Two things about Pope Benedict’s planned visit to Malta have me smiling a bit; (1) the mayor of a small town has asked that a statue which looks like a dick be removed at the local airport for fear of offending the pontiff, and (2) a graffiti artist stenciled a few “pedobears” on the billboard marking his arrival, and the local news people have no idea what it implies. In case you’re hopelessly out of the loop, it’s a classic internet meme that was birthed in the often vile and twisted world of 4chan, and it’s a comedic reference to pedophilia (sometimes you have to laugh in order not to cry). The artist has succeeded in both confusing mainstream news sources while delighting us “hip” internet folks with his civil disobedience.

It must be nice to not have to answer to any authority whatsoever when you’ve committed a series of heinous crimes. While the secular world tries to grow enough balls to bring Pope Benedict XVI to justice (I really wouldn’t hold my breath, people), the pontiff is still free to try and play down the seriousness of the allegations against him and other senior officials in the Vatican. Recently, the Pope sent out a broadcast on Vatican radio praying for the victims of earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and for “all the victims of child abuse”.

Isn’t just like a Christian to do something wrong and then ask for forgiveness? It’s a lot easier than actually bothering to do the right thing or actually bothering to pay for your crimes. Hey, don’t they believe a 2000 year old dead Jewish guy has already paid for their past and future sins? Must be nice to not have to deal with anything and instead beg some invisible sky-daddy to be absolved.

During his address, he stated “From God comes the courage not to be intimidated by petty gossip”. Yes, I’m sure it takes a lot of courage for you to simply ignore your role in furthering abuse by priests, and harboring them from prosecution. You’re so brave! All that “petty gossip” about hundreds and thousands of kids being abused must really bother you when you’re enjoying all the luxuries afforded by your position.

Every time this sack of shit opens his mouth, he’s sending a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world that doesn’t believe in his fairytale bullshit. We’re too damn gutless here in the West to do anything about it, lest it offend people of “religious faith”. Yep, because he’s a religious leader, we’ll kick up some dust and condemn his actions, but it’s doubtful we’ll have the balls to do much more. If we could finally start standing up to these religious loonies, we would live in a much different world, that’s for damn sure.

Yes, I’ve always wanted to use a headline like this, and today seemed like the perfect time to do it. Plus it helps that it’s completely true; the New York Times has supposedly come up with definitive evidence that Ratzinger was not only aware of Reverend Peter Hullerman (formerly known only as “H”) had molested children and, rather than notify authorities, simply transferred him to another parish despite a letter saying he was still a potential “danger”.

Of course, the problem here is no one is going to do anything about this. The only way he can get fired is if his Invisible friend in the sky decides he needs to go, and since he’s supposedly a voice only Ratzinger can hear, I have a feeling “Sky-man” won’t call for his resignation anytime soon. Would you want to stop living in the biggest and most luxurious palace in the world? He eats on gold plates for fuck’s sake; that was pimp even back in the Middle Ages.

You have to wonder what kind of weird power struggles go on in the Vatican. I mean, it can’t please everyone Pope Benedict is dragging the whole church into the ground, and even though they can’t force him to resign, there still has to be a lot of folks within the halls of power who never liked him in the first place. It’s just like high school, except the prom queen used to be a Hitler Youth.

Imagine this hypothetical situation: you’re implicated in a child molestation scandal in your powerful and influential organization, and the whole world eagerly anticipates your response to these allegations. Would your strategy be to issue an ambiguous “apology” for the suffering of the victims followed by laying blame a completely esoteric scapegoat? The only way you could ever get away with such weaksauce is to command the only position in the world where it’s absolutely impossible to be fired (and I’m not talking about a Supreme Court judge here, people). I’m referring of course to the Pope, who’s been under intense scrutiny since it was revealed that under his watch, a rapist pastor who forced a young boy to give him oral sex was whisked to a variety of parishes where, unsurprisingly, he offended again.

The Vatican’s pastoral letter to the victims of child rape reads as follows:

“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry, Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen”

Tell them something they don’t know, Razty. This pathetic attempt to sweep everything under the rug is followed by the usual “we promise to try and do something secretly on our own, and just trust us we’ll make this all go away” bullshit that’s been the M.O. of the Church since the whole mess started. You might recall Pope Benedict XVI was the one responsible in the 80′s of “sniffing” out molesters, and he did such a bang up job that one of the people helped him become Pope was none other than Archbishop Bernard Francis Law of Boston (known primarily for his involvement in covering up the abuse scandal in that state).

The most nauseating thing in all of this is at the end of his bullshit apology, Benedict blames secularism on the declining morality of society in general (where do they get their stats?). Not only is it baffling (does he think this would have been avoidable if society was more religious?), it’s also just more scapegoating. The Church used to do the same thing with Jews until that went terribly out of “fashion”. Now secularism and homosexuality are their new targets. Hey, when you can’t take responsibility for your own actions, blame someone else entirely! It’s the formula they’ve been using for centuries, and it’s not about to stop any time soon, people.

It should come as no surprise that any large and powerful organization always “looks out for their own”. The Catholic Church is no different; the whole controversy regarding child abuse is based around the fact that rather than punish their own members who were guilty of destroying the lives of innocent children, they instead kept everything quiet, transferring these offenders to different parishes where they would continue their campaign of sexual molestation.

The Pope keeps finding himself in the uncomfortable position of having to deny any knowledge of protecting church leaders who had a history of abusing children, but it’s now a bit harder to do so. A priest, identified only as “H” (you’ve got to love their transparency) known to have forced a young child into oral sex, was transferred under the watchful eye of one Cardinal Ratzinger in 1980. To no ones surprise, he offended again, and was given an 18-month suspended sentence and fined about 4,000 bucks (apparently, sexually molesting a kid will cost you the equivalent of a used Segway).

The Vatican is obviously trying to distance him from this decision, saying Ratzinger was unaware of the existence of this priest (he’s a shitty boss, I guess), and I’m sure his mindless fans will continue to believe he had no involvement whatsoever, regardless of what evidence is shown. It doesn’t matter how many times this organization is exposed as corrupt and evil; people will continue to believe their religious leaders piss Holy Water. Look, they’re only human, and yet their position allows them an unprecedented amount of power and influence, all based on the ignorant notion these individuals are somehow on “God’s speed-dial”. They are no more special than you and I, and they should not be immune from prosecution and the law. When will victims of the abuse of the Catholic Church finally see justice?