Catholic Conspiracies 3: Jesuits, OWS, and the Vandals Are Here.

Vatican
Ninja
Remod
(Draft)

Once upon a time, very long ago, I discussed how the Catholic Church seems to be the favorite of multi-generational bands of abject nutcases.  I then expanded the topic, discussing how many fruit loops were involved, and that was titled The Revenge of the Vatican Ninjas.

In this case, we're going to add a bit of local politics.  And by local, I mean New York.

Has anyone heard of Occupy Wall Street?

If you haven't, that's okay, they're rather annoying -- essentially a fun bunch of anarchists hanging out in Zuccotti park who were told that 1968 was a really fun time, that bathing is bad for you, and it's quite okay to defecate wherever you deem fit.  It's not so much a political movement as an unruly mob. They're mad as hell, they're not going to take it anymore, and they are rebels without a clue -- when someone says they hate Wall Street, and the bailouts of Wall Street, yet they don't protest anyone who was bailed out, this spells stupid to me.

They've attacked police officers, and they want the redistribution of wealth, but they whine when their stuff is stolen.  At the end of the day, while they may appear threatening, they are mostly harmless.  And if you read any of the links, you'll notice that I spend most of my time making fun of them.  Just don't tell my editors, they may think I'm having too much fun.

So, what does this have to do with Catholic conspiracies?

Well, recently, I did a search on twitter for "Jesuits."

Big, big mistake. 

Apparently, now, the Jesuits are a crypto-Jews / Nazi / Zionist organization, bent on establishing the New World Order via Occupy Wall Street .... And, of course, founded by the Illuminati. 

As my friend Jason says,

"It's the internet. I'm not surprised about anything I find on it anymore. I think it was created by Cthullu, not Al Gore. It's a bottomless pit that WILL stare back at you if you look at it too hard. In the dark. On a cold winter night. With eerie music playing in the background (Cthullu has a MP3 player)."

I have to ask, now -- what are you people smoking?  Or is it that the internet goes to the loudest spammers, who happen to be nutjobs with unlimited time on their hands.

Either way, it's always good to see that nothing ever changes.

The amusing part of the Occupy Wall Street movement as "crypto-Jewish Jesuit conspiracy" is twofold, really.  One, they've got an emerging anti-Semitic group in there, with makes the whole "evil Jewish Conspiracy" part kinda stupid .... er.  

On the other hand, their fellow occupiers have issues with breaking other people's toys.

How so?

I'll give you one guess.

Their international branch at "Occupy Rome," in addition to firebombing cars, has taken upon itself to smash up religious icons.

All I can think is: if this happened to a synagogue, would the Mossad have already killed everyone in this photo by now?

But, no, it's just the Catholics.  So, who cares?

Ann Margaret Lewis, posted this to her facebook page and asked "Why?"

And isn't it obvious?  Because Catholics are "evil, baby-raping priests," and most of these people are too busy worshiping their iPads . And they like to talk about how they should "eat the Rich"-- and the Catholics are wonderfully rich and powerful, aren't they? They have so many shiny things, after all.... And, somehow, the sarcasm isn't burning a hole in my keyboard.

And, sure enough, someone said just that, responding with two recent stories.**   And by recent, I mean they happened the week before.  The words are "innocent until proven guilty ... unless he's Catholic," aren't they? But, it's nice to see anyone can justify a hate crime is the target is "right."

But, thus far, Occupy Wall Street has endorsements from the Nazi party of America, the Communist party, and David Duke.

Between this and the above "evil Jesuit plot," it seems that a faceless, aimless rabble makes for a great Rorschach test for ideologists of any stripe.  "Oh look, there's a group of angry protesters, they must hate who I hate," or "they embody everything I despise."

Vatican Ninja Chibi.
"Grr. Arrgh"

While it is quite entertaining to watch a group of people go slowly insane, it's time these guys ought to come up with a coherent message. Hell, the Tea Party's wants could be summed up as "We hate big government, we want fewer taxes, less spending and no Obamacare."

With the OWS, we have the Nazis, the Klan, the Communists, "we hate Jews / big business / brand names / we're wearing brand names/ we hate bailouts but won't protest those who got bailouts ...."  

Oh, yeah, and they're an evil Jesuit conspiracy.....

Can I have my Vatican Ninjas now?

**The footnotes are below the break.

Redemption Comes Through The Jews… Excerpts

This was interesting when I found it on the Facebook page of Ann Margaret Lewis (of Murder in the Vatican), so I figured I would post a few excerpts.
I especially found it interesting that the numbers presented here are similar to the ones I posted a while ago.

You can find the full text here:

 
 Jewish Businessman, Sam Miller, Whaps Anti-Catholic Bias in News Media (Full Text)


Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland businessman – Jewish, not Catholic – is fighting mad about & concentrated effort by the media to denigrate the Catholic Church in this country.

.... There is a concentrated effort by the media today to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country.... They have now blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage....

From the Sojourner’s Magazine dated August, 2002 ....“While much of the recent media hype has focused on the Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal, relatively little attention has been given to the high rate of sexual misconduct in the rest of American Christendom. This is truly a crisis that crosses the borders of all religions.”
.... research by Richard Blackman at Fuller Theological Seminary shows that 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact. In a 1990 study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8% of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior by a colleague; 17% of laywomen said that their own pastors had sexually harassed them. Phillip Jenkins concludes in his book “Pedophiles and Priests” that while 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia, 10% of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia.
This is not a Catholic problem. This is a problem of pure prejudice....

Obviously, this is not just a Catholic problem....

For Christians, the true scandal is not about priests. It’s about a manipulation of power to abuse the weak. When Jesus said, “Whoever receives the child, receives me”, he was rebuking his followers for putting stumbling blocks in front of the defenseless. Church is supposed to be a place where one can lay one’s defenses down; where one is welcomed, embraced, and blessed. This can only be authentically expressed in a culture that requires absolute respect for each individual’s freedom and self hood. Until all churches bow humbly under the requirement, the indictments by wounded women and children will stand.

Just what are these Kangaroo journalists trying to accomplish? Think about it. If you get the New York Times day’ ,after day; the Los Angeles Times day after day, our own paper day after day looking at the record, some of these writers are apostates, Catholics or ex-Catholics who have been denied something they wanted from the Church and are on a mission of vengeance.

Why would newspapers carry on this vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church?
Do you know ... the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday, at cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. Needless to say, that Catholic education at this time stands head and shoulders above every other form of education that we have in this country. And the cost is approximately 30% less.
If you look at our own Cleveland school system, they can boast of an average graduation rate of 36%. Do you know what it costs you and me as far as the other 64% who didn’t make it?
Look at your own records. You (Catholic schools) graduate 89% of your students Your graduates in turn go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, and all at a cost to you. To the rest of the Americans it’s free, but it costs you Catholics at least 30% less to educate students compared to the costs that the public education system pays out for education that cannot compare.
Why? Why would these enemies of the Church try to destroy an institution that has 230 colleges and universities in the United States with an enrollment of 700,000 students?
Why would anyone want to destroy an institution like the Catholic Church which has a non profit hospital system of 637 hospitals which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people not just Catholics in the . United States today?

Why would anyone want to destroy an institution like that? Why would anyone want to destroy an institution that clothes and feeds and houses the indigent 1 of 5 indigents in the United States, I’ve been to many of your shelters and no one asks them if you are a Catholic, a Protestant or a Jew; just “come, be fed, here’s a sweater for you and a place to sleep at night” at a cost to the Church of 2.3 billion dollars a year?
The Catholic Church today has 64 million members in the United States and is the largest non-governmental agency in the country. It has 20,000 churches in this country alone. Every year they raise approximately $10 billion to help support these agencies.
Why, after the “respected” publication, the New York Times, running their daily expose’ on the Church, finally came to the conclusion of their particular investigation, which was ongoing for a long time. And guess what: buried in the last paragraph, they came up with a mouse. In their article “Decades of Damage” the Times reported that 1.8% of American priests were found guilty of this crime whereas your own Cardinal Ratzinger in Rome reported 1.7% the figure I gave you earlier.
Then again they launched an attack on the Church and its celibate priests. However, the New York Times did not mention in their study of American priests that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in the face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.

Why wouldn’t the New York Times, the paper of record they call themselves, mention this? You had to read it in the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times refused to print it.
If you read only the New York Times, you would begin to believe that priests are cowards; craven; sexually frustrated; unhealthy criminals; that prey on the innocent. What a shame.
Sometimes freedom of the press should have some type of responsibility...
I believe that if Catholics had the figures that I enumerated here, you don’t have to be ashamed of anything. Not only are you as good as the rest, but you’re better, in every respect.

The Catholic Church helps millions of people every day of the week, every week of the month, and every month of the year. People who are not Catholics, and I sit on your Catholic Foundation and I can tell you, and what I am telling you is so. Priests have their problems, they have their failings just as you and I in this room do, but they do not deserve to be calumniated as they have been.

In small measure let’s give the media its due. If it had not come out with this story of abusive priests, (but they just as well could have mentioned reverends, pastors and rabbis and whatever), probably little or nothing would have been. done. But what bothers me the most is this has given an excuse to every Catholic hater and Catholic basher to come out loudly for the denigration of your Church.

If some CEO’s are crooks it does not follow that every CEO is crooked; and if some priests are sexually ill it does not follow that all are sick. And your Church teaches that you’ve got to take in the sick and a priest who is this way has to be taken in and cannot be thrown out the 21st story of a building. He’s got to be looked upon and given the same type of health that you would give anybody who has a broken leg or cancer or whatever....

If some priest was caught with his hand in the collection plate it would be front page news. But the fact that you have thousands of students being education (sic) free, as far as the rest of the country is concerned, doesn’t make news. Why? Because it is not newsworthy, it’s not dirty.

I’m not here to deny freedom of the press, but I believe that with freedom comes responsibility, and with rights you have an obligation. You cannot have rights that are irresponsible.

Unfortunately, our society today is protected by all rights and ruled by some of their wickedness. Anybody who expects to reap the benefits of freedom must understand the total fatigue of supporting it. The most important element of political speech, as Aristotle taught, is the character of the speaker. In this respect, no matter what message a man brings in, it shouldn’t collide with his character.
The other day was shocked when I opened up America, a Catholic magazine, and my good friend Cardinal Keeler, who is a very dear friend of mine, was being fingerprinted by the Baltimore police not for a crime, but as part of the new law put in place that all members of the Church hierarchy must be fingerprinted....

One of the biggest Catholic bashers in the United States wrote “Only a minority, a tiny minority of priests, have abused the bodies of children.” He continues, “I am not advocating this course of action, but as much as I would like to see the Roman Catholic Church ruined. I hate opportunistically retrospective litigation even more.”

Now he’s talking about our tort monsters. “Lawyers who grow fat by digging up dirt on long forgotten wrongs and hounding their aged perpetrators are no friends of mine.”

I’m still quoting this man, “All I’m doing” he said, “is calling attention to an anomaly. By all means, let’s kick a nasty institution when it is down, but there are better ways than litigation.” These words are from a Catholic hater.

I never thought in my life I would ever see these things.

Walk with your shoulders high and your head higher. Be a proud member of the most important non governmental agency today in the United States. Then remember what Jeremiah said: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” And be proud, speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions. Be proud that you’re a Catholic.

NOTE: Even though of the Jewish faith, Miller has been a staunch supporter of the Cleveland Diocese and Bishop Anthony Pilla. It was published in the May-June issue of the Buckeye Bulletin.

Index: Atheists, Lent, and Evil Religions

Throughout Easter and a Lent, I did a lot of what my friend Jason called "High Intellectual" articles.

I'm never making that mistake ever again.

However, since it did have some interesting fan support.... if "fans" could be people screaming for your blood ... I figured I'd put it into a nice, compact little section on the blog. Think of it as a season in review that, with luck, I'll never inflict on anyone ever again.

The Snarky Theology series. My way of translating dogmatic theology into something that human beings can understand.

Snarky Theology 1: Catholic Cannibals. Looking at the theology of Swallow the leader. Eating your deity.

Snarky Theology 2: FAQs about Lent. Some fun facts about Lent that turned into a minor war.


The Flame war is postponed While I was busy having a flame war with an idiot on the blog, someone did soething stupid online. I fought back in the name of all sane people everywhere.

Snarky theology 3: Evolution, Creationists, and other Irritants. Evolution, what is it good for? My answer: who cares?

Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." Catholicism on Sex and Gays Pretty much what it says.

GOD H8TS JAPAN; Twitting with Phelps & Co.  Hint, it was published on 4-1-11


Snarky Theology 5: The Passion, Jews, and Good Friday. 


Snarky Theolgy 6: Easter: HE IS RISEN



The Guest Blog Index -- "Catholic fiction"

-- I had two weeks off from Snarky theology for two virtual book tours. One was a bit of Sherlock Holmes with Murder in the Vatican, and some Catholic science fiction from Karina Fabian's Infinite Space, Infinite God II

Murder in the Vatican Author Margaret Ann Lewis.

Guest blog (on writing historical figures in fiction) and Interview (on writing a book on Sherlock Holmes and Pope Leo XIII), and a Review of Murder in the Vatican, which can be found at Amazon.com


I did the same for Karina Fabian.

The Guest blog: where she talks about writing religion and science fiction

The interview, where I unleash my inner nerdom ...

And a review.


I think that was the most fun I had had that Lent. They were both a joy and a pleasure to have.

Evil Religions 2: Baby-raping Catholic Priests.

Finn's Law: Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.

[Preface to the evil religion blog posts is here.]
I mentioned a while ago that some moron threatened me because I even implied that someone out in the universe could be more corrupt than the Catholic Church. I didn't defend anyone, didn't consider defending anyone. I merely posted some statistics from John Jay University and the Department of Education.

Objection: “The Catholic Church was abusing children in the 1950s” …
Answer: Were there priests abusing children in the 1950s? Yes. Was it the entire church? No. The church figured it could always be handled “in house.” Let's ship them away, let's put them away from any temptation, let's put them in the drunk tank to “dry out” for a few months. Then they'll be better. They'll be fixed.

Why would they do this? Why would anyone believe something that stupid? Aside from the fact that it was the 1950s?

Oh, BECAUSE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS TOLD THEM THAT PEDERASTS COULD BE FIXED.

I'm serious. The Church relied on medical professionals, on "science," instead of listening to one of their own priests, who told them to boot their asses to the curb.

Father Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of a group known as “AA for priests” (link above), noticed in 1952 that abusive priests were not being “cured,” and suggested firing them. The Church overruled him, and relied instead on psychologists. Even Boston Cardinal Bernard Law sent pederasts to psychologists for screening and treatment, and got clinical approval to put them back on the pulpit.

He got approval! By psychologists!

You see, a perfectly medieval church would have settled this the easy way. A whole bunch of villagers could have taken out the local pederast and thrown him in the river after a whole bunch of Unpleasant Things had been done to his body. But nooooo, Rome had to rely on "science" (psychology is a Bachelors of Arts degree, not of science). The Church was perfectly modern about it. Perfectly understanding about it …

And if anyone had just asked my opinion, someone would have been served an enema of hydrofluoric acid…


Actually, Ireland had the best response. One professor of mine, back at St. John's University, complained about a pederast who had been shipped “out of the way” from the Republic of Ireland. He shook his head and muttered repeatedly about how shameful it was. The pederast in question had been shipped to Belfast … the highly-violent, gun-toting, Catholic-killing slums of Belfast.

When I asked if anyone had heard from the priest ever again, the professor said, "Not that I know of, why?"

I didn't have the heart to explain to this fellow that they weren't “hiding” him; it's as close as they could get to an execution.

Anyway …

To get back to the conversation in general, I'm not sure how many people understood the concept of 100% recidivism in the 1950s. And I'm not sure how many do today. For example, I have a friend. He had been abused in grammar school, by a father-son pederasty team. My friend lives in Great Neck, New York, and ever since the bastards were put away, he and his fellow victims have been ridiculed, lambasted, accused of lying, of being bribed, of everything under the sun short of being serial killers. He still lives with this, today ... in secular Great Neck ... and all of this was over two public school teachers. Now, tell me, what would someone like him have gone through in 1950s America if the abusers were priests? Tell me the traumas wouldn't have been compounded with public attention …?

And if someone asked my opinion…

Moving on.

Objection: “Yes, but priests are still being moved around!”

Answer: Again, you mean the ones that aren't thrown in jail because the Catholic church threw them there? We can go for two possible answers. As I said above, priests within a closed system are protecting their own bad apples ... like Doctors and Policemen have been known to do ... and politicians, and lawyers, and most other human organizations on the planet ....

However, my thought? I suspect the answer is bureaucratic inertia.

Nope, I'm dead serious.

Consider: most priests now being hauled away in handcuffs entered the priesthood before psychological screenings were in place. All of their bosses entered when the accepted method of dealing with abusers was to send them to therapy. The whole upper administration is populated by people who were taught that psychology could fix these offenders.

Cardinal Law, mentioned above, is a prime example …

And, I want to ask this one more time: If these people were sent to shrinks, what freaking moron declared them fit for duty?

Finn's Law: Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.

Objection: “Yes, but priests are all baby-rapers!”

I love this argument too. Why?

The biggest number I've ever seen on pederasty in the church is a possible 8% of priests of OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. It's probably 4% or less, according to John Jay University, who did a study on this... click on this link to find it.

Let's look a little closer.

About 4 percent of U.S. priests ministering from 1950 to 2002 were accused of sex abuse with a minor, according to the first comprehensive national study of the issue.

The study said that 4,392 clergymen—almost all priests—were accused of abusing 10,667 people, with 75 percent of the incidents taking place between 1960 and 1984. [Author's note: before psychological screening was in place]

During the same time frame there were 109,694 priests, it said.....

The study, released in Washington Feb. 27, [2003] was commissioned by the U.S. bishops' National Review Board, ....

The study said the sharp decline in abuse incidents since 1984 coupled with the declining percentage of accusations against priests ordained in recent years "presents a more positive picture" than the overall statistics.

It said that 68 percent of the allegations were made against priests ordained between 1950 and 1979, while priests ordained after 1979 accounted for 10.7 percent of the allegations......

Regarding substantiated allegations against priests in ministry at the time, the most common action by church authorities was to send the priest for medical evaluation or treatment, said the study.

Although most of the incidents occurred before 1985, two-thirds of the allegations have been reported since 1993 .....

Hmm, so as time goes on, there seem to be fewer and fewer of these bastards. Funny that.

So, the US Bishops go to a secular authority in criminal justice, and make them look through all of their records. It's sort of hard to pull the wool over the eyes of people who work at John Jay University. And I suspect most Bishops get up around noon.

Trying to make a claim that there are sooo many hidden -- keep in mind, would you, that the 10,667 number is the number of victims that they are accused of abusing. Not convicted. Not investigated and cleared. Simply the accusations. Who keeps paperwork like that?

Welcome to the Catholic Church, we keep records on everything. Even accusations.

Objection: So what, why are so many pederasts priests?
Let me think, why would child molesters try to get into the priesthood … for the same reason they would be camp counselors and teachers, easy access. Protestants have a worse rate of pederasts, and the teachers…

Ah, teachers...

Statistics professor Charol Shakeshaft, of the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, estimates the between 1991 and 2000, 290,000 students were sexually abused by public school teachers and personnel. One in every ten American children has been sexually abused at school. And only 1% of allegations were investigated by the school board.

Catholic priests have had 10,667 allegations (not convictions, allegations) between 1950 and 2002. Of those allegations, 3% ended in a guilty verdict. 3%. So, hmm, at the end of the day, out of 4,392 accused priests, only about 131 were convicted over anything...

About 131 schmucks have been used as a stigma on an entire religion. Hmmm....

Now, obviously, some accusations turned out to be false, and some turned out to be not proven .... and let's assume that some were never reported, because some aren't. So, let's assume these numbers cancel each other out, and stick with 10,667 victims.

So, wait -- in nine years, public school teachers have abused twenty-nine times the number of children than an entire profession of priests over the course of sixty years?

On average, abusive priests have been accused of going after 810 kids per year, but the public schools have assaulted 32,000 per annum …

Wow, Catholic Conspiracies? Really? Rome has nothing on the teachers union....

Oh, and you will notice that it is unfair, and psychotic to make these arguments. Last week, we had a teacher note that by merely looking at the statistics is unfair and misleading, and worthy of someone in North Korea.

And he's right.

And blaming any group for what less than 1% of it's members have done over the course of five decades is just as unfair, and just as misleading.

Objection: “Yes, but priests abuse so many … ”
At the end of the day, do you know how much Catholic priest pederasty count for the worldwide crimes of pederasty? 1%. They account for one percent of all sexually abused children on the planet. And most of that is done by straight men who are married to the mother of their victims.

The priesthood, the Church, everyone, is raked over the coals because a minority of their priests are scumbags who should be set on fire, all of whom came in before psychology was able to screen for them in the priesthood.

Proper psychological the screenings were in place by the early 1990s, and we haven't had many, if any, problems with anyone who had been ordained after that. A proper system for reporting and investigating this crime was only recently established around the late 1990s, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who now goes under another name. The Pope. And he's been rather pissed about the whole thing. John Paul II was also annoyed, but his indignation was limited since he was busy dying.

The only reason anyone knows about the Catholic priesthood and their scumbags is because the Catholic Church keeps record of everything, so these bastards can be hunted down.

Hmm ... Before psychological screenings, and there were only 131 psychopaths let through. That's not bad.

Granted, thanks to "medical advice," some thought they could be "cured."

Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.

Objection: “Yes, but they should all be taken out and dealt with harshly.”
Oh, I'm an even bigger proponent of harsh treatment than anybody. See above for hydrofluoric acid. In fact, I would say “let's out and hunt down and murder every last one of the bastards, without trial.” My way would be to introduce painful methods of harm that would be recorded, and later shown to terrorists and Guantanamo Bay, and the terrorists would be given an option: this, or waterboarding.

But that's me. And I am a moderately deranged writer, who channels homicidal tendencies into novels, and I'm also the proud owner of a “Waterboarding Instructor” t-shirt.

But, courts and laws should be fair. We can agree to that, right? I mean, hell, if we wanted to, we could sign a law, and rid all statutes of limitations on all pederasts, forever. Period. I'm for that, how about you? Are you for that? Why not? Well, it doesn't matter, because no one listens to us …

Here's my problem. You have folks in the ACLU who cry out against pederast priests, and “lets go after them at every conceivable opportunity, no matter how old they are, or how old their crimes are”….

And they represent the North American Man-Boy Love Association at the same time. The motto of NAMBLA: Eight is too Late.

Conclusion.

You know what? Let's say the atheists are right. Let's say we get rid of all the churches on the entire planet. Let's get rid of the Catholic church.

Let all of the pederasts go into public school teaching, that way, they'll never get caught.

Now, if I were some people, I could take a look at the 32,000 abused children a year, and I could twist it, and I would say “Let's burn down the public schools, and shoot all the teachers.” This is more or less the logic I have seen applied to the Catholic Church in this regard..... but that logic is stupid, misleading, and psychotic. More than I am, anyway.

But, since I am a far more reasonable person than those nut cases, can I suggest that professions where children are easily accessible will always have problems, because pederasts will always try to get into those institutions, and it's hard to screen everybody?

But, for the record, I'm sending my kid to Catholic school. Or home schooling. Because my children have a better shot of being struck by lightning than being abused by a Catholic priest. And, in the occasion of a priest or Catholic school teacher abusing my kid, I know that the New York Times will come to my defense should he be doused in gasoline and set on fire.

At the end of the day, I think I can summarize my argument as follows: Doctors kill more people per year than car crashes, yet we still go to them. Some psychos gamed a bureaucracy that's slow to adapt, only the bureaucracy is made up of priests. It is an invalid argument to say that just because a small percentage were corrupt, and some were too stupid to know how to deal with them, every one of them is just as corrupt. Like every bureaucracy, it's slow and it's stupid. And .... everyone with me now ....

Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.
The entire scandal is a fabrication – not that children were abused, but that the Church “did nothing.” When problems first appeared in the 1950s, Church officials consulted psychologists, who “treated” the accused and declared them cured. The priests who grew up with this method of dealing with pederasts were officials when the later scandals broke. Even Cardinal Law of Boston sent abusers to psychological therapy.

The true scandal is that the therapists were not sued, then hung, drawn and quartered for recommending that these priests be allowed back out among the general public.

Pope John Paul II did not let abusive priests go free under his watch. After the 1980s scandal, new screenings were put in place to keep new abusers from entering. When the second scandal broke at the start of the century, he had Cardinal Ratzinger establish a system for investigating these crimes. The problems of the scandals started when the Church broke from tradition – tradition would have had these priests immediately thrown out. Medieval tradition would have defrocked them, assuming the church could get to these priests before the local townspeople. When the Church tried a “modern” cure, that is when things started to go awry. Ironically, John Paul II was also criticized during his life for being too traditional in his thinking. We should be grateful that he was.

And, below you can see all of the rules and regulations the Church now has for stopping predator priests.

Twitter Trolls: Writing in the Electronic Age

Should you want to become a writer, you're going to have to live with the Internet. You're already on the net, since you're reading this, but if you're just a casual user, get ready for culture shock. There are nut jobs all over the Internet. Normal, reasonable people, added to the Internet, seem to become quite psychotic. And I don't mean a little nuts -- because that can be any Friday afternoon after a busy week and you're stuck in rush hour -- I mean frothing at the mouth rabid, violently deranged.

If you want to go into writing, the Internet will be your friend. And your worst enemy. Probably at the same time. You will need it to sell your book. Interviews, book tours, podcasts, guest blogs, book reviews, all of it, are done online. It will be a valuable tool. Statistics seem to indicate that casual viewers of your material will not comment, one way or another. I have posted some stories from the blog for A Pius Man on another website, and have been rewarded with some glowing reviews of my work. One story got me three reviews in a matter of hours -- but only after nearly two thousand people had already read the story.

On this blog, some of the more viewed blog posts have come with people who have seriously, seriously hated me and everything I said. See the Lent post, if you don't believe me.

But, people are complicated: You could, for example, look at Matt's website. Matthew Funtime, artist for all of the good artwork on this blog, is an atheist. And I don't mean the casual "I don't believe in God, thanks, bye" sort of atheist. He's a bit of a die hard. And, if you look at his posts on religion, you might think he falls into the above rubric. He really doesn't. Unlike some people, who are reasonable until you lodge a disagreement, Matt seems to be in full Keith-Olberman-without-his-medication-mode to start with. However, if you lodge a simple, civil disagreement, he will politely disagree with you, and have a conversation.

Matt is a sane, reasonable person if you are a sane, reasonable person.

There are some that aren't so sane....

On The Pope and the current "Scandal"

Some Common Sense on the Catholic Church in the News.


Recently, there have been some accusations of a coverup by Pope Benedict, back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The New York Times has posted a little story. As Maureen Dowd has accused, "Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler' when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys."

Fr. Murphy, hereby known as "Scumbag Priest A", served from 1950-1974 as a priest at a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. There had been accusations of abuse, but no evidence--DNA had not existed before the late 80s. Without more than “he said/he said” to go on, he was later forced into "temporary sick leave." Superiors couldn't convict him, but they could isolate him.

Fast forward 22 years. In 1996, The Archbishop of Milwaukee now has victims asking him to take action. A letter is sent to Cardinal Ratzinger. There was no reply, and no one can tell if the letter ever made it to him. Ratzinger's deputy approved charges against Scumbag Priest A, waving its own internal statute of limitations on pressing cases against priests, despite the fact that the limitations in the state of Wisconsin had well since passed

In June, 1998, Scumbag Priest A wrote to Ratzinger, citing the fact that he had suffered strokes and asking to live out his days as a priest. Ratzinger's deputy suggested letting Scumbag Priest A accept banishment, a step short of full defrocking, if he admitted guilt and expressed remorse. The Wisconsin bishop who had taken the case refused.

In August 1998, two weeks before Scumbag Priest A's impending death, the archbishop of Milwaukee reported to Rome that he had suspended the trial and would try to get letters of apology from Scumbag Priest A. The suspension order was never conveyed to the priest that headed the trial panel. He says he would have fought such a command and that Scumbag Priest A died while charges were still pending.

The theory: somewhere, in there, is a coverup, and that Ratzinger is at that heart of it all.

Now, given that I live in the United States in America, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Unless you're a Catholic priest. You're accused, therefore, you're cooked.

In this case, I don't refer to the pederast. I assume that Scumbag Priest A is guilty, hang him high, skin him alive, in public, and I can devise some creative things with a spoon if I put my mind to it.

I'm referring to Cardinal Ratzinger.