Funny NYT story today about the vatican

The evil popey guy.

Remember how Ireland's prime minister laid out the popey guy last week for encouraging priestly abuse with his shady rules? (I wrote about it here.) Well, there's an even funnier follow-up today. It made me roar with laughter. You really have to read it in full to appreciate it. Here are a few outtakes:

First, and I loved this, the vatican said it will issue a response to Ireland's charges of priestly abuse and vatican-controlled hiding of the abuse: "at the 'opportune time' but has not done so yet." Don't you love these guys? They don't care what anyone on the planet thinks. They've got god on their side, you know.

Today's new episode in the Colorful Adventures of the Popey Guy is that, in response to the dead-honest charges of the Irish Prime Minister, the vatican recalled its ambassador. Ooooh. Rough, huh? (And right off the bat, you have to love the fact that they have an "ambassador". What pompous twits these vatican fellows are.) The article says:

"The Vatican acknowledged that the recall of an ambassador was a measure rarely adopted by the Holy See, underlining the 'seriousness of the situation'." 

Are you rolling on the floor laughing yet? They abuse little kids and then hide it, and they have absolutely no problem with that. No-o. That's fine. But being called on it makes them pull their ambassador to underline "the seriousness of the situation". The "seriousness" is entirely about the vatican's reaction to being called on the carpet, not about the raping of kids. It's all about them, isn't it? They're always in the right. It wouldn't even matter if their priests raped little boys on live TV every night. They would still be in the right. And why? Because they literally can do no wrong.

Then, to cap it all off, a vatican operative named Ciro Benedettini actually expressed "some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions." Okay, I know you're roaring with laughter now.

Since you probably won't go read the whole article, here's a hefty piece of it to remind you what this tiff is all about:

A confidential 1997 Vatican letter — originally published by The Associated Press in January — instructed Irish bishops to handle child-abuse cases strictly under terms of canon law. It warned bishops that their 1996 child-protection policy, particularly its emphasis on the need to start reporting all suspected crimes to police, violated canon law.

Kenny said Catholic canon law had "neither legitimacy nor (a) place in the affairs of this country." He pledged to press ahead with new laws making it a crime to withhold evidence of child abuse — even if the information was attained during a priest's confession. The Catholic Church insists that the contents of confessions must never be revealed.

They will never ever admit the horrible things they've done -- and are apparently still doing. That popey guy's got a violent posse over there in his secret vatican headquarters. I wonder if they use special gang hand symbols when no one else is around. Probably, huh?