Late last month, Towleroad noted the arrest of a militant, Christian fundamentalist who was obsessed with attacking the queer community, on charges of masturbating in front of children in a public park.

The description of the alleged pedophile's and known homophobe's activities is rather striking.

The Times-Picayune adds:

"Armed with bullhorns, Bibles and picket signs, Storms and a group of followers in 2003 protested against Southern Decadence, the gay three-day festival held over Labor Day weekend in the French Quarter. Storms' efforts prompted the New Orleans City Council to ban megaphones and other amplification devices."

Here's the article from 2003 about Storms' campaigns to end Southern Decadence, which included a Christian parade and 'purity' rally decrying the depravity:

Last year, Storms videotaped public sex acts on Bourbon Street and made the tape available to state legislators, hoping to bring an end to the celebration.
"There's no economic gain that justifies an orgy in the streets," Storms said. "That's all it is -- a three-day orgy in the streets."

In 2005 Storms sued gay rights group Action Wisconsin, claiming the group defamed him by saying that he advocated the murder of gays. He lost the lawsuit, a decision that was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Storms was then ordered to repay the group $87,000 in court costs.

Setting aside the specifics of this case, it is instructive to look at the larger pattern. Child molestation is quite common among Republican Party leaders, especially those in the Christian Right.

And the venomously heterosexist Roman Catholic Church is infamous for the rampant child rape in its clergy.

Why do heterosexist groups draw so many pedophiles? Part of it starts with their own rhetoric. Heterosexist bigots love conflating homosexuality with pedophilia (and bestiality and necrophilia) in fact free efforts to justify prejudice against queers and to emotionally abuse the LGBT community.

The false association provides an opportunity for child rapists. Homophobic organizations tend to be places where their child raping members can camouflage themselves, hiding behind the same rhetoric that slanders and libels queers. The pedophiles instinctively hope that joining a group that is against LGBT people will make it seem like they are equally against child rapists and wouldn't think of doing the things that they actually do.

That certainly explains part of the draw that these hate groups have for child rapists. However, there is another aspect of this whole thing that can get lost.

Fanatically religious people and socially extreme right folks tend to be the least moral and ethical people in all of their personal dealings.

At work, its the fundies and the rightists who are most likely to lie to and about coworkers. Rabid Catholics are much more likely to try to weasel their way out of work than the general population. They are the most likely to mistreat their neighbors and romantic partners.

Being rabidly religious, or rightist, allows people to feel moral while living completely amoral lives. It's always that group over there that's bad, not them. It's the queers who are immoral, not the tax cheats. Women who have abortions are the ones to point the finger at, not people who cut people off in traffic just to save a few seconds, if that.

In this context of diversionary "morality," it is hardly mysterious that child molesters are drawn to the bastions of the bullshit. By being a hateful religious or political extremist, they can project their own heinous actions on other groups of people, whether they be Muslims (in the US, Christians in Muslim countries), queers, government workers, women who aren't doormats, atheists, or whomever else becomes the flavor of the month.

The rightist and rabidly Christian child rapists are taking what their political and religious compatriots do to its most extreme. A child molester who lies about "teh gays" not only feels camouflaged, but also is socialized in these institutions to feel like one of the good people.

 

It's another year, and the pro child molester RCC clergy are meddling in politics again to fight against birth control and abortion. Obviously, misogyny and racism play a huge role in these violations of the Roman Catholic Church's tax exempt status, but we all know the biggest reason for this: they want an ever increasing supply of children to molest.

The RCC clergy continues to protect the identities of child rapists among its ranks. Their insincere public apologies are coupled with behind the scenes political pressure on law enforcement to prevent criminal investigations of the rampant child rape in that church.

Enough!

It's time to take serious action to stop the constant child molestation in the Roman Catholic clergy. It's time to bar entrance to RCC churches and schools to anyone under the age of 18.

Pro child molestation activists might claim that such a rule is unconstitutional. They would claim that the RCC is exercising its constitutional rights by engaging in its business activities including religious services and religious brainwashing.

However, adult bookstore operators have a constitutional right to engage in their activities too. However, we protect children by making those businesses adults only. If we can put age restrictions on constitutionally protected businesses so that children don't see visual images of sex, than we certainly can put age restrictions on constitutionally protected churches to prevent children from being raped.

I'm sure that supporters of child rape will be deeply offended by this. Tough shit. This is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate proposal to dramatically reduce a heinous, inexcusable crime that the RCC's clergy continue to actively promote.

 

This is downright scary. (NY Pop Culture and Politics 2/11/11)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :

- North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy in 2010 ;
- St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village was shut down in 2010 after shady backroom meetings ;
- St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst went bankrupt in 2009 ;
- Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica went bankrupt in 2009 ;
- Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills decided to close in 2008 ;
- Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan closed in 2008 ;
- Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed in 2008 ; and
- St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan closed in 2007.

Three things struck me right away on this one.

1) Bloomberg has been mayor during this period and hasn't lifted a finger to save any hospital.

2) Before they were cash poor from the child molestation lawsuits, the Roman Catholic clergy were buying up hospitals so they could deny women patients access to birth control and abortion. As you can see, they have an execrable record in terms of managing hospitals.

3) "Policy experts" here and in other parts of the country have been babbling on about "excess hospital beds" for at least a couple of decades. If they had IQs over 60, they would realize that it is necessary to have extra hospital capacity in case of disasters. This includes terrorist attacks in NYC. These "efficiency experts" have no clue about the role that hospitals are supposed to play in the security of their cities, towns, and neighborhoods. You would think that NYC would learn from 911, but Bloomberg obviously has not.

Penny pinching HMOs and health insurers along with cutbacks in government funding for healthcare over the years have had devastating effects on hospitals and the people who need them. We need Medicare for All ASAP. What we don't need is what we have: a government that makes big money campaign contributions, reprehensible wars, other subsidies for corporations, and tax cuts for the rich higher priorities than human needs.

Photo: Edwin Martinez1

 

This is absolutely sickening. (WTAQ 2/13/10)

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee says the transfer of $75 million over the last six years wasn't an effort to shield its assets from sex abuse settlements.

The families of sex abuse victims implied moving the money was something like a shell game during a bankruptcy hearing before a federal trustee. An attorney for the victims also asked about another $55 million put into a trust a year after the Wisconsin Supreme Court opened the door for victims to sue the archdiocese.

A spokesperson for the church denies the allegations, saying it has been liquidating all non-essential assets for years to help pay the costs of therapy and voluntary settlements. The spokesperson says the archdiocese had been holding the $75 million for local parishes in an investment account, then returned it when it quit offering those services.

The church says it only has $7 million available for settlements, but the families of victims apparently intend to challenge that figure.

Enormous money transfers like these are what you would expect from corporations evading taxes through offshore scams. This definitely should result in a criminal investigation.

By the way, there is a NYC angle to this story. Current NYC Archbishop Timothy Dolan was in charge of that subsidiary of the Roman Catholic Church when those incredibly suspicious money transfers took place. If the Roman Catholic Church were an accountable organization, Dolan already would have been forced to resign. However, it's far more likely that Ratzi or a future pontiff will make the scumbag into a "saint."

madhavaji

 

Whenever a Republican talks about "bipartisanship," it's bound to be something hateful and extreme. The latest efforts to shove unwanted vouchers down Washington, DC's throat is a rather blatant example of this. (Politico 1/24/11)

The day after President Barack Obama makes education a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, House Speaker John Boehner will try to force his hand on the issue of school vouchers in Washington, D.C. as a test of the White House’s commitment to bipartisanship.

The Ohio Republican, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), will introduce legislation on Wednesday to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, the speaker’s office said Monday, making a school voucher initiative that Democrats, including Obama, have strongly opposed as a bargaining chip for beginning discussions on the administration’s desired education proposals.

“If the president is sincere about working together on education reform, we should start by saving this successful, bipartisan program that has helped so many underprivileged children get a quality education,” Boehner said in a statement to POLITICO.

In 2001, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) did an excellent expose debunking claims by the corporate media and militant Christian fundamentalists that vouchers improve educational achievement. Studies funded by voucher supports show know educational advantage in voucher schools despite the ability of those schools to weed out disruptive students and students with learning disabilities.

It just isn't honest to say that there is any educational benefit to vouchers.

Of course, vouchers were never intended for educational purposes and certainly aren't meant to help poor people. Rightists like Boehner and Lieberman are the types who derive enormous pleasure from the suffering of the poor and the accumulation by the rich. This initiative is all about religious indoctrination and erosion of the First Amendment.

Vouchers, like any government funding of religion, is absolutely forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Yet, in the one of the most dishonest Supreme Court rulings since Plessy vs. Ferguson, a 5-4 majority fraudulently claimed that the purpose of vouchers was educational and that government funding of blatant religious indoctrination is somehow "constitutional."

Eventually, that blatantly unconstitutional ruling allow vouchers will be overturned by a more honest Supreme Court. In the meantime, We the People will have to defend the Constitution from anti American extremists like Boehner and Lieberman.

The obvious unconstitutionality of vouchers legislation is hardly the only problem with voucher legislation. This is a rather transparent effort to discriminate against atheists and force us to participate in religion by forcing us to pay for it. Reprehensible bigots like the ones behind the vouchers legislation are obsessed with shoving religion down the throats of atheist Americans instead of treating us as the full citizens of this country which we are.

As bad as the bigotry is, there is something even worse about vouchers programs. They promote child molestation. The dollar amounts are deliberately set so that poor parents can not send their children to elite private schools, but instead to Roman Catholic schools. This puts far more children in the clutches of child raping priests. The irony of a moralizing gasbag like Lieberman doing something he knows damned well will result in the rape of more children is enough to give any reasonable person pause.

 

From the Belfast Telegraph 12/21/10:

Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.

In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.

“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

Ratzi keeps getting more and more desperate to blame the rampant child molestation in his own clergy elsewhere. The level of dishonesty is truly bizarre.

If Ratzi wasn't such a powerful religious leader, he would be in prison for obstruction of justice for his efforts to block so many rape cases involving priests and children.

He also is so dishonest on other levels. It's bad enough that children aren't capable of consenting for sex with adults. However, one added issue is that of trust. Roman Catholics are brainwashed into trusting priests above all, even with their deepest secrets. Never mind that the RCC has turned over confessions to political authorities ever since the confessional was invented. Never mind that priests routinely lie to their flocks on everything from homosexuality, to abortion, to the supposed "infallibility" of the Vatican dictators.

Priests also have enormous emotional power over so many in their flocks. People see them as gatekeepers to their imaginary heavens and sentencers to the mythological hell. Their "one true church" rules on fear, fear based largely on sexuality.

The trust and power that Roman Catholics give to their priests make their betrayal of children more dangerous and reprehensible. Ratzi's efforts to increase the totalitarian nature of his church and priesthood have made it easier for priests to rape and more difficult for abuse victims to resist or fight back.

Now, Ratzi wants to blame society? Secular society?

Secularists have long opposed the totalitarianism that the RCC represents. Secularists don't trust authoritarian priests. Secularists know that no person is infallible.

Secular feminists were the first to help rape victims fight back. Feminists have long been one of Ratzi's favorite targets for hate and demonization.

Merry fucking Christmas Ratzi, you sick fuck.

Photos: Alessio85

eürodäna

Tunguska.RDM

 

Ratzi's latest power and money grab will have devastating consequences for children. (From Reuters 11/19/10)

The Roman Catholic Church will launch its first ordinariate for disaffected Anglicans in England and Wales in January and take in bishops, priests and laity over the following months, the Church announced on Friday.

Five traditionalist Church of England bishops have applied to join the ordinariate, a Church subdivision retaining some Anglican traditions, and about 30 groups of parishioners are due to cross over, Church leaders told journalists.

Given the rampant child molestation in the Roman Catholic clergy and the general level of corruption and greed in that church, it is highly suspicious that anyone would want to join it at this point. Obviously, some of the preachers who want to sign up want to molest children and are looking for a church that will protect them when they do it. Ratzi's hate church certainly has delivered in terms of protecting child rapists.

These days, no responsible parents anywhere in the world will allow their children to set foot in Ratzi's churches.

Ratzi Photo: eürodäna

 

Photo: mendhak

One day, will peoples' memories of the Roman Catholic priesthood be limited to sinister statues in museums?

There is a lot that is awful about the Roman Catholic Church's discrimination against women, mandate for celibacy (with the exception of having sex with children), harassment of gay priests, and the numerous child molestation scandals. But, there is one good impact of all of this: the growing shortages of priests. Here are some examples of the positive impact this trend already is having.

Anointing of the sick another loss in U.S. priest shortage (USA Today 1/28/10)

Fiftieth parish closes in Diocese of Cleveland’s consolidation program (Catholic News Agency 7/1/10)

Priest shortage leads to closing of Okla. church (Times Record News 3/9/10)

Church lacks enough pastors (The Post and Courier 4/18/10)

As priest numbers fall, even Catholic Spain is not immune to a crisis of faith (Guardian 12/13/09)

The situation has gotten so comical that the RCC is even outsourcing some of the priesthood to guys from India. The day may arrive when the Roman Catholic priesthood is limited to a few creeps watching child porn in the Vatican.

 

This might shock people who are still in denial about the rampant child molestation in the Roman Catholic Church. Voice of the Faithful, a group that argues for reform of the Roman Catholic Church from within, has published a study showing just how pervasive sexual abuse complaints have been in Chicago. Here are the most disturbing conclusions.

Among the study’s key findings:
• A total of 256 of the Chicago Archdiocese’s roughly 400 parishes and institutions, or approximately 60%, had an accused pedophile priest working there or in residence at some point in time.
• The percentage of parishes and institutions ministered by credibly accused priests approached 25% in the mid-1990’s. In 2009, one in five institutions in the archdiocese still had a credibly accused priest in residence.
• According to a comparison of priest assignments with ZIP codes, credibly accused priests were assigned exclusively to institutions in 135 out of the 263 ZIP codes in the Archdiocese of Chicago. No credibly accused priests were ever assigned to any of the remaining 128 ZIP codes.
• Of the 135 ZIP code areas where assignments were made, 13 ZIP codes received the most work assignments. Initial findings suggest that these areas tended to have higher concentrations of African-Americans and low median household income levels. Analysis of the demographics of the 135 assigned ZIP code areas is continuing.
• 64%, or 63 of the 97 credibly accused priests, lived at the same location at the same time as one or more other credibly accused priests

The roles of racism and classism in this were interesting, but hardly surprising. The Roman Catholic Church always has been a horribly racist and classist institution.

One thing that should be noted is that the study only includes instances where clerical rape victims spoke out against what was done to them. As was mentioned earlier in this blog, Sinead O'Connor has publicized that the RCC clergy have coerced abused children into signing oaths of silence that the pontiff alone can release them from. As you would expect, Ratzi has refused to acknowledge the existence of the oaths, much less release people from them. So, we know that the actual level of child molestation by RCC clergy was much higher than that which was documented in this ground breaking study.

I think it is really wonderful and courageous for Voice of the Faithful to do the study, but it is incredibly difficult for me to understand why they stay in their church. They themselves have documented monstrous behavior that their church's leaders have committed with little or no consequences from their church. I find it extremely difficult to empathize with the incredibly strong pull religions have on people who are so much better than their faiths.

(Thanks to Michael of Norfolk for alerting me to the story.)

 

Google sure is breaking their "Don't Be Evil" tenet a lot lately. Check out this fab song.

FUJI MINX - The Music Made Me Do it (Official Un-Censored Version) from FUJI MINX on Vimeo.

A lot of us media activists argue that liberals and progressives need to "be the media," given that the overwhelming majority of corporate media outlets are systemically rightist in their bias. Here are some examples of people doing just that, by posting videos on YouTube speaking out against bigotry and the idiocy behind it.

Homophobes, DEAL WITH IT


Dare to stand against bigotry


Homophobia and Religion


Gay Message to the Pope

This sounds like obstruction of justice to me. (CBC News 6/26/10)

The Vatican has stepped up its criticism of raids carried out by Belgian police investigating alleged sex abuse by priests, with the No. 2 official saying Saturday that the raids would be unprecedented even under communism.

The raids this week targeted the home and office of a retired archbishop and also the graves of two prelates.

"It is an unheard-of and very grave fact," Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, said Saturday. Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Rome, Bertone lamented that bishops were held for nine hours without food or drink.

"There are no precedents, not even in communist regimes," Bertone said, according to Italian news agencies.

The communists should have done a lot more to stop the rampant child molestation by the Roman Catholic clergy. All governments with Roman Catholic churches should have.

When standard police procedure is demonized because it targets child rape in a clergy, you would think that there would be universal outrage. But, Ratzi's stooges keep throwing fits over this. They don't care how horrified decent human beings are by their behavior.

Ratzi's horrifying response to these raids in Belgium is getting a lot of well deserved criticism on the blogs. Here are some examples:

Catholic Child Molesters Scold Belgium Cops (News Pirates)

Vatican Hissy Fits Continue After Belgium Police Raids (Michael in Norfolk)

The Vatican - Still Doesn't Get It (Skeptico)

One thing that stunned me while researching this posting was seeing blog posts by pro child molestation advocates actually attacking the Belgian police raid. Anyone who is genuinely opposed to the rape of children supports similar raids throughout the world.

 

Attacking women and queers is an old tactic of the Roman Catholic Church when they want to divert attention from the rampant child molestation in their clergy. They just won't let go of it. (From Edge 6/16/10)

The bishop of Essen, Germany--an epicenter of the clerical sexual abuse scandal now rocking Europe--has targeted gays with a declaration that homosexuals are headed to Hell.

Blog The Eponymous Flower posted a German news item on June 15 about the words of Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck. The original June 10 article appeared at German Catholic news site Kreuz.net ("Cross.net") reported the Overbeck had appeared on a televised talk program in April, where he declared, "Homosexuality is a sin. We know this very clearly and unambiguously, and that’s that. It contradicts nature." Added the bishop, "Human nature is fulfilled in the conjoining of man and woman."

The Eponymous Flower elaborated on the bishop’s anti-gay message. "Whoever dies as an unrepentant homosexual, goes to Hell," the posting’s framing comments read. "The Bishop of Essen can not abolish the 10 Commandments: homosexual perversion is a mortal sin."

Instead of sentencing queers to a nonexistent hell, why not turn in some of the child raping priests you are protecting so they can go to very real prisons? Being used as scapegoats by a clergy that sees sex as sinful unless it is among married heterosexuals or involves adults molesting children is getting really old.

Can't they come up with something knew to distract the gullible? How about threats involving people who shave their beards or eat shellfish? Is it any wonder so much of the Roman Catholic flock is finally leaving that bigoted, greedy, and child molesting church?

Few things are more offensive than religionists attempting to shove their beliefs down the throats of those who don't share them, whether it is fascistic Christians putting crosses on government property or arrogant Muslims who actually think they have any business telling non Muslims whether or not we can draw pictures of their pedophile prophet. (In the Koran, he admits to marrying and raping a little girl.)

I bring up the point of the so called "prophet" of Islam being a pedophile because it is important to denounce and repudiate child abusers. As someone who experienced physical and emotional abuse as a child, I know all too well that adults have a responsibility to fight back against the abusers and those who condone their activities, since children have no way of defending themselves. People need to speak out just as forcefully against the founder of Islam as they do against the Roman Catholic officials who rape children and protect the rapists.

Efforts to stop people from drawing any figure from any religion are a rather extreme example of religious privilege. People actually think that religion should be put on some kind of pedestal and that it should not be subject to the same kinds of critique and ridicule as other ideas or value systems. Religious privilege is inherently bigoted and discriminatory against atheists. Those who assert it should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

So, I'm joining in with others who are participating in Draw Muhammed Day. I'm doing it to send a message to Muslims and other religious believers.

Your religious beliefs do not apply to any other person, place, or thing. They only apply to you. Any attempt on your part to impose your religious beliefs on anyone else puts you on the same immoral level as the 911 hijackers and the people who commit acts of terrorism against abortion providers.

 

Desperate to change the subject from the rampant rape of children (and fairly common rape of adult women) by his clergy, Vatican Dictator Joseph Ratzinger paid a visit to the infamous Shroud of Turin. Ratzi went on to make a complete ass of himself. (Independent 5/4/10)

The shroud of Turin allowed Pope Benedict XVI a rare moment of reprieve from the raging clerical child sex scandal yesterday as he prayed before the relic after performing open air Mass with some 25,000 faithful in the Italian city. "The Holy Shroud eloquently reminds us always of the one who was crucified and who has shared our suffering," the pontiff said.

Last year, an Italian scientist recreated the Shroud of Turin. (Reuters 10/5/09 - Hat Tip to Pharyngula)

Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.

They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

PIGMENT, BLOODSTAINS AND SCORCHES

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.

They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.

The Shroud had already been proven as fake by carbon dating that placed it in the 13th or 14th century. Now that scientists have shown how it was made, the last excuse by the RCC relic industry, that it couldn't have been made by medieval people, has been disproven.

2 million easy marks are expected to visit this fraud.

It's not just that the Shroud is fake. The fact that Ratzi knows it's a fake and stages a greedy dog and pony show with it demonstrates how dishonest he is. (It's a bit late for him to need to display how completely amoral he is.) Ratzi's worship of a fake relic also makes you wonder how fake all of his supposed concern is over the unending revelations of Roman Catholic clerical rape.

 

There is very little that makes sense in the corporate media's discussion of the rape of children by Roman Catholic clergy. That's why it is so important for people outside that corporate bubble to be the media.

FFRF did just that when they discussed the idea by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to have Ratzinger arrested if he shows up for his dog and pony show in the UK.

In other news of the week, atheism's eminent spokespersons, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, gave the freethought world a chuckle with their eminently sensible suggestion that Pope Benedict XVI be arrested by authorities when he visits the United Kingdom next September. British attorneys have suggested several scenarios. My favorite involves several wealthy Catholic donors who sue the pope for misusing their contributions to defend priests and hush victims.

Dawkins wrote in The Guardian: "Why is anyone surprised, much less shocked, when Christopher Hitchens and I call for the prosecution of the pope, if he goes ahead with his proposed visit to Britain? The only strange thing about our proposal is that it had to come from us: where have the world's governments been all this time?"

Where indeed? As FFRF keeps asking and has asked since 1988: When will a U.S. prosecutor or district attorney finally charge a bishop for coverup and collusion?

The lack of action by our government, like the inaction of so many governments, should be shocking, but it isn't. The Roman Catholic Church is so powerful it gets away with all sorts of terrible things.

Though it's less horrible than the RCC clergy's rampant rape of children, their constant violation of their tax exempt status results in absolutely no action whatsoever by the IRS. A typical middle class American has plenty to fear from the IRS, but a church riddled with child rapists can flaunt tax laws all it wants.

Administrations starting decades ago all the way up to the Obama administration should have demanded Joseph Ratzinger's extradition. Yet, nothing has happened. Nothing.

Religion is one of the most corrupting forces in society.

Photo: eürodäna

 

This is a small step forward. Roman Catholics need to do a lot more to stop the rape of their children by their priests, but this is a small step forward. (WHDH-TV 4/13/10)

Reverend James Scahill of St. Michael's Parish in East Longmeadow has been outspoken on the need for accountability among church leaders for a long time.

Now, however, his tough criticism is going straight to the top of the Catholic Church.

Rev. Scahill is demanding greater protection for child sex abuse victims and greater accountability from the Catholic Church Hierarchy.

He says Pope Benedict should step down.

“Anyone that would cover up the abuse of a child or a minor, to me, is guilty of a felony...If it can be established that there was a cover up, then I think they should have the integrity to resign,” Scahill said.

The undemocratic nature of Roman Catholicism created an environment where all sorts of evil have flourished. Obviously, rampant child molestation is the highest profile evil for now, but massive greed, racism, sexism, warmongering, and heterosexism also are consequences of a church whose members have yet to take ownership of it.

 

The rape of boys by Roman Catholic priests is getting plenty of attention. However, the rape of girls by RCC clerics is not getting the news coverage it should. The accusations against Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul have been an exception to this pattern. (New York Times 4/5/10)

A Catholic priest who has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota six years ago is still working in his home diocese in India despite warnings to the Vatican from an American bishop that the priest continued to pose a risk to children, according to church documents made public on Monday.

The documents show that the American bishop warned the Vatican that the priest was accused of molesting two teenage girls whose trust he gained by promising to discuss their interest in becoming nuns.

The Associated Press has reported that two girls in Spain, 10 and 11, were raped. However, this was buried in a story about the rape of boys, and hasn't gotten picked up much, at least in the US media.

SNAP, Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests, does take the sexual abuse of girls by priests seriously. Here are some examples from their website.

Philadelphia: Priest removed after fondling teenage girl

California: Priest molested 12 year old girl

Ohio: Vatican elevated priest after he abused girl

Chicago: 14 year old girl raped by priest

Although the rape of girls by Roman Catholic priests is quite common, coverage of it is less common and less prominent than the rape of boys in our country. The reflects heterosexism and misogyny. Rapes that are viewed as heterosexual just aren't taken as seriously in our society. A culture that values girls less than boys predictably takes sexual abuse against girls less seriously.

We need to put the spotlight on all rape by priests. By not focusing enough on the rape of girls by the Roman Catholic clergy, we are unintentionally aiding Ratzi and his Vatican toadies in their efforts to cover up these crimes against people with two X chromosomes.

Photo: eürodäna

 

The American public's position on the RCC's child rape scandal is evolving as more information becomes available to them. The Pew Center for the People and the Press have released some data from early April polling confirming this.

Amid new revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI’s job ratings for handling the scandal have plummeted. Only about one-in-ten (12%) say the pope has done an excellent (3%) or good job (9%) in addressing the sex abuse scandal; 71% say he has done a poor (44%) or only fair (27%) job.

The pope’s ratings for addressing the continuing scandal have declined sharply since April 2008, shortly after his visit to the United States. At that time, 39% said he had done an excellent or good job in dealing with the abuse scandal, while 48% said he had done only fair or poor.

This certainly represents progress, but it also is a bit disturbing too. If you have followed the story of the Vatican protecting child raping priests, you may be surprised that only 44% if those polled rated Ratzinger's behavior as poor. It's important to understand the factors involved in this.

1) Media Bias:
The wealthy owners of corporate media know that religion keeps people docile and pliable in the overwhelming majority of cases. So, they will slant their coverage to protect and promote religion at almost any opportunity. Also, Ratzi is extremely rightist, even for a RCC pontiff. The corporate media try hard to protect their far right political allies.

2) Demonization of Critics of the Church:
Roman Catholic extremists like the "Catholic League" have tried to demonize people who criticize or even report on the rape of Roman Catholic children as "anti Catholic bigots." They even attack victim groups. This gives some everyday Roman Catholics a rationalization for denial on just how bad things are.

3) The Vatican's Sophisticated Public Relations Campaign:
Ratzi's minions have been effective in reducing criticism by treating this as a series of incidents, ignoring the obvious pattern of behavior within their church. Ratzi has yet to issue a general, global apology because that would contradict the Vatican's carefully constructed narrative. The Vatican also has been aggressive about issuing denials about what they have done, and they have consistently tried to portray themselves as fighting the abuse, rather than covering it up.

4) Naive Views About Clergy Being Especially Moral:
Despite all evidence to the contrary, there is this huge sense in our society that members of the clergy, almost regardless of faith (excepting Islam at the moment), are morally superior to the rest of us. No amount of sex scandals among televangelists, shocking greed and power mongering at megachurches, and child molestation among the RCC clergy seem to change that among so many in our country. Even blatant heterosexism and misogyny by most clergy haven't convinced most queers and women to chuck the silly notion that preachers are more moral.

This false association between religion and perceived morality that causes so much bigotry and discrimination against atheists. It also leaves victims of clerical criminals more vulnerable.



Photo: eürodäna

Illustration: aeneastudio

This is a submission to the annual Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm.

There are a lot of things about the Vatican that don't get the attention they deserve. One of them is the fact that it is a pure theocracy. It has a dictator, the Pope, who is selected by a group of Cardinals appointed by previous Popes. That dictator has absolute power over the Vatican's foreign and domestic policy.

Because the Roman Catholic Church claims that their dictators are infallible, any Roman Catholic who questions the dictates and behavior of that pontiff is automatically suspect and sinful in the eyes of her or his church.

Under these circumstances, it isn't that difficult to see how difficult it is to root out any kind of corruption from such a structure. The area of Vatican corruption that is finally getting some of the media attention it deserves is the Vatican's coverups of the rampant child molestation in the Roman Catholic clergy.

Revelations of Vatican coverups are popping up all over the world. One of the most recent ones was the discovery that a now dead Bishop in Tuscon tried to get child raping priests fired only to have the Vatican block him. This is terrible, but it is equally commonplace.

Theocratic corruption is hardly limited to the Vatican. The Taliban sold heroin and banned all music they couldn't make money off of. We know about the litany of corruption among televangelists who would like to set up America as their own private theocracy.

People are correctly concerned about the dangers to human freedoms posed by theocracy. What gets lost is that in theocratic governments, dissent is suppressed and people are brainwashed into thinking they are evil when they question anything. This sets up a system where any kind of corruption that humans are capable of inventing can take hold. It also creates an environment where it is incredibly difficult to stop those corrupt practices, whether they be financial or physically brutal. This problem is by no means limited to the Vatican.