The Pope is Screwed.

[thunderhawk]

Happy Easter.

The current moral authority for all Catholics personally put the interests of the hierarchy above the welfare of vulnerable children. He heard a case of a priest forcing an eleven-year-old to perform oral sex on him, and he did not take that priest to the police, as he should have, or removed him from his duties immediately. He sent him to therapy and allowed him to continue molesting children in future parishes, and never informed the parents of the priest's past. Would you have done that? Would anyone you know have done that? Would anyone you know who had done that be able to sleep at night?

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/the-catholic-church-hierarchy-on-the-brink.html

[NOTTHOR]

Thank God Dubya granted the Pope immunity with respect to suits in the U.S. This is fucking dispicable. If I were POTUS today, I would literally drop everything I was doing until I got that shit repealed. There is not a single organization in the fucking world that should be exempt from prosecution for torts and crimes of that nature.

[socal]

Mar 17, 2010 14:53:47 GMT -6 NOTTHOR said:

Dubya granted the Pope immunity with respect to suits in the U.S.

Really? I guess I missed that one.



But it does figure.

[thejesus]

The Catholic Church makes me sick. They are an organization that uses fear and the threat of eternal damnation to solicit donations and procure power, while simultaneously claiming to be the authority on moral values/character. Meanwhile, they have an absurdly high rate of child molesting priests. The Vatican is corrupt to the core. Catholics are fucking morons (not all, but a huge percentage), constantly scammed by the greatest grifters of all time.

[lpcalihawk]

Mar 18, 2010 8:04:24 GMT -6 thejesus said:

The Catholic Church makes me sick. They are an organization that uses fear and the threat of eternal damnation to solicit donations and procure power, while simultaneously claiming to be the authority on moral values/character. Meanwhile, they have an absurdly high rate of child molesting priests. The Vatican is corrupt to the core. Catholics are fucking morons (not all, but a huge percentage), constantly scammed by the greatest grifters of all time.

+1 Is God an institution? They think so, I don't.

[socal]

Mar 18, 2010 8:04:24 GMT -6 thejesus said:

The Catholic Church makes me sick. They are an organization that uses fear and the threat of eternal damnation to solicit donations and procure power, while simultaneously claiming to be the authority on moral values/character. Meanwhile, they have an absurdly high rate of child molesting priests. The Vatican is corrupt to the core. Catholics are fucking morons (not all, but a huge percentage), constantly scammed by the greatest grifters of all time.

If you said 90% of Christian leaders, you would be more accurate. Corruption & promises of eternal damnation etc. aren't monopolized by the Catholic church.

[thejesus]

Mar 18, 2010 12:55:34 GMT -6 socal said:

Mar 18, 2010 8:04:24 GMT -6 thejesus said:

The Catholic Church makes me sick. They are an organization that uses fear and the threat of eternal damnation to solicit donations and procure power, while simultaneously claiming to be the authority on moral values/character. Meanwhile, they have an absurdly high rate of child molesting priests. The Vatican is corrupt to the core. Catholics are fucking morons (not all, but a huge percentage), constantly scammed by the greatest grifters of all time.

If you said 90% of Christian leaders, you would be more accurate. Corruption & promises of eternal damnation etc. aren't monopolized by the Catholic church.

No, they certainly don't have a monopoly on that. But they piss me off the most. In my experiences, they are far and away the most judgmental of all religious people.

But what really pisses me off is a Catholic wedding. I went to one last summer. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Good god, pick a fucking position and stick with it.

[thejesus]

I wonder how many cases of child abuse go unreported within the Catholic church. Whether it be pressure from high ranking church members to keep families quiet, or the priests using Jedi mind tricks on these poor little kids. Who knows what kind of crazy shit they come up with to make them feel guilty if they tell, like they won't get into heaven or god wants this to happen.

This shit makes me want to bump some "Wicked Preacher Killa" by ICP and be locked into a room with these guys (with a chainsaw). I think my evil side is surfacing.

[Saggitariutt Jefferspin (ith)]

Violence isn't the answer, Jesus.

[thejesus]

Mar 18, 2010 13:47:41 GMT -6 Saggitariutt Jefferspin (ith) said:

Violence isn't the answer, Jesus.

I know, I know.

I can still picture it in my mind though .... and it is satisfying.

[Saggitariutt Jefferspin (ith)]

Actually, for pedophiles...violence IS the fucking answer.

I think you could make an exception to you non-violence values for a pedo.

[twine]

I was raised Catholic until about the end of 6th grade. If Jesus really loved me he wouldn't have made me wake up at 7 am throughout my childhood unless he wanted me to play Nintendo.

And every time I got comfortable sitting in my pew I'd have to stand up or sit down or eat some crappy wafers.

[thunderhawk]

My firm sued the RCC over one of these serial-molesters due to the damage it did to our client (i.e. ruined his life.) This treachery has almost driven me out of the church. That and the discrimination against women and bullshit fearmongering against gays. I've actually written a letter to the Catholic Bishops telling them to go fuck themselves. As far as I know they haven't tried to excommunicate me. I wish they would. I'd ruin them. I have their dirty little secrets in a file.

Also, I like to recall a statement by the late great George Carlin: "God is all-powerful...and he needs a LOT of money."

[Gumbyhawk]

Mar 18, 2010 12:49:25 GMT -6 lpcalihawk said:

Mar 18, 2010 8:04:24 GMT -6 thejesus said:

The Catholic Church makes me sick. They are an organization that uses fear and the threat of eternal damnation to solicit donations and procure power, while simultaneously claiming to be the authority on moral values/character. Meanwhile, they have an absurdly high rate of child molesting priests. The Vatican is corrupt to the core. Catholics are fucking morons (not all, but a huge percentage), constantly scammed by the greatest grifters of all time.

+1 Is God an institution? They think so, I don't.

+2. Catholicism is one of the biggest fucking cults around.

[thunderhawk]

Uh oh.

www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

[NOTTHOR]

Mar 24, 2010 21:04:41 GMT -6 thunderhawk said:

Uh oh.

www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

You see, I think these fuckers knew that Ratzinger was going to be the next Pope so they put him in charge of the problem, knowing that he would be immune from civil suits. There needs to be a god damned RICO suit against the Catholic Church and they need to be stripped of every god damned penny they have with the funds distributed 1/3 to lawyers and 2/3 to the victims. Hell, maybe even change the split to 1/4, 3/4 given the egregiousness of the actions and potential recovery.

[socal]

Mar 24, 2010 22:00:23 GMT -6 NOTTHOR said:

You see, I think these fuckers knew that Ratzinger was going to be the next Pope so they put him in charge of the problem, knowing that he would be immune from civil suits. There needs to be a god damned RICO suit against the Catholic Church and they need to be stripped of every god damned penny they have with the funds distributed 1/3 to lawyers and 2/3 to the victims. Hell, maybe even change the split to 1/4, 3/4 given the egregiousness of the actions and potential recovery.

First... you're still a greedy fucker that will go to hell for that greed (amongst other likely sins).

Second... The land is where their money is.

[thunderhawk]

Here's a fantastic take on it all:

What if investigation after investigation discovered that the Muslim church had engaged in a decades-long cover-up of massive criminal activity involving the molestation and raping of children? What if it involved countless Muslim religious leaders, imams, and others? What if one of the highest Sunni leaders in the world was complicit in hiding sex crimes committed against deaf kids? Do you think for a moment that the outrage would not be so massive as to force mosques to close and for schools to go bankrupt? Many, many people would be justifiably jailed. There would be congressional investigations. Republicans would be calling for any faith-based funds to be banned from going to Muslim organizations because, indeed, some of the money may have been indirectly used to pay off victims and to shuffle the perpetrators from city to city. Hell, there would be death threats, vandalism, if not outright violence, against mosques and people. Yes, Islam in America, if not in the West entirely, would be assaulted from all corners.

Of course, because it's the Catholic Church, despite whatever revulsion there is against those who committed the assaults and those who engaged in racketeering by conspiring to hide it from authorities, we are supposed to accept that it's simply the actions of the few and not the infection of the entire faith. Even if it is.

rudepundit.blogspot.com/

The simple prophylactic (heh) solution to this, of course, is allowing priests to be married and women to serve as clergy. Problem fucking 99% solved with those basic reforms. (I reserve the remaining 1% because there will always be perverts and fuckups regardless of the efficacy of any given solution.)

[thunderhawk]

ncronline.org/news/accountability/credibility-gap-pope-needs-answer-questions

The focus now is on Benedict. What did he know? When did he know it? How did he act once he knew?

The questions arise not only about his conduct in Munich, but also, based also as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A March 25 Times story, citing information from bishops in the United States, reported that the Vatican had failed to take action against a priest accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf children while working at a school from 1950 to 1974. Correspondence reportedly obtained by the paper showed requests for the defrocking of the priest, Fr. Lawrence Murphy, going directly from U.S. bishops to Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican secretary of state. No action was taken against Murphy.

Like it or not, this new focus on the pope and his actions as an archbishop and Vatican official fits the distressing logic of this scandal. For those who have followed this tragedy over the years, the whole episode seems familiar: accusation, revelation, denial and obfuscation, with no bishop held accountable for actions taken on their watch. Yes, there is a depressing madness to this story. Time after time, this is a story of institutional failure of the deepest kind, a failure to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a failure to put compassion ahead of institutional decisions aimed at short-term benefits and avoiding public scandal.

The strategies employed so far -- taking the legal path, obscuring the truth, and doing everything possible to protect perpetrators as well as the church's reputation and treasury -- have failed miserably.

We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history. How this crisis is handled by Benedict, what he says and does, how he responds and what remedies he seeks, will likely determine the future health of our church for decades, if not centuries, to come.

It is time, past time really, for direct answers to difficult questions. It is time to tell the truth.

What it's time for is mass resignations and mass prosecutions and a shitload of reparations.

Hello, RICO.

[twine]

It looks like the Catholic church is trying to turn this whole fiasco around and get sympathy for the Pope. Good luck with that!

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36149297/ns/world_news-europe/

From the Article:

The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days, saying the church has been singled out and collectively stereotyped for the problem of pedophilia, which it says is a society-wide issue.


It seems to me that is like saying, "Everyone else is doing it, why is it wrong for us to do it?" The most fucked up part of that is that they are not accepting responsibility for their actions while they are world leader in moral authority. I guess as long as you say your Hail Mary's and suck up to a ghost in the sky it's fine because the ghost and God will let you live in eternal peace and happiness when you die, even if you did fuck a bunch of deaf little boys.