The Cardinal of evil

Timmeh. Ugh.

I had to break radio silence today because there's a great editorial about Timmy Dolan in the NYT this morning. Here's a taste:

Tragic as the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has been, it is shocking to discover that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, while archbishop of Milwaukee, moved $57 million off the archdiocesan books into a cemetery trust fund six years ago in order to protect the money from damage suits by victims of abuse by priests. 

Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop [sic] of New York, has denied shielding the funds as an “old and discredited” allegation and “malarkey.” But newly released court documents make it clear that he sought and received fast approval from the Vatican to transfer the money just as the Wisconsin Supreme Court was about to open the door to damage suits by victims raped and abused as children by Roman Catholic clergy. 

“I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” Cardinal Dolan wrote rather cynically in his 2007 letter to the Vatican.

The Catholic church and Timothy Dolan: a twosome from hell. Let's see Timmy lie his way out of this one. By sucking up to power and conveniently forgetting the difference between right and wrong, Timmy may have earned himself a nice, long stay in prison. I certainly hope so. Since there's no such thing as hell, prison is where this destructive man belongs. 

What a filthy creature Dolan is. It's not surprising that his second job, after hiding money and protecting pedophile priests, is to launch relentless attacks against gay people in the United States. He is evil personified. (And there was talk of this fool becoming the next pope! That's quite a religion they've got there.)

Evil done in the church's name

NOTE: updated

From this morning's NY Times:

MEXICO CITY — An ill Salvadoran woman who had asked the courts for — and been denied — an abortion during a high-risk pregnancy delivered her 27-week-old fetus by Caesarean section on Monday...

The A.P. reported that Beatriz, who has asked that her last name be withheld to protect her identity, was recovering in the hospital and that her baby daughter was born without a brain. 

Because the country is Roman Catholic, the mother almost died for the sake of a baby that couldn't possibly have a life of its own.

This is Roman Catholicism in a nutshell: the life of a woman is not as important as a baby without a brain. You don't need any further instruction in the Catholic religion.

UPDATE: The baby died five hours later. They risked a woman's life to "save" this mindless creature. Catholics have such a tight handle on morality. One wonders how they do it.

They would know

AP headline today: Argentine Gays Not Thrilled with New Pope. I can't think of anyone better qualified to tell us about the new guy.

Nearly three years before Argentina became known as home to the first Latin American pope, it made history as the first country in the region to approve gay marriage — an action that then-Cardinal Bergoglio actively opposed. 

Esteban Paulon is president of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals. He says Bergoglio waged a "war of God" against a gay-marriage proposal headed for Congress.

There's not much more to the "story" -- it tells us nothing we didn't already know. Popeyguy Frank will be at least as awful as the last guy. And let's face it, if Popeyguy Frank was a decent man, operating in a world where some countries want to kill gays on sight (that would be the world we actually live in, BTW) -- he'd speak up for gay marriage, not fight against it.

But Roman Catholic priests know nothing of morality. They reveal this every day.

Ghanian cardinal a real treat

This cardinal could be an even worse pope than Ratzi. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana is said to be in the running to take over Ratzi's job. And this one is seriously off the beam.

Then, the conversation turned to the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal. Amanpour asked Turkson if it's possible the scandal, which swept across the U.S. and Europe over the past decade, could reach Africa. 

"Not in the same proportion as we have seen in Europe," Turkson said. "Probably because African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency. Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa, homosexuality, or for that matter, any affair between two sexes of the same kind are not countenanced in our society. So, that cultural 'taboo,' that tradition has been there. It's helped to keep this out." 

Got that? His country's dedication to oppressing gays protected it from pedophilia. As the linked HuffPo article states, "The 64-year-old Ghanaian cardinal has displayed anti-gay sentiments before, defending anti-gay legislation similar to Uganda's so-called "Kill the Gays" bill." Great. A new gay-hating pope. Even the church, as an institution, doesn't think the pedophilia scandal is the result of gays moving into the priesthood. A five-year study undertaken by the bishops discounted this possibility.

The report notes that homosexual men began entering the seminaries “in noticeable numbers” from the late 1970s through the 1980s. By the time this cohort entered the priesthood, in the mid-1980s, the reports of sexual abuse of minors by priests began to drop and then to level off. If anything, the report says, the abuse decreased as more gay priests began serving the church.

So let's see...gays enter the priest workforce and pedophilia is reduced. Seems simple, no? Not to this brain-challenged cardinal.

But don't worry. Italian newspapers seem to think that smiling Timmy Dolan of NYC, who was deposed on Wednesday about the pedophilia scandal, has a good shot at being the next pope. Oh, wait. That would mean the fellow who honchoed the American Catholic bishops' vicious vendetta against gays could be the next pope. Hmmm...Turkson or Dolan. Doesn't seem to make much difference, does it? Interesting times ahead!

Dark Catholic deeds in Ireland

Ireland has apologized for allowing the systematic abuse of women by Catholic nuns.

DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland ignored the mistreatment of thousands of women who were incarcerated within Catholic nun-operated laundries and must pay the survivors compensation, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Tuesday in an emotional state apology for the decades of abuses in the so-called Magdalene Laundries. 

"By any standards it was a cruel, pitiless Ireland, distinctly lacking in a quality of mercy," Kenny said, as dozens of former Magdalenes watched tearfully from parliament's public gallery overhead. 

(snip)

A government-commissioned report published two weeks ago found that more than 10,000 women were consigned to the laundries after being branded "fallen" women, a euphemism for prostitutes, even though virtually none of them were — and instead were products of poverty, homelessness and dysfunctional families. More than a quarter were directly referred by public officials, such as judges or truancy officers, and all spent months or years in menial labor without access to education. Most did laundry for local hotels, hospitals and prisons, while others scrubbed floors or made rosary beads for the church's profit. 

Each page of this church's history is riddled with horror. There is no light anywhere. As I told a Roman Catholic friend, "If there was a god at the heart of your church, these things wouldn't happen." But there is no god, and religion is just a fairytale. This fact makes the abuse more nightmarish, leaving only cruelty as the motivating force for depriving so many women of everything that matters in life. Every person involved in the running of this "laundry" should be imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Do you doubt that the Vatican was completely aware of what went on in this laundry? If there was still a living pope from those days, he would belong in a jail cell with the other perpetrators.

Vatican to keep pope out of prison

(Reuters) - Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.

"His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn't have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else," said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It is absolutely necessary" that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a "dignified existence" in his remaining years.

They evicted a group of nuns from a Vatican monastery so Benedict could live there. (They were just nuns, so what the hell.) The Vatican is determined, come hell or high water, to keep the pope on the premises -- and out of prison. I wonder how Catholics feel about this. Oh, that's right. Catholics don't think about unpleasant things. I forgot for a moment.

Taking down the Catholic mafia

In that den of sin, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (AKA L.A. Child Sex Ring), corrective action has been taken. Hopefully this is the beginning of a process that will result in the jailing of multiple priests.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who retired less than two years ago as the leader of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, was removed from all public duties by his successor, Archbishop José H. Gomez, as the church complied with a court order to release thousands of pages of internal documents that show how the cardinal shielded priests who sexually abused children.  

He's not in jail yet but he soon will be if the authorities do their job. The church also took down his capo, Bishop Curry. I especially liked this bit:

Both Cardinal Mahony and Bishop Curry...have said that they were naïve at the time about the...impact on victims. 

Could the fact that they were "naive" about the "impact" on children who were raped by priests have something to do with the total absence of moral values in Catholicism? Ya think?

It's good to see one or two priests get sacked and/or jailed. But the number should be in the thousands. And these two should be jailed immediately.

The pope is a dastardly fellow

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The pope is urging prison administrators to respect the dignity and rights of criminals in their care, and to help rehabilitate them...
Benedict's ex-butler Paolo Gabriele, convicted last month of stealing papal documents and leaking them to a journalist, accused Vatican police of causing him "psychological pressure" by keeping him in a tiny cell with the lights on constantly for his first 20 days of detention.

The pope is the gift that keeps on giving. Everything he says or does is tainted by evil.

When other people write your post

Today I was going to bash the Vatican for its latest statements against gay marriage, and I also planned to chide Catholics for failing to stand up to the Vatican's extremism. But lo and behold, John Aravosis wrote the post for me. I found it on AmericaBlog this morning. Go read it while I take the rest of the day off.

Vatican trashed in certain Mohawk circles

Portrait by Father
Chauchetière/Wikipedia

There's an interesting AP article at the NYT. It's about Kateri Tekakwitha, the Mohawk woman the Pope recently declared a saint. Apparently this is viewed skeptically by some Mohawks. Not all, but some, see this as an attempt to sideline their traditional beliefs. Plus, it seems KT was a very strange woman:

A Catholic convert at 20, she settled in Kahnawake, a Mohawk settlement south of Montreal where Jesuits had a mission and where she and other women performed mortification rituals such as self-flogging as part of their faith.

Sorry, but that's never a healthy sign. George-Kanentiio is quoted in the article as saying:

"It should never obscure the best elements of our aboriginal spirituality, nor should Kateri's personal behaviors, given their extremities, be endorsed as a model for women anywhere," he said, referring to her self-mutilation with whips, thorns and hot coals.

"Women in particular need not kneel in supplication to any man or any god but to rise to dance and sing in true joy," he said. "We can never accept any institution which actively suppresses women or qualifies their potential." 

Really interesting article; really weird church. Much more at the above link.

Shady Vatican ejects nun supporter

All stories about the Vatican make me laugh and this one was no exception.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday transferred to the United States a high-ranking Holy See official who had ruffled feathers at the Vatican by openly seeking to mend its frayed ties with U.S. nuns. 

Apparently, Archbishop Joseph Tobin didn't know that you must be ugly to American nuns at all times. His kindness and understanding didn't fit in at the pope's palace, so they posted him to Indiana -- the greatest insult possible.

I mean, seriously. He wasn't mean enough to the nuns. That's the church that exists today. There's also a bonus story in the article:

It's not the first time the Vatican has removed a high-ranking official who annoyed the Vatican bureaucracy.

The No. 2 official in the Vatican administration was named to the arguably important position of U.S. ambassador last year after he stepped on too many toes in exposing corruption and inefficiencies in the Vatican's day-to-day administration.

So let's see. The implied Vatican rules are:

1. Be mean to nuns (and women in general).
2. Don't point a finger at the Vatican, no matter how seedy or unethical its actions may be.

This is how you become a good Catholic. All it takes is blindness and viciousness. That's quite a church they've got there.

More on the anti-gay archbishop of San Francisco

The church's (unexplained) hostility toward gay people took a giant stride forward when Pope Ratzi appointed the evil and despicable Salvatore Cordileone as the archbishop of San Francisco. Even the church hierarchy saw this as a brazen move.

"The most salient thing I can tell you is that the American bishops and archbishops I spoke with in the wake of the appointment, not seen widely as a progressive group, were stunned," Palmo said. "It was seen as a provocative gesture by Rome" to name a "combative" traditionalist like Cordileone to oversee the nation's gay capital.

Opposition to same sex marriage has emerged as a principal theme of Pope Benedict XVI's papacy. In March, he urged visiting U.S .bishops to beef up their teaching about the evils of premarital sex and cohabitation, and denounced what he called the "powerful" gay marriage lobby in America.

Yup, the pope hates gays. Because he is one, of course, but that's never spoken of. Closet cases are the primary enemies of gay people in this world, and Ratzi's one of the worst.

But I think it's kind of fun to have such an out-front evil guy appointed as archbishop. It filthies the church, which is always a good thing. And Sal's gonna be fun. He's sticking to his guns:

[Cordileone re-upped his hatred, calling] "efforts to extend marriage beyond one man and one woman 'the ultimate attack of the Evil One' and declaring that Catholics who support same-sex marriage should refrain from taking communion."

Indeed. If I was in SF, I'd consider this party time. What could be better than having an evil christian piñata to bat around? Good times! And let's not forget this:

Cordileone was arrested in San Diego in late August on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence. He has said he was drinking wine with friends and apologized for the lapse in judgment. He is scheduled to appear in court on the charge on Tuesday. 

Fun times in SF! Boo-ya!!

Timmy Dolan and the GOP

Get ready to vomit.

Dolan recently told a radio program that he is "happy" Ryan is on the GOP ticket and called him a "great public servant."

"We go way back, Congressman Paul Ryan and I," Dolan said. "I came to know and admire him immensely. And I would consider him a friend. He and his wife Janna and their three kids have been guests in my house; I've been a guest at their house. They're remarkably upright, refreshing people."

No big splash by the nuns today

This was all I could find today on the nuns/Vatican kerfuffle:

ST. LOUIS (AP) — American nuns rebuked by the Vatican for tolerating dissent say they're willing to hold talks with church leaders but won't compromise their mission.

I think that's excellent. I want more but I understand. Saying anything even mildly argumentative at this point would bring on a massive fight. The damned Vatican is itching to excommunicate the lot of them.

The bottom line is that the nuns won't compromise and neither with the popey guy. Good. It's time for the nuns to say "So long, Catholic church." It's too early to say for sure, but I think they're movin' on out. Go, sisters!

UPDATE: What was a short, 3-paragraph article has morphed into something more substantive. (AP does that: fleshes stories out during the day and republishes the same link, but with more meat.) In any case, the article is great now. Here's how it ends:

Still, Farrell [president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious] gave no sign that her group would back down. In a speech Friday morning, she said the sisters have been asking themselves whether the Vatican assessment was an "expression of concern or an attempt to control?" Farrell ended the address with a phrase she learned while serving the church in Chile when the country was under a military dictatorship.

"They can crush a few flowers, but they can't hold back the springtime," she said, before receiving a standing ovation.

I love these nuns. They are totally cool.

More fun stuff from the Vatican

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's number 2 accused the media on Monday of trying "to imitate Dan Brown" in their coverage of the VatiLeaks scandal and said the Roman Catholic Church's latest travails were part of the Devil's attempt to destabilize it. 

I love the Vatican. It's an endless source of mirth. And of course this brand of talk can come from only one source, the completely deranged "Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who ranks second only to Pope Benedict in the Vatican's hierarchy". Indeed. This guy is a major rightwing control freak, spewing ugly rhetoric wherever he goes -- and always with that Satan-lurking-in-the-shadows language. This guy lives in an alternate reality where the church never does anything wrong. It's Satan, don't you see?

"They (the journalists) continue to invent fairytales and repeat legends," he said.

Bertone branded as false the image of the Vatican as a place of intrigue and power struggles, saying: "The truth is that there is an attempt to sow division that comes from the Devil".

Even as he mouthed these complaints, a pesky secular reporter noted an inconvenient truth: the devil had nothing to do with it:

[A]n Italian reporter contested Bertone's portrayal of the media, telling him that the leaks scandal started with a letter in which an archbishop complained to the pope about corruption in the Vatican.

That's quite a church they've got there.

And if there was any question about it...

The title of this AP article is literally: "Pope's Rep Applauds Bishops' Fight with Government". How much clearer can it get? The popey guy and the bishops are Republicans.

ATLANTA (AP) — The pope's U.S. ambassador praised American bishops Wednesday for confronting the government over religious liberty issues, including resisting the mandate from President Barack Obama's administration that health insurance cover birth control. 

(snip)

But critics have said that the lawsuits appear politically partisan, especially during a presidential election.

"Most bishops don't want to be the Republican party at prayer, but their alarmist rhetoric and consistent antagonism toward the Obama administration often covey that impression," said John Gehring, of the liberal advocacy group Faith in Public Life. 

(snip)

The bishops have dismissed the suggestion of any partisan intent.

Well, that takes care of it. Nothing to see here. Move along. 

The cognitive dissonance of the Vatican

So the popey guy is trying to rein in the troops after the "sanctity" of his trust in his personal assistant took a shot to the chin. I swear, this pope has no clue how his words sound to the world.

Benedict gave a pep talk of sorts to a group of prelates preparing to serve the Holy See abroad in diplomatic posts, telling them that their work "should make you grow in closeness to the pope, a closeness marked by interior trust." 

Hmmm, "interior trust". Would that be what those Catholic kids had just before they were raped by priests? It's amazing how differently the Vatican treats violations of trust, according to who was violated. The popey guy tells us he feels terribly hurt by the violation of trust that occurred when his papers were stolen. How does he think those kids feel? Seriously, do you think the Vatican held even one meeting to discuss the terrible violation these kids suffered, and how they might help them heal? I guarantee this never happened. If it had, we'd see changes -- and we don't.

But the popey guy is taking the violation of his sanctity very seriously:

A three-cardinal commission is investigating the leaks alongside Vatican police. 

One wonders if a similar panel was set up to look into what happened to the children raped by priests. I suspect not. That was only about the violation of the kids' trust. This time it's about the popey guy being violated. Big difference, to them. Another excerpt:

The leaks scandal has convulsed the Vatican for months, exposing episodes of political infighting, intrigue and accusations of corruption and homosexual liaisons going on under the watch of the 85-year-old Benedict.

Jeez. Just think: gay sex in the palace of the popey guy who attacks gays all over the world. I say it all the time: that's some church they've got there. Jeez.

Like I told you

No religion, too.

An excerpt from the popey guy's tour promoting "families" appears in a story headlined, Pope looks forward to families meeting in Philly:

Chaput, who heads the five-county archdiocese that has about 1.5 million Catholics, also said the visit would highlight the importance of the family, which he said "is founded on a deep and loving union between one man and one woman for mutual support and the nurturing of children" and is "the basic evangelizing unit of the Church." 

It ain't got nuthin' to do with families. The families who flock to these events are pawns in the pope's campaign to destroy the lives of gay men, lesbians and transgendered people everywhere in the world.

There is no rational reason for the church to oppose gays. None at all. Whenever you see a priest, ask him why the church attacks gays. Everyone should do this, all day long, every day. They can offer no answer, only mumbles and senseless words. This is a campaign of hatred. Call it what it is, and do so to their faces. They should not be allowed to get away with this.

Note that the NY Times story about the pope's "family tour" ends with this:

The announcement of the papal visit comes as jurors are deliberating in the landmark trial of a former Roman Catholic church official charged with conspiring to hide priest-abuse complaints and endangering children by keeping predators in ministry. 

Monsignor William Lynn, the former secretary for clergy, is the first U.S. church official charged for his handling of child sex-abuse complaints. He said he tried to get the Philadelphia archdiocese to address the problem, only to be rebuffed by his archbishop, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. Prosecutors maintain that Lynn could have quit or called police.

They can't hide what they are anymore. Those days are a distant memory.

Nuns don't sit still for Vatican trashing

Sister Christine Schenk.

I'm sure readers of this blog are aware that the Vatican attacked American nuns with unusual, public viciousness a few weeks ago. "Radical feminist agenda" indeed. American Catholics aren't pleased about this development -- and the nuns aren't taking it lying down. Two days ago, they responded.

Let's take this from the top. The boys club that is the Roman Catholic church is upset that American nuns won't echo the Vatican's hateful teachings about gay people and women. You must engage in the Vatican's hate campaigns in order to be an official Catholic these days. That is the Vatican's message.

But it's basically a man vs. woman thing. This male-only church hates women. And the very idea that American nuns question this antipathy drives them wild. So what is the Vatican going to do? Put a man on the case, of course.

Archbishop Sartain was assigned by the Vatican to spend five years revising the statutes of the sisters’ organization, vetting their speakers and publications, and making sure their events featured the eucharist, which can be administered only by a priest.

I love that. With this bit of prestidigitation, the nuns must include a bigoted male priest in all their activities. I roared laughing when I read about this. As Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of futurechurch, put it:

“Here you see women, very competent, highly educated, doctorates in theology, masters in ministry, C.E.O.’s of hospitals, heads of school systems, being treated as if they were children,” she said. “That in itself goes to the issue of where are the women in the decision-making structures in Rome.”

Indeed. This won't fly in America. Won't fly at all. The popey guy really stepped in it this time.

In Cleveland on Wednesday night, about 650 people, including laypeople, about 100 nuns and a handful of priests in their Roman collars, gathered for a prayer service inside a Catholic church to honor the nuns. When the nuns were asked to stand for a blessing, the congregation responded with a spontaneous standing ovation that lasted nearly five minutes, said several people who attended. 

And that's the way it's going to go in this country. Popey guy: no; nuns: yes!
 
PS: Even I like nuns.

As the church goes down the toilet...

The popey guy.

Pope Benedict XVI praised the performance of Beethoven's Ninth symphony on Friday evening at Milan's La Scala theater as "a moment of elevation of the soul."

This is one holy guy, let me tell you. Here's a tidbit directly from his holy mouth:

Pope Benedict XVI praised the performance of Beethoven's Ninth symphony on Friday evening at Milan's La Scala theater as "a moment of elevation of the soul."

And he would know. C'mon, admit it -- you feel uplifted. He's such a spiritual popey guy. Meanwhile, behind the scenes:

Benedict's three-day trip to Milan for events focusing on the institution of the family is a welcome pastoral respite from an embarrassing and damaging leaks scandal at the Vatican that has engulfed the pontiff's personal butler.

The code words in bold tell us that he's on his usual hateful mission. When the church mentions the "institution of family", they're not talking about supporting anyone's family. What they mean is "let's make sure we deny gays the right to form families." This is just another message of anti-gay hatred by the popey guy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the pope is a closet case. He lashes out at gays because he hates himself. It's a good thing there is no god because this popey guy would be smote and sent to hell for all eternity.