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.
Seems like every other day Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are protesting something. This week it’s the arrest of an Orthodox woman who was slowly starving her child to death. It’s believed she has a form of Munchausen syndrome, keeping her child sick in order to gain sympathy from others. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are extreme isolationists, and consider any governmental interference in their affairs worthy of protest. In this case, they’ve taken the side of the mother, despite the fact the mother had even tried to disconnect her child’s feeding tubes at the hospital.
The hilarious thing about this situation is it embodies the major problem of religious belief; that it’s often impossible to differentiate between serious mental illness and strong religiosity. The two carry the same symptoms: intense paranoia, irrational behavior, and feelings of prosecution. Rather than be horrified by the neglect of a child, the protesters are outraged because the government became involved in ‘their affairs’. These are the same assholes who threw dirty dippers and stones at police for opening a parking structure on a Saturday. Clearly, they are a reasonable bunch.
I’m sick and tired of trying to pretend I respect the idiotic beliefs of deeply delusional humans. It’s one thing to hold your beliefs privately, but quite another to enforce your beliefs on others. I would ask them kindly to fuck off, but these morons are too far up their own asses to notice the rest of the world does not give a shit about their backwards ideology.
One of my favorite movie moments from childhood is the scene from Rocky 4 where Rocky Balboa keeps getting repeatedly punched in the face by Ivan Drago (perhaps Doulph Lundgren’s greatest role), until finally, exhausted from punching, Drago is defeated. Rocky 4 was a true 80s cheese movie, complete with endless montages, pointless moralizing about steroid use, and of course, America winning the day. Despite its obvious flaws, the movie tries to covey the idea that no matter how many blows you take, you can still come back as long as you have enough sheer determination.
The Catholic Church must feel like Rocky right now. Every other day, some new allegation of clerical abuse is made, and you have to wonder how many more blows they can take to the face before they finally fall. The latest punch in the mouth comes from this article in the Independent, which deals with an abuse scandal of The Legion of Christ, an ultra-conservative, ultra-secretive sect of the church run by Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. A well connected and charismatic figure, Maciel was close to Pope Jean Paul II, and many considered him a saintly man beyond all reproach. As usual, this smokescreen belied his seemingly insatiable thirst for young boys:
A year after Nuestro Padre’s death in 2008, the Vatican announced an investigation into the Legion. An unnamed official told America’s National Catholic Reporter newspaper that the total number of Maciel’s abuse victims was “more than 20 and less than 100″. As a team of cardinals opens the locked cupboards of an organization that prided itself on secrecy – all new recruits had to take a unique private vow (abolished by Benedict in 2007) never to speak ill of the founder and to report to superiors anyone who did – the Catholic Church is once more mired in a scandal about the sexual abuse of minors, and the abuse of power.
When reports of abuse started coming in, the church did what they do best. They ignored it completely:
Then, in 1976, Father Juan Vaca…formally reported Maciel to his bishop for sexually abusing him from the age of 12. This was a time before the sexual abuse of minors by priests had been exposed. In 1978, fearing that his accusations had been swept under the carpet, Vaca sent a long statement about what had happened to him direct to the Vatican, and even received an acknowledgement. And then, nothing.
They story goes on to detail the restrictive and suffocating control Maciel has had on his followers. The Legion of Christ was no small institution; it had an annual budget of more than 435 million pounds, and ‘Our Father, or Nuestro Padre’ (as he was called by his followers) enjoyed a multitude of personal luxuries, including private suites, cars, and anything he desired to eat. Truly, here was a child molester living in paradise, able to control and manipulate his victims using the power of their faith to bend them to his will.
I’m not surprised this kind of stuff happens so often; the Church’s long policy of silence and secrecy makes it the perfect place for child molesters to hide. I’m not suggesting that all priests abuse children; but their beloved institution is corrupt to the core, with abusers at the highest levels of power. What I find surprising is how dismissive Catholics seem about this. No matter how many scandals come out, people still bring their children into the fold. Scary.
With Ireland still reeling over the Ryan report, many Catholics are simply tired of the lies, the abuse, and the hypocrisy of the church. For those ready to leave the fold, countmeout.ie offers a way for people to officially leave the Church.
Their mission statement is clear: they want to send a loud message to both the Catholic Church and the government that religion has no place in government. According to the site, most primary schools and hospitals are being run by the Church, despite being state-funded. In light of the fact this organization can’t seem to stop molesting young boys, I wouldn’t even let them run a hot dog stand.
So far about 551 people have defected, although I’m sure the number will increase in a few weeks when another abuse report (this time on the Archdioceses) comes out. If any of you know people who are teetering on the edge, maybe this is the push they need to send a clear message to this corrupt and vile institution.
You know what’s sad? I’m not shocked or surprised by terrible stories of priests molesting children. It’s so rampant there are weeks when I simply refuse to post these depressing stories simply because there isn’t much left to say about it. It’s a profession that seems to invite pedophiles, not only because of the unprecedented access to children, but also because of the ability to ‘spiritually’ bully them into silence. It’s a tactic that’s employed so often, I think it’s about time we stop giving these kinds of powers to anyone at all.
Our latest piece of shit pervert is Benito Catello, who ran a ‘church’ from his home, and catered almost exclusively to minors. Although the guy was in a wheelchair and had an oxygen tank, he was still able to coerce and force kids to have sex with him, threatening them with eternal hell fire if they talked. He’s being charged with 27 counts of sexual assault, and he’s already confessed the allegations are true. He claims the Holy Spirit made him sexually abuse those kids. I guess in his deluded mind, that’s how he justified it.
I’m not about to suggest every single priest out there is a child molester, but does it have to be so many of them? In the US alone, roughly 4% of Catholic priests have been suspected at some time of being pedophiles . That’s 4,392 men who were accused of sexual abuse. Of those, only 6% were ever convicted. Considering how difficult it is to get victims to come forward to report abuse, those are not encouraging numbers.
The Catholic Church has attempted to prevent such high rates of abuse by educating children to watch out for signs of pedophilia (like avoiding being alone with priests), but all this does is put the responsibility on children, and not on the institution. Hey parents, if you really want to protect your kids, try avoiding church altogether. That’s the simpler way to prevent abuse.
Things are not looking good for Catholicism in Ireland. The Ryan report is a gigantic bleeding wound that shows no signs of healing, and it seems to have seriously shifted the public’s opinion about religion’s place in society.
A poll conducted by Newstalk, an Irish radio station, found 70% of respondents wanted primary schools to be run by the state, and more than half felt religion had no business in schools. Here’s what some people were saying:
“It’s about time that Ireland became a secular state. Theocracy has had its day here”
“The Church can run schools if they want, but they should receive zero funding from the State.”
If things look bad for the Church, they are about to get worse, as another report detailing the handling of sex-abuse allegations against priests in Dublin is about to be released. Considering the history of abuse scandals in Ireland, I’m sure the over 1,000 pages will strike another deadly blow to the already battered institution.
The only thing remaining is the priests and nuns involved in the abuse scandal be put in jail. What we need now is justice, not just secularism. The government needs to act, and I’m hopeful this new report will finally help families that were victims of abuse find some degree of closure.
For those of you deluded enough to think religion is the greatest thing in the world, and faith, prayer and well wishing has any real effect on the natural world, allow me to point you in the direction of science. If you’re sick, you need science. If you’re hurt, injured, or have an infection, you need science. Hell, if you want something as simple as clean drinking water and the ability to have it on tap, you need science!
Most of us don’t even think about the number of times our lives have been saved by advances in scientific understanding. Most of it is invisible and automatic; from inoculations to ward off deadly diseases (smallpox and polio, anyone?), to antibiotics to help get rid of otherwise deadly infections; the fact that life expectancy has jumped from 40 to 75 is entirely because of the steady march forward of the most powerful and progressive contribution to our understanding of the natural world: science.
Still, plenty of morons aren’t convinced it does anything. These people actively choose to reject it, fearful of its powerful influence on society. They prefer the comfort and certainty of religion, even though they enjoy the benefits of a greater quality and longevity of life due to it. Here is yet another tragic example of parental ignorance based entirely on religious belief. Brent and Raylene Worthington believe in ‘Christian Science’, a fancy way of saying they reject modern science in favor of prayer. When their 18 month old baby contracted pneumonia and had an infection in her blood, they chose not to call a doctor and instead try to use their religion to cure her. For months while she was horribly ill they refused to seek medical help, and predictably, little Ava didn’t make it. Of course, they did have the intelligence to immediately call a lawyer after her death, so we’ll presume although they are ignorant of the power of science, they certainly are aware of the power of the law.
Now this tragedy wasn’t a quick death. The details are pretty gruesome, including the fact that a lump had started growing on her neck for months, and probably impaired her breathing. Both parents insist they were raising their children according to their Christian beliefs, and we are supposed to be sympathetic that they don’t believe in medical treatment, enough to acquit them of child neglect and manslaughter, presumably.
Saving little Ava would have been as simple as draining the cyst and giving her a few doses of antibiotics to cure her blood infection. Instead, we have a dead little girl and her two idiot parents to punish. Their inaction led directly to her death, and the treatments available that could have saved her life would have taken less than an hour to complete. That, my friends, is the power of science. While they prayed for months with no effect, a simple visit to the doctor’s would have saved her life.
What a fucking waste.
I never thought I’d see the day where the Pope isn’t welcome in Ireland. But hey, a 2,900 page report detailing the sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children by the Catholic Church is enough to make even the strongest believer feel overwhelmed. A new survey reports that until the current Pope does more to compensate the victims, the majority of Ireland doesn’t want him visiting.
I got news for you: even if the Pope does apologize, it doesn’t change the fact that Benedict XVI, prior to holding the position of Pope, was the main guy in charge of investigating child abuses in the clergy, and his report suggested the Church keep quiet about it. In all likelihood, he would have probably heard about what was going on in Ireland, but did nothing to stop the abuses there and elsewhere.
It’s an encouraging sign religious belief isn’t what it used to be in Ireland. Perhaps in a couple more decades, it’ll be as secular as the rest of Europe. We can only hope…
Remember a few months ago when I reported Colleen Hauser had fled Minnesota after a judge had ordered her son to undergo chemotherapy? You may remember them as the family who refused to use conventional medicine to treat their son’s deadly Hodgkin’s lymphoma, opting instead to follow the ‘teachings’ of a fake Native American religion called ‘Nemenhah’ (you can find out more about them and their founder, a man with a history of fraud, right here). Well, the story kind of fell off the grid (my bad), but I’m happy to report the parents have come to their senses and have agreed to follow the judge’s ruling.
Colleen spent about a week on the run before she was convinced alternative therapies would not do the trick (she was hiding out in California, the capital of New Age). It’s a good thing too; Daniel’s doctor argued the boy needs immediate and aggressive chemo in order to properly fight off his cancer.
It’s nice to know this story has a happy ending, assuming of course he responds well to the chemo, which seems likely. Kind of makes you hopeful other terribly deluded people can come to their sense with enough persuasion. Who says TGA never has any good news?
