Slowly but surely, it looks as though the real scope of abuse by Catholic priests around the world is only slowly surfacing. Every other day, it seems as though a new pedophile is being exposed. The latest scandal comes from Brazil, which has more Roman Catholics than any other country in the world. The man in question, Luiz Marques Barbosa, was exposed when a TV station showed a sex tape of him with a 19 year old boy who has been under his employ for over 4 years, and he’s just one of many Latin American religious leaders currently under investigation.

Barbosa (who sounds like a villain in a cheesy Mario Van Peebles action romp) and two other priests are accused of abusing boys as young as 12 years of age. Barbosa continues to deny the fact he’s a pederast, although his only “defense” so far is a confusing jumble of inconsistencies; first, he claimed no abuse is going on, then he isn’t gay, followed immediately by accusing homosexuals of being the real cause of pedophilia, and finally ending by saying he would talk about this in confession only. Fuck I hate that garbage; this has become their hateful de-facto statement the Church makes every time someone mentions the fact that people who work for them are raping children. Even if there was a link between homosexuality and pedophilia (and trust me, there isn’t), the real question on everyone’s mind right now is why the head of the organization systematically sheltered known child rapists from prosecution, and why no one is doing anything about it. This whole business of blaming gays for the problem is nothing more than the typical Church M.O.: blame a scapegoat. If this was the 16th century, they would have just blamed the Jews for casting evil spells on them, and ordered a good old fashion massacre to get everyone’s mind off the real offenders.

It’s nice to see these pedophiles being exposed in religiously orthodox countries; it shows the power of the Church to silence these acts is seriously waning. It’s too early to tell how many more of these pieces of shit are going to be exposed, but it’s encouraging to think perhaps some measure of justice can be had here. To date, no one has actually been arrested, but my hope is the Brazilian government will grow some fucking balls and put abusers where they belong: behind heavy metal bars.