This week, Ryan and I talk about botched home circumcisions, hate laws, and the annoying tendency of people who have had Near Death Experiences to annoy the piss out of everyone.
You’ve got to love Bill Donohue; no matter what the Catholic Church does, Bill is there to defend them to the death. Here he is claiming that the abuse of thousands of kids in Ireland at the hands of priests is an almost complete fabrication, and all of the victims are just a bunch of money hungry gold diggers. Thanks to the hard work of insane douchebags like “Dr.” Bill here, atheists have to work a lot less hard to convince people to abandon their religion. Thanks for just being your crusty, ignorant self Billy-Boy!
What happens when you abuse a young girl for years, and you eventually get caught? You go to jail, right? Well, not if you’re too fat to fit in the cell! That’s what’s happened with child abuser Church Elder John William McConaghy, 66, who was convicted of all but 1 of the 21 charges against him. After receiving an anemic 12 months in jail, the judge was reluctant to send this fat piece of crap to jail.
His obesity, diabetes, ulcerated legs and MRSA infection were held to be exceptional circumstances.
Luckily, the prison was able to show that they could accommodate the fat fuck, and he was eventually sent to the slammer.
There is still a frighteningly large segment of the population that believes the Bible is a useful guide for every day living. Luckily, most of these misguided fools have never actually read the fucking Bible, so for the most part, we’re spared from the ill fate of anyone trying to live by the “Good Book”.
Once in a while, though, you run across a human being who hasn’t quite understood the concept of modern Germ Theory, and attempts to circumcise his 4 year old son on his kitchen floor with a razor blade. In case you want to know just how fantastically STUPID this particular human being is, consider the fact he had already tried it on himself and was admitted to the hospital when his foreskin turned black.
The father had been doing some research online for performing this kind of “surgery” (yes, sometimes the Internet really is shitty). His fundamentalist buddies encouraged him to use a product called Blood Stop, which sounds great until you realize they use this stuff on dogs. This douchebag (who can’t be identified for fear of embarrassing his children to death) couldn’t afford that medicine, so he bought the shit they give to horses instead.
The doctors eventually had to properly circumcise the child, because after a few days of the wound festering, they had to also remove a black, thick tarry substance from the boy’s penis. The dad has his wish, but in reaction the state took away his kids and put them in protective custody. So what does this guy do? He turns around and claims this is religious discrimination. He followed the logic of the Bible, and he wants this to be his constitutional right as a Canadian citizen.
You know what buddy? Fuck you. Seriously, you can’t almost kill your child with a botched attempt at circumcising him and then complain the government is unfair in protecting your other kids, too. You’re obviously not a smart man, and your religious mania places everyone around you at risk. No one stopped you when you fucked up your disaster of a circumcision. If you hate your own penis so much, so be it. The problem we have as a society isn’t how you practice your religion, it’s how you practice it on other people. When you forget about their welfare and place the desires of some invisible deity above those of your children, you’ve failed as a parent. It’s really that simple.
Child brides are a reality in the Middle East. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when this tradition started gaining wide acceptance, but one thing is for sure: Most Islamic countries (especially poorer ones) regard this practice as normal, even beneficial. Why wouldn’t they? Their own prophet, Mohammad, consummated his marriage with his favorite bride, Aisha, when she was only 9 years old (there’s considerable whitewashing when it comes to the issue of her age. In fact, even Wikipedia avoids mentioning it, an obvious pandering to Islamic apologetics). The story is either generally not discussed in the Islamic community, or if it is, it’s used as justification for this disgusting tradition.
CNN has the touching and painful story of little Nujood Ali, a 10 year old Yemeni girl who recently had to fight to divorce her much older abusive “husband”. She’s become somewhat of a celebrity, and her parents (the same people who basically sold her away to a pervert) are angry that her fame has not resulted in any money for them.
The most disturbing element in this story is under Sharia law, the husband had to be compensated financially for the divorce. So rather than go to jail for beating and raping this child, the courts have ordered Nujood to pay her husband more than 200 dollars. That’s a massive sum in a country where a significant portion of the population live off less than $1 a day.
Remember the tragic story of Kara Neumann? She was the 11 year old girl who died of complications due to diabetes while her Christian Science parents prayed for her. What was a highly treatable condition thanks to today’s modern medicine turned into second degree reckless homicide.
If you were hoping the judge was going to throw the book at them, get ready to be severely disappointed. All they got was 10 years probation, and they have to spend one month in jail every year for 6 years. It’s like going to camp for the summer, except rather than cooking marshmallows by the roaring fire, you’re trying to avoid getting corn-holed in the shower.
I’m glad the case is finally over and the parents are going to be punished, but in the end a little girl still died because of her parents’ ignorant beliefs. It’s frustrating this kind of thing keeps happening all the time, but until we stop believing in primitive superstitions, these types of tragedies will continue to be fairly common.
Have you ever wondered if there aren’t some churches that are a bit too inclusive? Sure, it might first seem like a good idea to accept anyone regardless of their past, but once in a while you have to know where to draw the line. Take the City of Refuge Worship Center, which plans to ordain a registered sex offender.
Mark Hourigan was convicted of raping an 11 year old boy, but ended up serving his prison term. No doubt in prison he did what most convicts do: he found religion.
If it’s any comfort (trust me, there isn’t any), officials claim that he won’t be ministering to children. They even got him to sign an agreement that he wouldn’t preach to children, which seems to me about as binding as the old “pinky swear”. Some of the (smarter) congregants have left as a result, which goes to show not everyone is deluded enough to think that a child rapist can be rehabilitated with only the power of the Lord.
I could be wrong of course, and Mark could have totally repented for his crimes. Call me close minded, but I’ve yet to hear about this kind of thing working out for everyone in the end. The Catholic Church tried the whole “use the Lord to fight off your sinful temptation” before, and it only made the abuse worse. My advice to these guys is pretty simple: don’t bring anybody that’s ever abused any kids in your organization, period. Is that really so hard to understand?
This week, Ryan and I talk about the Catholic church’s attempt to lower the statute of limitation on child abuse.
This week Ryan and I talk about all the hot weather here in Montreal, and why that’s making your podcasts all the better. Plus, we also talk about child brides, Steve Harvey, and Yale University Press and their decision to censor themselves.
There’s a bit of legislature floating around that is having a hard time becoming law. It’s called the Child Victim Act, and here is a great article talking about how the New York Catholic Conference, a Christian lobby group, is pushing to kill the act. The CVA is designed to extend the statute of limitation on child abuse by another five years, thus allowing abuse victims a longer “window” to come forward. Anyone who has ever been abused as a child will tell you how difficult a process this is, and the extra time is designed to accommodate for this difficulty.
Of course, Catholics are crying bloody murder, saying this extension will basically bankrupt the Church because of all the settlement payments they are having to dish out. Even if that was true, why the fuck should we care? Perhaps they should have thought about that before they started shuffling child molesters instead of bringing them to justice. No religion that practically institutionalizes child abuse should be exempt from the laws of the land. The fact the Church is even fighting this goes to show how they really feel about children.
The saddest thing is the collusion of the some of the faithful in vilifying the victims, and accusing them of trying to take the Church’s money. It’s a sad day when people identify more with the abusers than the abused. (thanks Kylyssa for the correction there) I’m not sure any of those people would feel the same if their own children were victims of abuse. Child abuse ruins people’s lives. That the Catholic church is fearful of losing money should concern no-one. If you’ve done the crime, you need to do the time. That’s all there is to it.
Superstitious beliefs are deadly. I know most of you in the Western World barely give this a second thought, but in many parts of the world, ancient and deadly rituals are still being practiced. In a small village in India, a 5 year old girl was lured into a field where she was decapitated by the local witchdoctor. He killed poor little Vandana Kumari in order to help a local man produce a male heir. Because a number of young boys had died in early childhood, a human sacrifice was apparently needed to “get rid of these problems”.
In rural parts of India, these kinds of superstitious rituals are still practiced, and the results are always tragic. When will human beings stop believing in the completely absurd? Why the fuck would chopping off a little girl’s head help someone have a male child?
The three men involved have been arrested, so I hope there will be justice for little Vandana’s parents. I would have preferred she lived a healthy productive life, but I guess I’ll have to settle for these douchebags to be in jail for a long time instead.
How long does it take to brainwash a human being into becoming a suicide bomber? About a month, apparently. If you want to know how messed up the Taliban is, you need to head over to the Independent and learn more about how they kidnap young boys at gunpoint and indoctrinate the shit out of them in their training camps.
The boys are taught your predictable “Pakistan is a tool of Western Oppression”, and shown videos of atrocities to entice them into a fervor of hatred and disgust. Even though many of these boys were returned home, many parents describe their children as horribly twisted and corrupt, a shadow of their former selves. Part of their brainwashing techniques involved instructing them that their own parents should be killed if they get in the way of their “glorious mission”.
I guess when life is pretty shitty, it’s fairly easy to twist their pain into hatred and eventually murder. Even though the Taliban is getting crushed by the army, many residents fear this victory is short lived, and they will be back in even greater numbers.
I won’t pretend I have the right answer as to the best way to deal with these psychos, but combating indoctrination requires a lengthy process of education and empathy building, something I doubt the Pakistani government is capable of doing. The Taliban is effectively creating a sleeper army to awaken when everyone think they are defeated. They are like a virus; just when you think it’s dead, the bastard mutates and takes out your entire family.
I think most of you know I’m not a big fan of Mother Teresa. I think she gives atheism a bad name, but that’s a whole other story altogether. I found her corrupt, nasty, and evil just like the institution she represents. What a surprise to find someone close to her was also a steaming pile of shit: Father Donald Maguire, a frequent spiritual advisor to Mother Teresa is facing charges of child molestation. Again.
You can read about the guy in this detailed article. I’ve written enough about why this kind of thing isn’t really surprising anymore, and why we need to look at all of these travesties with fresh eyes. It’s obvious people within his own organization knew something was up, since they kept on rotating him around (it’s the common practice to deal with these guys: send them to a new parish to enjoy fresh meat).
I had someone comment a little while ago who herself had been a victim of child molestation. In her case, it wasn’t by a priest, and she found a great deal of solace from the Church. She even tried to apologize for their behavior:
As a person who was molested myself, (not by a priest) I understand the psychological, emotional and physical trauma. Nothing will truly make those experiences go away, and the pain changes a person forever. I apologize to all who have been hurt by the wrong doings of Catholic Priests. I know that my apology is insignificant compared to the damage and the pain. Still. I apologize from the bottom of my heart for the pain you or your loved ones are going through. It is not what the Catholic church – it’s people as well as its leaders- hope to ever happen. If offense, hurt and disappointment is all that you have found in the church I am really, really sorry. I can tell you that the only way I’ve been able to cope with the trauma of what I went through is through the Catholic Church. The priests, deacons, and community at large have listened to me through my tears and have helped me begin my healing. And I am a better person for it today. Healing. Compassion. Forgiveness. This is what the Catholic church aims for. Please, forgive us when we fall short of our goal.
Jessica, I can appreciate the fact these guys helped you through a rough time. And of course most of the people involved are good, decent and caring; they are human for God’s sake. The point, however, is it’s not YOUR job to apologize, it’s THEIRS. And they need to do more than say “we’re sorry”. The entire organization is infested with these monsters, and all the church does is hide their indiscretions. There is nothing you can do to erase the pain and suffering countless children have suffered at the hands of these guys save one: stop supporting them. It won’t stop until you do, this I can promise you.
Ok, I want you to pretend that you just woke up from a coma, and you’ve developed near total amnesia. Not only do you not remember anything about yourself, but you’re also unfamiliar with any recent news or events. You do, however, maintain your own moral code of conduct, which still allows you to judge what is right and wrong (in other words, you aren’t a drooling invalid here).
Curious about the outside world, you begin to peruse the web in search of information, and happen to fall upon this little article (which has since been removed, please read the follow-up here). It details the fact that one of the head officials of the Catholic Church in Chicago was aware of over 25 priests who had been abusing young children, but had stayed silent about the abuse.
You certainly would be more than a little disappointed by the Catholic church; you’d be jumping up and down, furious with rage that 25 (try just counting to 25 to see how many that is!) priests in the Chicago region alone were abusing kids. You would be consumed by anger at the fact that even in this paltry article, there seem to be no names or arrests. “What the hell is going on here?”, you would wonder. Why is no one in jail? Basically you’d have a” Holy Shit” moment, one the rest of us desperately need to have.
Your next move would be to keep digging. You’d naturally wonder “are there other instances of priestly abuse out there?”. A simple search on Google would probably make you want to vomit with rage at how many kids around the world have been, or still are, abused by these robed monsters.
You’d probably be very confused as to why no one seems to be freaking out about this. Well, truth be told, we’re all so accustomed to it that it hardly surprises us anymore. We’ve become almost shell shocked, and because so many people still revere this crooked and disgusting institution, it’s not a big deal anymore.
Now I don’t want everyone to suddenly develop amnesia, but I did wish we could look these abuses with fresh eyes. This piece of shit bastard needs to rot in jail, along with all his molester buddies. I don’t care if he was not involved in the abuse; his silence was his crime, for it allowed these monsters to ruin the lives of so many countless children.
On a related note, I think I figured out how the Catholic Church can completely cut down on all child abuse: just enforce castration for priests. I mean, you’re not using it anyways, so why not get rid of it and we can stop worrying you’re going to keep forcing little kids to play with it.
Well, it looks like we’ve just lost some ground in the whole ‘faith-healing’ debate. Remember the Worthingtons? Their 15 month old baby died because they refused to bring her to a doctor when she developed pneumonia. Today, a jury has now found the couple not-guilty of manslaughter, although they did find them guilty of the lesser charge of criminal mistreatment, which carries a rather anemic maximum sentence of a year.
The jury was instructed to judge whether a ‘reasonable person’ would have asked for help, but they ultimately decided everyone has a different opinion of what ‘reasonable’ is, and that the Worthingtons acted reasonably within their own belief structure. It’s more of this relativistic bullshit that’s begun to infect our minds. We all know it’s unreasonable to think prayer alone can cure anybody (it’s why we have hospitals, folks). It’s also very unreasonable for parents to fail at their job of protecting their own child from death.
The real reason they got off is because the jury was afraid convicting the couple would intrude on people’s ability to practice their religion as they see fit. We’ve allowed two neglectful parents to walk simply because they ensconced themselves in the protective blanket of religion.
The Worthingtons aren’t done showing up in court, however. It turns out 4 months after little Ava died, her 16 year old uncle also croaked in their custody from an untreated urinary tract blockage. Clearly, these idiots need to be put behind bars before someone else fucking dies.
I wouldn’t have cared if either of these two morons had died of medical complications themselves. After all, I do still agree individuals should be free to do what they want with their own bodies. What I strongly disagree with is the idea that their beliefs should carry over to others. Their responsibility was towards the welfare of their child, one they were unable to perform because of their idiotic religious convictions.
I would hope that the next trial will finally see them brought to justice, but I doubt it. It seems juries are more swayed by religious freedom than they are by the preventable deaths of children.
