Why would people be taking sexual advice from these people?

Revelations of the sexual abuse of children by priests at Catholic institutions have swept across Europe and into Benedict's native Germany. The pope himself has come under fire for a case dating to his tenure as archbishop of Munich and another dating to his stint as the head of the Vatican office responsible for disciplining priests.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, a top Vatican official, acknowledged in an interview published Saturday that church authorities had on occasion maintained silence over cases of sex abuse. But he defended the pope, saying Benedict "was the first one who — already as a cardinal _felt the need for new, harsher rules."

Harsher rules? Like hitting them with bigger rulers?

Yet we have people in our own secular government who want to give weight to what a bunch of these old men in funny hats have to say about the reproductive control of women.



(click pic for link) Read the quote bubble in the left hand corner.

You do what you want, Rep. Stupak. Just leave me and my family out of your plans, thanks.

Just wondering...

Why are Catholic bishops involved in my health care? I'm not Catholic.

Blog sprinkles

The pope attack! I'm not laughing. Honest. Really...



Bryan of Why Now? explains how to deal with terrorism.

Think Progress: Mary Matalin claims President Bush ‘inherited’ the September 11th terror attacks. Just wondering....Mary, are you really buffing Georgie's legacy all by yourself or did someone encourage you to do so?

Just wondering... but if the Catholics bishops can demand that no federal money is ever used for abortions because they are evil, why can't we demand that no federal money is ever used for war because it is evil?

Via JJ of the Unrepentant Old Hippie, a final solution to the Muslim 'problem'. And another cracked pot is heard from.

Why are we letting Israel block aid to Gaza?

Republicans want to repeal the just voted for Health Care bill! Or something!

AmericaBlog: ABC: Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by Bush in 2007.

The Jokerization of media figures.

Mustang Bobby wants to know whether you will say Twenty ten or Two thousand ten...

When adults have unquestioned power over children

It often is misused:

DUBLIN (AFP) – A shocking new report has identified hundreds of victims of child sex abuse by Irish Catholic priests, officials said Tuesday, two months after a landmark study found "endemic" mistreatment.

A government-appointed commission of investigation headed by a judge has been probing allegations of abuse by priests in the archdiocese of Dublin -- the country's biggest -- since March 2006.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has warned that the report -- presented to Justice Minister Dermot Ahern on Tuesday -- would "shock us all."

It is the first time the state has investigated how the once-powerful Church in mainly Catholic Ireland has run its affairs.

It probed whether the Church reported abuse allegations or attempted to "obstruct, prevent or interfere with the proper investigation" of complaints.

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese said the Church authorities had identified between 400 and 450 people that allege they were abused by one of 152 Dublin priests since 1940.

"I would like to stress that that is a very conservative estimate and is likely to rise," she told AFP.

Will the Catholic Church actually learn from this? Is it possible? We can only wait and see....

The ugliness hatched by the Mormon Church and the Catholic Knights of Columbus

Will be challenged in court:

Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles -- After losing at the polls, gay rights supporters filed three lawsuits Wednesday asking the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, an effort the measure's supporters called an attempt to subvert the will of voters.

"If they want to legalize gay marriage, what they should do is bring an initiative themselves and ask the people to approve it," said Frank Schubert, co-chairman of the Proposition 8 campaign. "But they don't. They go behind the people's back to the courts and try and force an agenda on the rest of society."

Lawyers for same-sex couples argued that the anti-gay-marriage measure was an illegal constitutional revision -- not a more limited amendment, as backers maintained -- because it fundamentally altered the guarantee of equal protection. A constitutional revision, unlike an amendment, must be approved by the Legislature before going to voters.

The state high court has twice before struck down ballot measures as illegal constitutional revisions, but those initiatives involved "a broader scope of changes," said former California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin, who publicly opposed Proposition 8 and was part of an earlier legal challenge to it. The court has suggested that a revision may be distinguished from an amendment by the breadth and the nature of the change, Grodin said.

They've just exposed what their churches really stand for, and it isn't tolerance, understanding and the core belief that God is Love.

The Catholic Knights of Columbus and the Mormon church have just proved they are supporters of hate and exclusion, that discrimination drives their churches. They wanted this proposition, an amendment that actually DENIES civil rights, written into the California Constitution.

Why?

Don't give me the lies and stupid shit that schools and children are under attack, that churches will be sued. Marriage between gays has been law since May. Have these things happened? No.

So why?

Because these churches need a scapegoat to beat to death in the village square to unite their faithful.

That is it, plain and simple.

And how utterly cynical and ugly.

More echoes from wars past:

Europe's soil is blood-soaked from centuries of fighting but rarely yields mass graves from battles that took place before the two world wars. One such grave has now been found near Berlin with over 100 soldiers who died in the 1636 Battle of Wittstock. Archaeologists say they can learn much from the skeletons which show terrible wounds.

Archaeologists in Germany are examining a mass grave containing the skeletons of more than 100 soldiers who fell in a major battle during the Thirty Years War.

Workers came across the graves by chance while digging in a sand pit near the town of Wittstock, northwest of Berlin, in June.

"The special thing about this find is that there are only very few mass graves in Europe between 1300 and 1850 that can be attributed to specific battles," Antje Grothe, the archaeologist leading the excavation, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Historians and archaeologists called to examine the neat rows of skeletons quickly concluded that they were men who died in the Battle of Wittstock on October 4, 1636, when a Protestant army of 16,000 Swedes beat a force of 22,000 from the Catholic alliance of the Holy Roman empire and Saxony. Some 6,000 men died in the fighting.

War is a horror, no matter what era, no matter what religions...

Pope declares world his

And you're either with him or against him.

Via Rook's Rant:

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

What if we really don't care what an old man who likes to wear dresses and very red shoes says?

Does this cartoon make me look offensive?

Via jj at Unrepentant Old Hippie:



jj notes:

It refers, of course, to the SCOTUS decision to uphold the ban on late-term abortion. The cartoon suggests that maybe, just maybe, the fact that the five justices who voted to uphold the ban are all catholic might have had something to do with their decision. (Ya think?!!!?) Now Catholics are going ballistic, denouncing the cartoon as "anti-Catholic bigotry".

When did Bill Donohue become the pope?

And why does he think he represents the Catholic Church and all of its members? I didn't know Catholicism was so hateful and ugly, but listening to this man makes me wonder.

Lane Hudson over at the Huffington Post:

The ramifications of Bill Donohue and the Catholic League's reckless rhetoric has materialized in the form of death threats to bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan. This is what happens when the ultra-right wing is given the megaphone of mainstream media. It is also a complete break down in the responsibility that the media has in vetting those who are given a platform to spread a message.

This is also evidence that ultra-right wing organizations that create messages based on hate and fear find sympathetic audiences with people who think more like citizen-militia than the loyal Catholics that Bill Donohue claims to represent. It is no wonder that there has been no mainstream Roman Catholic group, nor the Church itself, to step forward to support Donohue in his illegal, unethical scalp-seeking tirade against Senator Edwards' bloggers.

Bill Donohue must immediately rescind his hateful comments against these two young women and call on the hate-mongers, which he is responsible for inciting, to cease their threats against Amanda, Melissa, and their families. Call him at 212-371-3191 and demand this.

Donohue's attacks on junior staffers are completely unprecedented. It is a new low. His actions have the effect of putting their lives in danger and he must not be allowed to get away with it.

This man is so indignant over these two female bloggers and what they have said in the past. So no one can have said any foul things in their past? They should lose their jobs if they have? Ok, fair game.

Bill Donohue on Jews:

Donohue said the following on December 9, 2004 on MSNBC about Jews:

Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the messiah. Hollywood likes anal sex.

And:

Back in 1992, for instance, Sinead O'Connor suggested that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was covering up an epidemic of child abuse by members of its clergy. Vigorously denying this allegation and viciously attacking O'Connor was how Donohue made his bones with the Catholic League. His indignation towards O'Connor and anyone else who suggested such a coverup of child abuse was how he grew the league from a membership of 11,000 to more than 300,000.

I wonder how those 300,000 people feel now, having put their trust in William Donohue only to learn, years later, that he was massively, disastrously wrong -- that he took their donations and used that money to defend and enable pedophilia. Some of those people, being human, must feel a sense of shame for being manipulated into defending the indefensible. Donohue doesn't. He doesn't care that his abominable position leaves him "permanently discredited" (to quote Bob Marley's "War," as sung by Sinead O'Connor).

And:

...he bashed Mark Foley for not fighting back against the priest who molested him.

“As for the alleged abuse, it’s time to ask some tough questions. First, there is a huge difference between being groped and being raped, so which was it Mr. Foley? Second, why didn’t you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?”

You know, Bigot Bill, it's possible to take someone to task for their behavior without propogating rape myths. But then, you don't think rape is a big deal, do you? Given your responses to it, it certainly wouldn't seem that way. Rape is no big deal while insulting the Church is bad bad bad. Gotcha. He and his ilk need to look no further than their own mirrors to see why people are fleeing the Church.

And on YouTube.

And these:

"The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done."
[MSNBC Scarborough Country, 4/11/05]

"People don't trust the Muslims when it comes to liberty."
[MSNBC Scarborough Country, 2/9/06]

"Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style."
[MSNBC Scarborough Country, 2/27/04]

Gee...if this is what Catholicism is all about, if Bill Donohue is the spokesman of this church, this church is really ugly.

Update 2/15: Frances Kissling:

What happened is [the Swiftboating of John] Kerry repeated, in a way. I think that's the goal. What you have are these right-wing Catholic groups, the Catholic League and Priests for Life and Fidelis, which came out after Donohue went after [Marcotte] calling for Obama and Hillary to repudiate Edwards for hiring them. What it is is part of the 2008 attack by conservative Catholics against Democrats, whether they're Catholic or not: Anything they can do to discredit the candidates is what they're going to do.

My reaction is, "OK, here we go." This is what it [has been like] since 2000 when George Bush added Catholic conservatives to his list of base groups for the Republican Party. What we can trace is activism on their part against Democrats, particularly against Catholics, and support for George Bush. Period. They're going to take any opportunity they can. Then you have the consistency of playing that anti-Catholic card. Where the Catholic shtick comes in on this one is that the bloggers had a lot to say about religion and a lot to say that's critical of the Catholic Church. Well-deserved criticism, in my opinion. But it feeds very nicely into the Donohue agenda, which is to cast everything that is critical of positions taken by the Catholic Church as anti-Catholicism.

[snip]

Do you think that this blogger controversy will have a net negative impact?

Well, the unfortunate thing is the resignation. That's the most unfortunate aspect because it only emboldens him. Because Donohue won. And that makes me furious.

It's also like Mara Vanderslice; she worked for the Kerry campaign as his religious outreach person and Donohue discovered that she had once been in a demonstration with [AIDS activist group] Act Up, and he then went after her, with exactly the same kind of language: "I'm going to get her fired," etc. She didn't lose her job and didn't get fired, but she was totally isolated within the campaign; she couldn't make public statements or be used well anymore. And he writes about how "I got her."

There is something about this man and his attacks on women that is frightening. There was a while when I refused to go on air with him [for television appearances] because -- you know I am a very strong person -- but I felt physically threatened by this man. He never physically threatened me, but I felt like I was in the presence of an abuser. So for a long time I just refused because it was too degrading to be in his presence. I got over it eventually and have done a few things with him since. I understand that he is so offensive that he does himself damage; as long as I can maintain my equilibrium with him attacking me in the most vicious ways possible -- that only does me credit and makes him look like the abuser that he is. But the glee with which he went after Vanderslice and the glee with which he has gone after these women marks him as an abuser.

(Via Feministe)