it can be the last straw, when the brain switches to RANT mode.


Today, aside from the latest updates on the Somali pirates story, the BBC has 4 top stories about the boggling range of pleasure-seeking behaviours that confound and delight human beings. Hard versus soft news.

High-speed sex costly in Norway - A man faces a hefty fine and a driving ban after being caught having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a motorway in Norway, police have said.

Who knew Norwegians take that whole orgasm = la petite mort metaphor to extreme limits? Now we know why the parrot pined for the fjords.

Scientists find 'pleasure nerves' Mothers use touch to sooth their babies. Scientists say they understand more about how the body responds to pleasurable touch.

Touch deprivation as well as physical contact with the intent to cause pain has been demonstrated to cause mental health disorders. It's high time research was done to chart the specific ways that touch is positive, appropriate and enhances brain development.

Woman with lingerie turned away - A Brazilian woman was refused entry to the UK when she arrived at Newcastle Airport with luggage containing only T-shirts, a dressing gown and lingerie. UK Border Agency officials said they suspected the 32-year-old of being involved in the sex industry.

If those officials are so vigilant about such things, then how do criminal organizations manage to traffick thousands of girls, boys and young women for the purpose of physical and sexual enslavement?

Paraguay leader admits love-child - The ex-bishop admitted having an affair with a woman 30 years his junior. Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo has admitted he is the father of a child who was conceived when he was still a Roman Catholic bishop.

Perhaps if the Vatican accepted the consecration of women as clergy and gave permission for priests to marry, the opressive reign of its abusive power would end and the Catholic Church could follow through on the humane transformations that John XXIII proposed. Just saying.

And those who defend pedophilia crawl out ...

from the underside of a big rock that was lifted to shed some light upon the sexual exploitation of children (emphasis ours).

oldowleyes wrote: "Wow, if your male your not even allowed to pay cash or ask for a quiet private room w/o out being suspected of being a pedophile. What a bunch of clowns Canadian governments are turning out to be, go back into your holes of institutional discrimination. While your at it, I suggest you get those illegal Family Relation Laws* off your books, or someday soon your going to be on the hook for billions in a class action law suit."

boardhead wrote: "Great. Now any 35 year old man with a young looking 20 year old girl will get a label. I'm all for the initiative as well, but most 18 yr. old girls these days are promiscuous with older men, and some look younger than 18, which will cause problems for some guys who are doing nothing wrong."

Most of the commenters who responded favourably to this campaign appeared to be women. The purpose of this initiative from the government of Alberta, Child and Youth Services division is to target adults who sexually exploit vulnerable girls and boys in rooms rented from commercial lodging establishments such as resorts, hotels and motels.

I have traveled with my daughter and her girlfriend, when they were teenagers. If I had seen hotel staff chat informally with them to ensure that neither had been kidnapped or were being coerced to participate in child prostitution, as part of precautionary measures that screened all guests, I would not have reacted in anger or fear. But perhaps men like Dickie Evans who engage in duplicitous sexual behaviour know that they have something to hide.

* This appears to be the legislation that oldowleyes finds objectionable.

“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church."

Because, of course, that would be the one and only reason that a woman or a man who was sexually abused by a priest would want to initiate a lawsuit against a Church who silenced any attempt to hold their clergy or religious institution accountable for the great harm that was caused.

Perhaps, had the Church Fathers had responded in a humane, caring and responsible manner when children and parents approached them with evidence of these transgressions, instead of sweeping these crimes under the carpet, such legislation would not now been necessary.

A friend recently lent me a novel by Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death. The author admits that she allowed an anachronism or two to slip in so that the narrative flowed.

The basic historical background is rigorous however, and there is one issue critical to the storyline that returns in Franklin's subsequent novel, The Serpent's Tale. The Catholic Church maintained then that members of its clergy were not obliged to obey man-made laws. This was the question that 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."

Centuries later, the Catholic Church perseveres in following medieval principles and maintaining that its ecclesiastical rules are the only ones that are God-given and irrevocable.

Un grand merci to JJ who blogged the news item quoted.

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.

Old enough to rape, too young to have rights?

What do Brazil and Yemen have in common?

They both support the patriarchal control of girls for the benefit of men and male-centered institutions.

JJ blogged about the odious attempt by the Catholic Church in Brazil to stop a 9 year-old girl - who was raped and impregnated by her step-father (he denies being a pedophile) - from having an abortion.

DAMMIT JANET! brings you news about Nojoud Muhammad Nasser who successfully divorced the man she was forced to marry when she was 8 years old.

Yemen has barred a former child bride from being honored in Austria, saying she is too young to travel alone.

When she was less than 10 years old, the girl was forced to marry a man at least three times her age. After being raped and abused by him, she successfully filed for divorce and traveled abroad to talk about her ordeal.

Thursday evening, the girl will be commended for her courage at an awards gala in the Austrian capital. But she cannot attend because Yemeni authorities have confiscated her passport, saying she is too young to travel by herself.

The organizers of the event held a press conference to denounce the Yemen authorities who stopped Nojoud from receiving her award.

"They want to prevent this courageous girl from participating tonight," said Georg Kindel, who founded the awards in 2004.

Northern Irish Nobel peace laureate Betty Williams, who came to Vienna to receive the World Achievement Award presented by Jordanian Queen Noor, said a demonstration should be organised in front of Yemen's embassy in Vienna.

There should be demonstrations in front of all Yemen embassies to protest this.

The photograph of Nojoud was found at Sweetness and Light.

doubts about Doubt

Yesterday evening I saw the movie Doubt with friends, some who are recovering Catholics and one who was once a nun.

As the end credits rolled up on the screen I turned to a friend and whispered, "Well, that movie won't be sending anyone rushing back into the arms of the Church!"

Doubt was directed and written by John Patrick Shanley who adapted it from his own stage play. Shanley has mined his New York Bronx Irish Catholic background brilliantly in the past and produced many theatrical and cinematic gems. I was seduced and transported by Moonstruck, which was directed by our own Norman Jewison.

But Doubt left me cold. It is a parable, there is no doubt about that, but its adaptation into a movie did not feel entirely successful. As drama, it must have been riveting to the audience who witnessed the verbal confrontations between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn.

"Doubt has gotten a bad reputation. People who are utterly certain are vulnerable to a brand of foolishness that people who maintain a level of doubt are not." - John Patrick Shanley, explaining why audiences are left to decide for themselves whether Sister Aloysius is wise or overly zealous in her determination to expose the charismatic Father Flynn as a pedophile. (11/20/04 New York Times, interview with David Cote).

In the sixties, nuns never challenged the actions of priests, to do so was to transgress the hierarchal authority of the clergy. The dialogue is minimalist and powerful. But the direction and cinematography of critical scenes did not do justice to the words and to the rigour of the actors' performance, in my opinion.

Doubt was a good movie, it simply didn't have the power and the cinematic excellence of another film that it brings to mind, Agnes of God.

The ugly face of religious and political zealotry

Any moment now, Blob Blogging Wingnut will be making an announcement that feminism and feminists are responsible to blame for this atrocity in Afghanistan.

Because if there is one thing that brings rabid fundamentalist catholic and islamist fanatics together with genocidal religious patriots, it's the way these authoritarian zealots try to evade responsibility for their words and actions by attacking those who challenge the premise of their authority.