Tag Archives: catholics

Vatican “punishes” child rapist by barring him from saying mass

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If I was a pedophile, I’d make sure to seek employment from the Vatican. I mean, how many institutions react to you raping a child with such leniency? Even when you get caught with your pants down, the worst you can expect is a slap on the wrist and a nice vacation in their pathetic “rehabilitation” centers (which is nothing more than a glorified retreat).

Take Father Fons Eppink, a Dutch bishop who served in Kenya for instance. When he was discovered in 2009 to have raped a young Kenyan boy, he was barred from saying Mass in public for 18 months, and the Vatican conveniently failed to notify any authorities of any crime. Case closed, right?

Apparently, it’s still possible for Eppink to be charged for the crime in the Netherlands, so long as charges are actually laid down. Since the Vatican knows exactly what crimes were committed and how, this is the perfect opportunity for them to show their “commitment” to prosecuting offenders. How much do you want to bet they actually protect this fucking scumbag instead?

Spain’s stolen babies

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If child rape wasn’t enough bad karma for you, try this one for size: Catholic run hospitals in Spain took part in a massive baby kidnapping campaign that lasted over 4 decades. When a fan of the show sent me the link I was too dumbstruck to believe it at first. I mean, how much evil shit can one organization do, and when will I stop being so naïve?

It turns out that during the regime of Francisco Franco, the government had a policy of taking babies away from political opponents in order for Franco to keep a tight leash on his country. After his death in 1975 (yeah, Spain was under the boot of a fascist dictator for a while after the war), the practice is said to have continued well into the 1980′s and perhaps even beyond.

Doctors, nurses, nuns and priests are all suspected of forming part of an organized network that told mothers their children had died during, or straight after, birth. Campaigners said they believed many thousands of cases of stolen babies would eventually come to light.

It’s hard to say how many babies got kidnapped. Estimates range from 30,000 to as many as 300,000, but I’m inherently suspicious of the latter. The government is still refusing to conduct an investigation, even as pressure mounts from hundreds of “stolen” babies. These victims have been politely told to make their own investigation into the matter, which is essentially a big “fuck off”. Spain is apparently still very sore about all the crazy shit that went on back in the day.

How fucking messed up is it that the Catholic Church in Spain not only participated in the crime under Franco, but continued long after he was dead? My head is still spinning here. Are these clowns still convinced that they are in a position to lecture humanity on morality?

Philadelphia archdiocese still rampant with pedophiles

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The archdiocese in Philadelphia is in serious trouble. Since 2005, they’ve been subject to 2 grand jury reports that found rampant sexual abuse on the part of over 100 priests. The first report, which found 63 priests have been involved in some form of ritualistic abuse, provided no convictions since the statute of limitations had run its course. Another recent report found another 37 priests who had either raped or acted inappropriately with minors, and while some steps have been taken to try and get convictions, most are still under the employ of the Church, and some are still in active duty.

The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — “on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,” as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago.

Lots of Catholics in Philly are having problems reconciling their faith with the news the Church appears to have little concern for the well-being of their children. Had they bothered to actually study the thing, they would have found this behavior isn’t at all recent; we’re all just more aware now.

When the archdiocese learns of reports of sexual abuse, it is now supposed to report them to the district attorney, which is what led to the most recent grand jury investigation. Extensions on the statute of limitations also made prosecutions possible this time.

This, at least, is an encouraging sign. The Church’s policy of secrecy has always relied on the fact there is a 10 year statue of limitation on sexual abuse once the victim reaches adulthood. Personally I’ve never understood why it’s necessary to limit the amount of time a pedophile can be prosecuted, especially considering sex abuse victims are traumatized for years, sometimes decades. That’s slowly changing, and yet convictions for these bastards is moving glacially slow. Maybe it might go a little faster if their idiot sheep stopped giving them a bunch of money all the time. Just sayin’.

Catholics Come Home

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Catholics have taken a page from Evangelical Christians and are actively trying to recruit people back to the faith. After the shellacking they’ve received amidst all the sex scandals, they’re looking for a little PR work, and they’ve found it in “Catholics Come Home“.

The site promises to convert you to, or back to Catholicism by answering a few pathetic questions, and glossing over any fact that looks to be embarrassing. It tries to present the faith as though for the past 2000 years it’s been a model organization. There doesn’t seem to be any information on Inquisitions, Crusades, or the persecution of Jews. Guess they forgot about those historical “oopsies”

Some of their quotes are hilariously out of touch:

the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “There are not even 100 people in this country who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they think the Catholic Church to be.”

I’m pretty fucking sure the Church’s history of protecting child rapists from prosecution has probably made more than 100 people hate the Catholic Church, man. Of course, Sheen died in 1979, just about the time that some of his coworkers were busy in Boston fondling kids left and right. Hear no evil, see no evil, right?

Also, if you’re unsure whether or not your own faith will continue to vilify homosexuality, rest assured Catholicism promises to never stop their campaign of false information and bigotry:

From our web site you will learn about homosexuality and chastity. By developing an interior life of chastity, which is the universal call to all Christians, one can move beyond the confines of the homosexual identity to a more complete one in Christ…

In other words, if you’re gay, you too can be accepted into the Catholic Church if you forever deny your sexual being and love Jesus instead. Sure, he might not cuddle you at night, and he certainly won’t tickle your balls, but you can rest easy knowing your invisible friend has made it impossible for you to live a fulfilled and full life. Hurray!

Aussie atheist kids forced to take scripture class

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I remember when I was a kid, I went to the only English elementary school in my hometown. Because of some stupid laws forcing most children to attend French school in my province, the only way to avoid this was by attending a Catholic school. Try as they might, they utterly failed to instill anything other than complete disdain for religion. Their pathetic religion failed to impress me even as a child, but that doesn’t mean I was a happy camper having this garbage shoved down my throat.

In a sense I’m happy that things worked out the way they did. As religious as the school was, it was pretty mild compared to the way some curricula are devised. Take South Coast, Australia. It seems atheist children are being forced to attend scripture class, even though their non-Christian religious counterparts are exempt from this torture.

One parent told the ABC her daughter came home distressed after being told God is going to burn the world, while another parent says her child walked out of class when the religious instructor claimed he could ‘cure’ homosexuals.

Man, I’m proud of that little guy that walked out of the class. There’s a fucking brave kid! It takes balls to stand up to people; most folks would have sit there quietly raging. Hearing that story at least makes me hopeful in the future, the next generation won’t stand for the kind of bigotry that’s still so prevalent today.

Religion continues to fight progress in France

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If you thought a country like France was free from the influence of religion on their science programs, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. The government was planning on easing restriction on embryonic cell research, but the Catholic Church lobbied hard to prevent this, and it appears they’ve had some success.

“The Catholics have succeeded in imposing their view on embryos and seem to be succeeding in their attack on this method,” François Olivennes, a leading fertility expert, told Europe 1 radio. “We already have a very retrograde law compared to those in Spain, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands and all of Scandinavia. Nothing is advancing.”

This can of worms was opened after scientists produced a number of stem cells for a child suffering from a rare blood disorder. And because the Catholic Church opposes abortion due to some confused interpretation of their mythology book, they feel compelled to arrest the development of life saving technology.

If they were still in control, do you have any doubt medical science would essentially grind to a halt? I think this nonsense is a wakeup call for Western countries. Our religious institutions are effectively preventing a vital branch of science from progressing simply because of their idiotic dogmas. In their deluded minds they think they are saving “babies” from annihilation, but in reality they only further our misery in their tireless efforts to save a few blastulas.

Confessions made easy!

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Too busy to head on over to your Church to confess your “sins”? Don’t worry; the Catholic Church has endorsed a new app that allows you to do it right from your iPhone with Confession: A Roman Catholic App. We live in an interesting time, people.

For those of you worried your disgusting or totally inappropriate behavior might be casually read by a family member or friend, it’s password protected:

Designed to be used in the confessional, this app is the perfect aid for every penitent. With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance. Individuals who have been away from the sacrament for some time will find Confession: A Roman Catholic App to be a useful and inviting tool.

Amazing. You can choose from over 7 different acts of contrition, and add sins not already listed (for those of you that have done some really fucked up shit).

I feel like a fool for not getting on this App bandwagon sooner. If you can charge 2 bucks a pop to make people dance around like monkeys for their perceived sin, surely I can make one that’s equally stupid and make a fortune, right?

Aid monies used to pay for Pope’s UK visit

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If you’re unaware of this, I apologize in advance for increasing the amount of catecholamines (that’s a chemical neurotransmitter secreted by your amygdala) circulating in your brain.

Remember a few months back, when the Pope decided to come to Britain and the tap was picked up by taxpayers? Well, it turns out a big chunk of the costs actually came from the Department for International Development (about 2 million pounds of it to be exact). That’s the same department responsible for using funds to help developing countries financially.

If you’re wondering how they can justify taking money away from the poor to subsidize one of the wealthiest organization in the world, you forget government officials are masters of bullshit:

DFID said it was one of a number of government departments that part – funded the Pope’s visit.

“Our contribution recognized the Catholic Church’s role as a major provider of health and education services in developing countries. This money does not constitute official development assistance and is therefore additional to the Coalition Government’s historic commitment to meet the 0.7 per cent UN aid target from 2013.”

The committee also warned that the higher priority being given in aid spending to war zones and other fragile states would make it harder to be sure taxpayers’ cash was being well spent.

Oh, I see. Because aid monies are occasionally embezzled by corrupt governments, it’s really no big deal, right? You might as well give it to a guy who literally eats on gold plates and has precious jewels woven into his clothing. Sounds totally reasonable to me!

The total cost of the Pope’s visit ended up costing you over £10 million, and in a time when the UK is considering cutting vital education services in order to make up for shortfalls in the budget. The public should be outraged over this complete waste of everyone’s money. Next time the Pope wants to take a trip somewhere, I think it’s just wiser to deny him entry unless he wants to pay for his own fucking vacation. Is that really too much to ask?

Catholic School Board Chair compares LGBT group to Nazis

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I’m exhausted with all the crazy bigotry and homophobia coming out of every conceivable Catholic institution. They simply refuse to accept the fact some human beings have a sexual attraction to members of the same gender. Of course, they all deny their obvious homophobia and assume it’s society that has the problem, not them. Clearly, these aren’t the kind of folks who are accustomed to accepting objective reality.

So imagine my utter disgust when I read a Catholic school in Ontario, Canada not only refused to allow a Gay-Straight Alliance club to exist on school grounds, but had one of the board chairs (an ignorant and spiteful woman named Alice Anne LeMay) compare LGBT students to Nazis:

We don’t have Nazi groups either,” she mused in an interview with Canadian LGBT publication Xtra!. “Gay-straight alliances are banned because they are not within the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

To be fair, had there been a Nazi group, they might have had more luck getting sanctioned; let’s not forget the Vatican signed an agreement with Hitler’s regime that made them the official religion of Germany. So technically speaking, I guess Nazism is more in line with the teaching of Catholicism than tolerance, compassion and understanding.

Jesus wants to give you Hepatitis

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When you’re a Catholic priest, one of your supposed powers is the ability to transform wine into the blood of your dead Savior. This supposed divine skill is called “transubstantiation”, and it’s about the lamest power you could confer on anyone. I’ve always been surprised parishioners believe this happens, since they should be able to tell it’s definitely wine they are drinking during Communion. I guess you can’t under-estimate the power of delusion.

The other problem with the whole act of Communion: everyone is drinking from the same cup. It sounds like a gigantic health hazard, and surprise: it turns out a few hundred people in New York may have contracted Hepatitis A during Christmas Mass.

So what are the symptoms of Hep A?

While hepatitis A often has no visible symptoms in children, in adults it often exhibits itself in the form of flu-like symptoms. Other symptoms include tiredness, nausea, vomiting, pain in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, jaundice, dark-colored urine and, in severe cases, liver failure.

Wow, that sounds like it sucks hard. Surely there must be a treatment for this other than praying, right?

There is no treatment for hepatitis A once one has developed the infection, though if you know you’ve been exposed, Mahan recommends getting a vaccine promptly

The Lord works in mysterious ways!

The Pope goes on the offense

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The best defense is a good offense, and no one knows this like the Catholic Church. The Vatican is busy trying to get everyone to forget they’ve been raping kids en masse, so they’re going for the same strategy they’ve always employed when things get dicey: Find a scapegoat.

The key to finding a good scapegoat is to first find someone who is less popular than you are. What’s less popular than child molesters? Well, not much really, but it depends on where you live. There’s still one group around the world generally despised for no good reason: non-believers.

Pope Benedict voiced the Catholic Church’s deep concern over “hostility and prejudice“ against Christianity in Europe on Thursday, saying creeping secularism was just as bad as religious fanaticism…The Pope put what the Vatican has termed “aggressive secularism”, such as gay marriage and restrictions on religious symbols such as crucifixes, nativity scenes and other traditions, on the same level as religious fanaticism.

You hear that, gay marriage advocates? You’re on the same level as the terrorist who straps C4 and shrapnel to his body and blows himself up on a bus full of school children! By trying to get the rest of the world to stand by your deep anal dicking, you’ve thrown the whole world in peril, and it could even start a full blown global conflict. These recent attacks on nativity scenes remind me of when those poor girls in Afghanistan had acid thrown in their face for daring to educate themselves. The two are morally equivalent, don’t you know. Seriously, what did that little plastic baby Jesus ever do to you, atheists?

“The same determination that condemns every form of fanaticism and religious fundamentalism must also oppose every form of hostility to religion that would restrict the public role of believers in civil and political life,” he said.

“It should be clear that religious fundamentalism and secularism are alike in that both represent extreme forms of a rejection of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularity.”

Yes, the Church should know a thing or two about pluralism. Their belief in the supremacy of their own religion has never caused genocide, torture of women, random murder of thousands of Jews periodically in Medieval Europe, and a host of other terrible shit, right? Truly these religious leaders are the guardians of plurality! Secularism has never allowed people of different faith (regardless of how dumb they are) to coexist peacefully. No, for that to happen, we needed monotheistic religions to be in charge.

Seriously, can you fucking believe this guy?

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 177

This week on the show, Ryan and I talk about the Catholic Church and why the Ratzingers are monsters, and we talk about the tragic death of Kim Tinkham who was convinced dieting and wishful thinking could cure her breast cancer.

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 177
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Vatican Cardinal thinks atheism is “irrational”

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A man who dresses in red robes and calls himself by a special name believes individuals who reject the notion of unsupported supernatural claims are irrational. Walter Brandmuller may never have played Dungeons & Dragons, but if he did, he might realize there is nothing particularly special about his title; definitely not enough to pretend to know anything about objective reality. When, however, has that stopped these clowns from pretending they do?

He’s written a book, presumably based on his expertise in fucking nonsense, and claims belief is rational. Why? Because miracles happen of course!

The cardinal addressed the topic of miracles, recalling what happened in Calanda, a small town not far from Saragossa, Spain, where there was a youth named Miguel Pellicer whose leg was amputated. Two years later and despite the difficulty in walking, the youth undertook the journey to the Marian shrine of Santa Maria del Pilar in Saragossa.

Wow, what an incredible event. It must have been documented by some pretty serious scientists, right? Oh, it happened almost 400 years ago, way before the invention of modern medicine… Well, that’s pretty convenient, isn’t it?

“In reality, the target of the atheists is not so much God but the Church, the Pope and the Vatican,” said the prelate. He added that the Church has been attacked since the beginning of the Christian era, the Pope for 2000 years and the Vatican since its existence.

To be fair, how can atheists “attack” something which doesn’t exist? You don’t see me running around with a baseball bat trying to fight evil leprechauns, so I’ve had to set my sights on something that actually is real, and that’s the history of abuse, murder, torture, moral bankruptcy and child rape of the Catholic Church. I’m so sorry my disdain for your evil organization makes you feel so upset, Wally. Tell you what: hand over all the pedophiles you’re still harboring, abandon your dangerous rejection of condoms in Africa, and fight for women’s rights instead of making them reproductive slaves and maybe I’ll leave you alone.

On second thought, fuck it.

Christian propaganda against same-sex marriage

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Ok, just to be clear, it’s doubtful most of you guys will be able to stomach the entirety of this video. The video was produced by The Knights of Columbus in conjunction with the Archdioceses of Minnesota. It was distributed shortly before the November 2nd elections happened to scare bigoted old people into voting for Republican candidates who would ensure gays and lesbians would not have the same right to marry as other citizens.

My favorite line in the whole video series is in Part 2, where one guy said:

“If same sex marriage becomes the law, then those who oppose increasinly will be viewed as bigots.”

What exactly do you think the meaning of the word is, moron?

Bigoted Cardinal accuses gays of discrimination

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You have to love Catholics: the more they are exposed as the homophobic, sexual predator harboring bigots they are, the more they go on the offensive, accusing everyone in sight of “discriminating” against them. The Vatican knows a good offense is the best defense (blood libel and the Crusades comes to mind here), and this is just them playing the old “blame game”. It doesn’t matter that the only ones actually discriminating is the Church; this isn’t exactly an organization that gives a shit about annoying things like “the truth”. The latest outrageously ignorant shit coming out of the Catholic Church is a statement by a Cardinal that Christians are being persecuted by gays, and no, this isn’t some kind of sick joke:

Freedom of thought and expression is under threat from the gay rights movement, said Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, the retired archbishop of Bologna, in memoirs that are published on Thursday. And the result is that those people who disagreed with the homosexual agenda are being ostracized by society, he said.

Is it still permitted … to be faithful and consistent disciples of the teaching of Christ … or must we prepare ourselves for a new form of persecution, promoted by homosexual activists, by their ideological accomplices, and even by those whose task it should be to defend the intellectual freedom of all, including Christians?”

Damn the gays and their bullshit agenda to gain the same rights as their hetero counterparts! I mean, Christians should have the intellectual freedom to discriminate against jews, umm, I mean gays without fear of being called antisemitic (sorry, I mean homophobic), am I right?

This whole thing makes me think about an article written by a young gay teen who warns of the psychological impact of being vilified and hated your whole life.

And all of you who don’t have to undergo this horror daily, it’s up to you to help. Don’t stand by and let hatred go on. Don’t sit back and watch your friends be discriminated against. Reach out and help those who might need it.

That article, by the way, was taken down by administrators at his school in Minnesota. You can’t have this kind of gay propaganda floating around the Internet! Why, it might just make suicidal teens think twice about blowing their heads off from all the pain, shame and isolation they feel. Better to let guys like Cardinal Biffi continue to “express” their intellectual freedom unhindered, right?

Or maybe all of this is a call to arms for the rest of us who allow pieces of shit like Biffi to spew his filthy hatred without consequence. Let’s defend our friends and loved ones who have to battle against these fuckfaces, shall we?