how 'bout that pope?

[phishtaper]

covering up all the child sex abuse shit.

we have a pedophile? transfer him.

looks like this pope got caught red-handed.

[Velvet]

At last he didn't wipe out entire civilisations like his boss.

[balogna pogna]

Worst

Pope

Ever.

http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/q-who-was-the-worst-pope/

[Schwa.]

[SaggyBalls]

Not the worst pope ever, but this is entirely weak.

Velvet: Which boss was that?

[bradm]

Velvet: Which boss was that?

I assumed he meant God.

Aloha,

Brad

[bouche]

when are catholics and conservatives gonna learn that hypocrisy runs from the top down?

[ollie]

"Don't let's us call it child abuse, it's the rape and torture of children."

[Kanada Kev]

Great Real Time from last Friday Ollie. I listened to it at work this afternoon. Thanks for the YouTube link, i want to send that to a couple of people

The whole show if you want it:

http://www.nattawat.org/viewtopic.php?t=1118046

[SaggyBalls]

Velvet: Which boss was that?

I assumed he meant God.

Aloha' date='

Brad[/quote']

If Benedict worked for God instead of the Church it would be apparent. I still have to wonder who his bosses are.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Guest

[SaggyBalls]

Christ, that is such a creepy photo.

[Kanada Kev]

Creepy Pope ... he photographs well

[phishtaper]

someonnnne's gooooing to hehellllll ...

[Velvet]

Yes, I was referring to God.

Christ, that is such a creepy photo.

Ageist.

[SaggyBalls]

it's the eyes in shadow and the hungry smile.

[Kanada Kev]

Dawkins and Hitchins hire lawyers to attempt to arrest the pope upon arrival in the UK. Interesting:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7094310.ece

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/12/richard-dawkins-arrest-th_n_533837.html

Hitchens: "This man is not above or outside the law. The institutionalized concealment of child rape is a crime under any law and demands not private ceremonies of repentance or church-funded payoffs, but justice and punishment."

Dawkins: A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Guest

[phishtaper]

In other breaking news, the Vatican announced today that it is forgiving John Lennon and the Beatles for claiming the band was bigger than Jesus.

[YearsAlongTheSea]

Pope Vows To Get Church Pedophilia Down To Acceptable Levels

VATICAN CITY—Calling the behavior shameful, sinful, and much more frequent than the Vatican was comfortable with, Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level.

Addressing thousands gathered at St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, the pontiff offered his "most humble apologies" to abuse victims, and pledged to reduce the total number of molestations by 60 percent over the next five years.

"This is absolutely unacceptable," Pope Benedict said. "It seems a weakening of faith in God has prevented our priests from exercising moderation when sexually abusing helpless minors."

"And let me remind our clergy of the holy vows they all took when they entered the priesthood," he continued. "They should know that they're only allowed one small child every other month."

The pope said he was deeply disappointed to learn that the number of children sexually abused by priests was almost 10 times beyond the allowable limit clearly outlined in church doctrine. Admitting for the first time in public that the overindulgent touching of "tender, tender young flesh" had become a full-blown crisis, the Holy Father vowed to implement new reforms to bring the pedophilia rate back down to five children per 1,000 clergy.

"The truth is there will always be a little bit of molestation—it's simply unavoidable," Vatican spokesperson Rev. Federico Lombardi said. "But the fact that young boys have gotten much more attractive over the past few decades is no excuse for the blatant defiance of church limits that have been in place for centuries."

"The majority of priests don't want to molest kids at all," he added. "But for those who do, we must make sure they're doing it at a reasonable rate."

Following the pope's speech, the Vatican released a statement outlining its plan to reduce pedophilia. Starting next year, specially trained cardinals will make unannounced visits to inspect and observe random churches in order to ensure they are not going beyond diocese-wide molestation caps. The inspector-cardinals will grade each parish based on long, private interviews with altar boys in darkened church basements, and careful observation of priests' sexual activity.

These senior officials will also have the authority to enforce harsh punishments for any clergy member violating his allotment of pedophilia.

"If a priest goes even one child over the limit, there will be hell to pay," said Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops Giovanni Battista Re, explaining the Vatican's new "Three Strikes, You're Out" rule. "After the third offense, the offending priest will immediately be moved to another parish. This will give officials time to investigate the case, and will act as an effective deterrent since it usually takes months for priests to gain the trust of the new children."

As a "goodwill measure," Cardinal Re said all churches will also be required to display a sign next to the altar showing the number of days since the last molestation.

Criticism of the pope's new plan has already begun to emerge from within the Catholic Church itself. Rev. Walter Moore, a pastor at St. Peter's in Chicago, questioned the Vatican's methodology in calculating the molestation rates, saying the church's inconsistent definition of pedophilia may have skewed the numbers.

"Is it technically pedophilia if the child's clothes are fully on the entire time? What if he's asleep when it happens?" Moore said. "It's time we had some clear guidance from Rome on this issue. For instance, the church counts it as one incident regardless of whether the child is molested multiple times by the same individual or by two priests at once. That's just plain wrong."

"Plus, if it's supposed to be a special secret between the priest and the boy, is it even any of the church's business in the first place?" he added. "Maybe Brandon is just trying to get attention."

The Vatican would not release details of the pope's upcoming world tour, in which he plans to clear up any confusion on the matter by personally demonstrating what constitutes molestation.

[Deeps]

Just when you thought the denial and idiocy couldn't run deeper ..........

Blame the gays for it.

Vatican slammed for blaming gay priests in pedophile scandal

Module body

1 hour, 30 minutes ago

SANTIAGO (AFP) - The child sex abuse scandal scorching the Catholic Church worsened Tuesday with lawmakers, doctors and gay activists slamming an attempt by the Vatican to shift the blame for the pedophilia to homosexual priests.

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Comments by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, during a visit to Chile on Monday triggered the indignation by saying homosexuality, not celibacy among the clergy, was at fault.

"Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated there exists no relationship between celibacy and pedophilia," Bertone told a Santiago news conference.

"But many others have demonstrated, and have told me recently, that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. This is true, this is the problem," he said.

The comments immediately threw fuel on the scandal that is threatening to engulf Pope Benedict XVI, by prompting outrage Tuesday in Chile and in Italy.

"I would like to see the scientific studies he said he has, because I don't share this evaluation... I have the impression that he is wrong on this point," said a Chilean senator who helped draft anti-pedophile laws, Patricio Walker.

"This linking is wrong. Celibacy does more damage to a human being than homosexuality, which is a freely made choice," a communist deputy, Hugo Gutierrez, told AFP. "I'm shocked by these words from a senior dignitary of the Church."

A medical specialist at the University of Chile, Tamara Galleguillos, added that "it's not possible to think there's a direct link between homosexuality and pedophilia."

She explained that her work in Chile's forensic service showed homosexual pedophiles were no more likely to commit their crimes than heterosexual pedophiles.

Rolando Jimenez, head of Chile's Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, called on Bertone "to show us any scientific, rigorous, serious and religiously independent study that supports this allegation."

In Rome, the head of Italian gay rights group Gaylib, Enrico Oliari, called it "worrying that the foreign minister of a state that occupies the heart of the Italian capital would use arguments that are considered passe even in the Third World."

Aurelio Mancuso, former president of a larger Italian gay rights association Arcigay, said: "The truth is that Bertone is clumsily trying to shift attention to homosexuality and away from the focus on new crimes against children that emerge every day."

A center-left Italian lawmaker, Anna Paola Concia, demanded the cardinal "immediately retract his violent, inhuman and extremely serious words."

She accused Bertone of peddling in "false and damaging theories rejected by the World Health Organisation and that are not shared by most Catholics."

Bertone's controversial statement came as the Vatican tried to step up its damage control on the scandal.

The leadership of the Catholic Church has repeatedly tried to dismiss as media exaggerations the tide of recent claims in Austria, Germany, Ireland and the United States that predator priests were given protection from prosecution by their hierarchy.

Pope Benedict himself has faced allegations that he failed to take action against pedophile priests, both as head of the Vatican's top doctrinal and morals enforcer and earlier as the Munich archbishop.

The Holy See this week used its mouthpiece newspaper to praise its handling of past pedophile cases as "exemplary," and on Monday it posted guidelines on handling new cases on its official website.

[bradm]

Oh, it gets better, Deeps.

Blame the Jews for it

Bishop blames Jews for child molestation scandal

"Don't believe that Hitler was merely crazy," says Italian Catholic leader Giacomo Babini

We're living in the Age of Globalization, and it seems that chutzpah, like latkes, isn't just for Jews any longer. Last week, retired Bishop Giacomo Babini of the Italian town of Grosseto told the Catholic Pontifex website that the Catholic pedophile scandal is being orchestrated by the "eternal enemies of Catholicism, namely the freemasons and the Jews, whose mutual entanglements are not always easy to see through… I think that it is primarily a Zionist attack, in view of its power and refinement. They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God-killers."

You might think that the 81-year-old Babini had already said more than enough for one day, but once some people "pop," they just can't stop. "The Holocaust was a shame for all of humanity," the good bishop told the world, "but now we have to look at it without rhetoric and with open eyes. Don't believe that Hitler was merely crazy. The truth is that the Nazis' criminal fury was provoked by the Jews' economic embezzlement, by which they choked the German economy." He concluded that the Jews' "guilt is graver than what Christ predicted would happen to them, saying 'do not cry for me, but for your own children.'"

Bishop Babini made the comments on Friday, but the story has only started hitting the fan (a.k.a. the global press) today. The American Jewish Committee already lodged a protest against the bishop's statements over the weekend. Rabbi David Rosen said: "The high level of mutual trust and solidarity that binds our two communities today demands that there be zero-tolerance for such defamatory statements by religious representatives." Babini himself now denies ever having made them. (The bishop seems to relish controversy, by the way. In January he hit the headlines when he opined that the Church should refuse communion to gay people.)

Now, I may be woefully misinformed, but the last I heard the Catholic child molestation victims were abused by ordained Catholic clergy, not by Jews. And while the Jewish community is hardly immune to sexual abuse, shoving the blame onto "the Jews" is just a little too convenient. But the Chosen People are just the latest in a growing laundry list of scapegoats for the Church's own in-house meltdown. Other usual suspects include the Devil, gays, the "sexual revolution," the media (particularly the New York Times), and finally the Church's eternal persecution at the hands of an evil world – a persecution matching only that of (don't tell me you didn't see this coming!) – the Jews. ("The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," a senior Vatican clergyman proclaimed on Good Friday) Anyone but the actual perpetrators and the people who have been shielding them for generations.

This latest scapegoating attempt came out not only in the days around Holocaust Remembrance Day but also on the heels of the latest alarmist report by Tel Aviv University announcing a drastic increase in anti-Semitic activity around the globe, and with historian Robert Wistrich saying that "We are in an era once again where the Jews are facing genocidal threats as a people."

The report does indeed make for disturbing reading (particularly when it's a matter of individual persons who happen to be of Jewish faith being targeted for violence by anti-Israeli protesters in their home countries). Even so, I always get a laugh when I hear the fantasies of Jewish power conjured up by Bishop Babini and old school anti-Semites of his ilk. I mean, if "the Jews" and their friends the freemasons could single-handedly pull off a massive worldwide sex scandal, what will we turn to next? Global warming?

Bishop Babini's comments remind me of this tragicomic Jewish joke from the 1930s:

A German Jew in Berlin sees a Jewish friend sitting on a park bench reading the anti-Semitic Nazi rag, Der Stürmer. "Yitzak," he says, "how can you read such a thing?"

"Well, David," Yitzak replies, "I find reading the ordinary newspaper to be terribly depressing: it's full of stories about gangs attacking synagogues, old Jews getting beaten to a pulp in the street, anti-Semitic slogans painted on Jewish shops. But here in this newspaper, the news is all excellent. It says here that we Jews own all the banks and newspapers and run all the world's governments!"

Aloha,

Brad

[Kanada Kev]

What's next?

Blame Canada?

or maybe blame the kids, like this sick fuck did:

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/04/michael_mclachlan_child_molest.php

[bONES]

[phishtaper]

now, that's funny.

[SaggyBalls]

I like how the little girl has that 'holy fuck I'm angry, you told me I'd get chips and a pepsi' expression and the little boy looks like he's wearing this on his t-shirt:

[Kanada Kev]

Awwwwwww. Look at him sleeping. Isn't he adorable? Go on ... give the Pope a poke

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/18/pope-asleep-benedict-xvi_n_542216.html