Tag Archives: catholics

More efforts by Catholics to keep abuses secret

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It’s not only Ireland that is battling the Catholic church and their long list of abuses against children. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Diocese is attempting to keep thousands of pages of court files, numerous lawsuits dating back to 2001, from being released to the public. They attempt to show they have actively been fighting to prevent further abuses, but their obvious need to protect the identities of known offenders only goes to show how protective of their members this organization is.

The whole affair feels surreal. Even the group representing some of the abused sent a letter I can only describe as insanely polite given the fact they are abusing kids:

So we ask that you put the safety of children, the healing of victims and the overall benefit of the church itself (particularly the trusting, generous parishioners) above the short term discomfort of church officials who fear having to face tough questions — in the news media, from parishioners or in open court — about how much they knew and how little they did about these horrific crimes

Discomfort? I know I keep asking this question of “why is no one in jail?”, and maybe some of you are annoyed by it, but nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer. Imagine that instead of a Church committing these abuses, it was a day care center. Would people be sending carefully worded letters asking them politely to stop their attempts to cover up what happened? No, no, and no.

It looks like the Church won’t be able to keep a lid on it anyway, but I find it personally insulting and telling that the Catholic Church is opposed to justice. They simply have never felt child abuse is a big deal. Are we now supposed to believe that without them, society would simply fall apart? Yeah, not so much.

Nun gets away with murder

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Let’s play a little game I like to call ‘would an atheist have the same treatment’. In this scenario, you’re driving down the road in your van and accidentally burn through a red light, smashing a small sedan. A young man, barely 16 years old is killed in the crash. In your day in court, however, no one is even allowed to mention the death of the kid, and during the trial you are allowed to wear prejudicial clothing that influences the jury (like a police uniform). Would you be allowed to get away with this if you were and atheist?

Well, this exact same scenario occurred with a nun in Geneva who ran a red light and killed a kid. The judge allowed her to wear her nun’s uniform, and the prosecution was not allowed to talk about the death of Keith Forbes for feat that it would negatively influence the jury. She wasn’t even charged in his death in the first place.

In the picture above you can see her smiling with 20 of her colleagues after her not-guilty verdict. They are undoubtedly happy the world still gives Christians special treatment. The prosecution had eye witness testimony from other drivers that the nun ran the red light, but because the defense had another nun testifying under oath (of God, her boss!), the jury was able to be swayed into believing an obvious lie.

So long as we give preferential treatments to individuals wearing black robes, we will continue to see these kinds of injustices. I mean, why are there still no priests in jail over in Ireland. You have 2,900 pages of reports of abuse! Arrest somebody, you spineless fucking cowards!

(this news article is now impossible to find online)

More from bigot Cardinal O’Connor

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f you don’t remember this jackass, he was the guy who said atheists were not ‘fully human’, and his tirade against the godless hasn’t slowed down. During his ‘retirement’ speech, O’Connor stated atheism was the greatest of evils, and atheism was responsible for war and destruction. Apparently, according to him, no wars have ever taken place between two religious neighbors.

This is in light of the recent controversy brought on by the Irish Child Abuse Commission that found rampant sexual, physical and emotional abuse going on at a Catholic run reform school. In his speech, the Cardinal also praised the members of the clergy that had the courage to face up to their past. The only problem being that not one individual was named in the report; in fact, the identities of even the deceased remain hidden. Yes, it must indeed be atheism is the root of all evil.

I normally don’t give a shit whenever some old fogie priest tries to bash atheism, but this guy has been on a bit of a tear recently. Why a man in a disgraced institution thinks he has the moral ground to criticize atheism is beyond me. He is literally defending child rapists while accusing non believers of being responsible for all the evil in the world. Seriously guy?

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 062

This week, Ryan and I discuss the offensive words of Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor regarding atheists, the Ryan report, and we ask “How many more reports on abuse do Catholics need to hear before they jump off this bandwagon?”

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 062
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Shitty priest says he didn’t know child abuse was illegal

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Did you ever try to use the old “I didn’t know it was a illegal” defense when caught breaking the law? I’ve never been arrested, but I assume it’s pretty normal some people would try and use this lame excuse in order to avoid doing jail time. There are, however, certain times when this type of defense will do more harm than good. Case in point: retired Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland and his statements that he had no idea child abuse was a crime. Weakland apparently “accepted naively the common view that it was not necessary to worry about the effects on the youngsters: either they would not remember or they would ‘grow out of it.”

This is the same guy who in 2002 paid $450,000 to a man who had accused him of date rape, so his credibility on the issue of child molesting is somewhat hurt by this inconvenience. The fact this monster thinks kids can ‘grow’ out of being sexually abused just demonstrates the kind of willful ignorance and deception that is part of the Catholic Church’s modus operandi. How can the devout keep believing in light of such tragic and despicable representatives? I’ve got news for you: if these guys are closer to divinity than the rest of us, we all need to collectively jump off this religion bandwagon right fucking now. Who’s with me!?

Catholic reform schools in Ireland home to abuse, humiliation, and rape

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If you listen to Christians talk about their religion, you could swear their members must all be saints, blessed with a greater gift for compassion than their fellow man. If a person is devout, people automatically assume they are dedicating their lives to some higher purpose, and their connection with God makes them moral pillars of society.

It’s a perception that survives despite the countless times priests, monks, nuns and bishops are caught in a variety of scandals, ranging from embezzlement to child abuse. The latest incident involves the Catholic-run reform school in Ireland, where a 2900 page report painted a most unflattering picture of a huge variety of abuses dating back all the way to the 1930′s.

The schools were little more than slave labor camps, where children, living in constant terror, would be beaten, humiliated or raped for failing to manufacture rosaries in the workhouse style reform school. Amidst the controversy surrounding the report, the Church sought to bury the names and identities of the serial child molesters, either dead or living, and won the right to do so. It seems like identifying the abusers isn’t as important as protecting known child rapists. Can’t you just taste the justice?

When are we going to stop allowing these monsters to get away with these kinds of atrocities? Here you have a powerful religious institutions literally raping kids, and nothing is being done about it. If this had been any other organization angry mob wielding torches would have burned the place down. But because a religion is involved, everyone is putting on their kid gloves.

I find it insulting and mortifying that religions still get such special treatments with regard to human rights offenders. Just who is supposed to be the moral guides in this world? Does anyone want to listen to a bunch of child molesters tell us how we need to get into heaven? If there was a hell, these guys would have booked a first class flight there when they die.

Vatican denies Pope was a Hitler Youth

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Just a day after delivering a speech at Israel’s Holocaust Memorial (known as Yad Vashem) to a rather unimpressed crowd, the Vatican made a statement denying the Pope’s enrollment in the Hitler Youth, despite the fact Ratzinger had already admitted he had been a member of the Flakhelfer, the anti-aircraft auxiliary corps of the Hitler Youth.

The logic behind this obviously false statement is damage control after the Pope’s speech failed to make any impression on those in attendance, who felt the pontiff’s words were lukewarm, strategic, and generally uninspired. Many felt this may have been due to secret sympathies as a result of his previous Nazi connections. Although I won’t speculate as to the Pope’s true feelings, it does seem pretty fishy that he was so careful when choosing his words. It’s no secret a great deal of his flock are anti-Semitic, so it’s more than likely Benedict avoided admitting any serious culpability on the part of the Church.

Rather than issue a denial of something everyone knows to be true, the Vatican would be better off telling the truth rather than insultingly lie to everyone’s face. Of course, that would require honesty and integrity from the Church, and if you remember, this is the same institution that protected child molesters. Not exactly the best record for integrity, don’t you think?

Holding priests accountable

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There are some passionate people out there with plenty of time on their hands. Most of them channel it by watching shitty television programs that slowly rot their brains. Luckily, a few of them end up trying to devote their lives to a worthy cause; and what could be better than trying to hold priests accountable for molesting children? Literally, I can’t think of anything that would rival it.

This site does not fuck around. Unlike most sites that seem to be lost trying to identify their purpose, BishopAccountability.org goes for the jugular. It’s a huge (though obviously passionately cluttered) database of written material dealing with everything pertaining to the Church’s involvement in child molestation.

It pleases me greatly there is an organization that takes this issue so seriously. Not only that, but their righteous indignation goes far beyond simple priestly accountability; they also have a huge beef with Google over censorship issues in China. Man, talk about fighting the power! If any of you feel generous, I suggest giving them a hand.

Vatican insiders still frustrated by Pope

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I often say the Catholic Church is dangerously out of touch with reality. How could they not be; here is an institution that still clings to most of its doctrinal roots dating back fourteen centuries. They are now stuck with one of the worst Popes in recent history, who seems so isolated from reality he can’t even be bothered to notice what everyone is saying about him.

The biggest threat they face are the mounting deaths in Africa due to AIDS. The Papacy’s stance on condoms hasn’t changed since they were first invented; they believe contraception is wrong and condoms encourage promiscuity. Obviously, these guys never used condoms in their lives. Anyone who has put a rubber sheath on their penis will tell you it’s not generally a pleasant experience. It is one, however, that keeps you alive.

No one in the Vatican knows what to do about Ratzinger, who thanks to modern medicine, will probably live for another decade. Already 4 years in, he is regularly engaged in some kind of controversy. One day it’s forgiving a Holocaust denier, the next it’s making inflammatory remarks about Islam. Still, they voted him in knowing full well he used to be a Nazi youth. It also doesn’t help that he needed to be immunized by President Bush from prosecution in the US following the hundreds of child molestation charges for Catholic priests in the US. Ratzinger was in charge of the committee that was supposed to monitor it, and his solution was simply to bury the evidence, convince the families to shut up, and then to transfer the molesters to other towns where they offended again.

That’s your new Pope, folks. Still think the Church knows what it’s doing?

Pope thinks condoms will make AIDS epidemic worse

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In the Western world, we are mostly isolated from the deadly effect of the AIDS virus. Those who have it usually don’t make much publicity for themselves, and some hide it completely. In Africa, however, the disease is a plague that is slowly killing off their population. It makes orphans of children who then starve to death; it cripples food production as farmers are too sick to properly harvest the land.

From his ivory tower, the Pope has continued to push his ‘no condoms’ agenda in Africa. He dares to call it an epidemic, but refuses to allow his Catholic followers to use condoms as a way of preventing millions of deaths on the false idea that his beloved God hates it when sperm is wasted. In case you were unaware of just why Catholics hate contraception, it’s mainly due to the Sin of Onan:

Onan was the son of Judah, and when his brother Er was killed by God (who smote him down because he was “wicked”, although there’s zero mention of his crimes), his father asked him to have sex with Er’s widow, Tamar. Well, Onan, like any healthy male, accepted, but before ejaculating he pulled out and spilled his man-seed on the ground. For that, God killed him, and the story now serves as the strongest evidence that God hates contraception.

Er and Onan are the only two guys that God kills directly without using intermediaries. It’s why Catholics take the story so fucking seriously. So, the epidemic, which could be controlled with the simple use of a rubber sheath over a man’s penis is rejected due to a crappy myth. That’s religion for you.

I’ve already talked about how corrupt and evil the Catholic Church is. All they seem to want to do recently is prove me right.

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 042

This week, we discuss the trouble in Iran, where two young women were sentenced to death for killing the man who tried to rape them. We also talk about the Catholic Church excommunicating the doctors who performed an important and necessary abortion on a 9 year old rape victim, and finally, we discuss Turkey’s growing religious influence.

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 042
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More evil from the Catholic Church

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There’s always something controversial going on with Catholics. These guys are out of touch with modern life, and as a consequence, they always do something stupid and plain horrible enough to make the news. Today it’s the archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho who excommunicated the Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9 year old rape victim.

Sobrinho has no concern over the rape itself, since he chose not to excommunicate the stepfather who had abused the girl since age 6. To quote the man, “A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life”. Oh, and the only reason they didn’t excommunicate the little girl is because she’s a minor. What benevolence!

Let’s face the fucking facts here. Over 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each yeah, with a quarter of them having to be treated because the procedures are botched. Many of these women were sexually assaulted, and rape is a major problem in Brazil. Yet, the archbishop doesn’t really care about it. Why would he? It’s men doing the raping after all, and in any chauvinistic society, that kind of thing isn’t important.

I feel sick to my stomach about this. Some poor 9 year old girl needed the bravery of the doctors to allow her the chance to live a normal life and not be a mother at 10 years of age. These people faced the full force of the church, which in Brazil still has a great deal of influence. Congratulations Catholic Church on proving once again why you are one of the most corrupt, evil, and terrible institutions in the world.

The Catholic Church needs to be abandoned

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I want to send out a clear message today about the Catholic Church. I know many Catholics are feeling persecuted, brow beaten, and tired of all of the bad press they’ve been getting recently. It doesn’t help matters when your Pope quotes a Byzantine Emperor who claimed that Islam was spread by holy war. If you think that’s bad, you need to sit down to hear this staggeringly horrible piece of news: Pope Benedict XVI was one of the masterminds behind the effort to cover up sex abuse scandals from priests. The BBC is airing a documentary tonight which clarifies this damning allegation, by pointing to an ultra secret document composed by Ratzinger calling for an abuse case to be buried, and for witnesses, victims, and any one else involved to be threatened with excommunication if they talked about it.

I want to make something very clear to Catholics at this moment: your institution is corrupt, evil, broken, and unworthy of affiliation. There is no reason to trust what the Pope does is guided by God; that such a despicable human being should hold the most holy office demonstrates just how vile your institution really is. Every single Catholic needs to abandon this system, stop going to church, and most definitely stop giving these fuckheads any money. I am not saying this in a glib way. If you want to know what a fatal blow to any institution looks like, this is it.

Imagine you are a fan of the store “Bed, Bath and Beyond”. You love the selection of home furnishings, and you’ve been a customer for years. One day, you are told that a significant proportion of store employees were secretly molesting your kids, and store managers were covering up these scandals and transferring these offenders to different locations throughout the country. Worse still, the president of the company had written a super secretive memo that stated all of these abuses needed to be silenced and that all victims had to be threatened in order to ensure they did not go to authorities. Would you continue to give this store your money? Would you tell your friends about how wonderful this store was, and recommend it to your family?

If this was happening in any other powerful institution, then trust in the organization would be shattered, and everyone would abandon it. However, because this is religion, we’re giving this one a “get out of jail free card”. Well, I say enough. I accuse any individual who still swears allegiance to Catholicism of being part of the mechanism that has led to child abuse. If you’ve ever given the Church even one dime, that is some of the money they have been using to continue to abuse little kids. Each person that trusts this institution needs to take a hard look at themselves. Is it really worth even one child suffering? Can you honestly tell me this vile, corrupt, and sick institution is worthy of being saved? The corruption and stink of evil can never be cleaned. There will always remain a secret fraternity of corrupt men with power who do as they please, content in their belief their actions are divinely ordained, and therefore acceptable. Ratzinger did what he did because he believes the Institution is more important than the countless children who have been raped over the centuries (don’t suddenly think child abuse is anything new for the church).

I don’t care if people believe in Jesus; I honestly don’t. But this is a belief that does not require a gigantic, sick, twisted organization like the Roman Catholic Church to exist. You can have Jesus in your heart and mind without the need for Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes. So long as you abandon your allegiance to this institution, I have no beef with you. Any minute you give these people money, you are allowing this to go on. No amount of ‘cleanup’ will ever expose the people involved, nor will it ever completely stop the abuse that is happening, and that will happen in the future. This institution needs to go the way of the dodo bird, and with this final revelation of just how high the corruption extends, you now have final proof of just how rotten the Catholic Church truly is. I personally feel sick to my stomach, and any mild amount of tolerance or even respect that I may have had is eroded. These monsters have declared war on our children, our laws, and our morality with impunity. We should not let this go unpunished.

The real naughty list

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here’s a secretive branch of the Catholic church’s court called the Apostolic Penitentiary that has everyone talking these days. It dates back to the 11th century, and oversees issues involving the forgiveness of serious sin. Since Catholicism places so much importance on the forgiveness of sin, there had to be a list of the worst ones, and who could forgive them.

Since this is a fairly ancient organization, the crimes we now view as horrible in today’s society just aren’t considered very important. The sins of murder and even genocide don’t even make the cut, so they can be handled by regular priests and bishops. It’s the sins of taking part in an abortion, abusing the confidentiality of confession, a priest having sex with someone and then offering forgiveness for the act, and the desecrating the Eucharist are the most serious offenses imaginable.

This list is so fucking weak it’s hard to believe it’s not some April Fool’s joke or something. The fact they consider spitting on a tiny piece of bread worst than the killing of an entire people literally enrages me. If your religion can’t even put its priorities straight, what the hell kind of belief system do you have here? Quaint little rituals and myths have no business being considered more egregious than murder, genocide, rape, or torture. I think it’s time these guys stopped running around playing dress up and started focusing on the real problems in the world. A blogger putting a rusty nail through a holy cracker seems like hardly something worth making much of a fuss over. Did they suddenly forget there are all kinds of atrocities going on in different parts of the globe?

Every time you don’t recycle, baby Jesus cries

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Ok, well, maybe baby Jesus doesn’t cry, but that hasn’t stopped the Vatican from including failure to recycle as one of the new deadly sins.

In case you were unaware of what a deadly sin is, it’s a ticket straight to hell for eternity (remember the sins of envy, gluttony, and greed? They’re still there, but there have been some additions) . So, if you threw out your soda can in the garbage rather than the recycle bin, you might be bunkmates with Hitler.

If you need further proof that the Vatican is insane, consider the fact that it isn’t a deadly sin to forbid AIDS-ridden Africans from putting a small rubber sheath on their penis. It also wasn’t a sin, until recently it seems, to molest little boys, although technically, it still isn’t a deadly sin to cover it up.

The hypocrisy of the Catholic Church isn’t a surprise to anyone, especially me. I experienced it firsthand in my small French-Canadian hometown, when at funerals the priest would sing hymns about our greed and selfishness, all the while passing around the collection plate and enjoying his swanky well decorated house. But this latest effort to force people to recycle or face eternal punishment demonstrates just how twisted their view of humanity is. Do I need the threat of Hell to make me care about the environment? No. I do it because the Earth is my home, and unlike my religious, Armageddon wishing neighbor, I don’t expect Jesus to come down from the clouds and fix all my problems.

I’d like to revise the new deadly sins and add my own. Here’s my list:

1. It is a deadly sin to scare people into complacency
2. It is a deadly sin to lie to people about the origins of the Universe, and to suppress information and findings that give us a greater understanding of the Cosmos.
3. It is a deadly sin to allow your narrow religious views to interfere with the well being of others. It is also a sin to make people believe that if they don’t think the way they do, they will burn in a lake of fire forever.