Any change?

That would be a big no.

With Ratzinger's resignation there's a new pope (I was about to say "we have a new pope", but *I* don't actually have any kind of pope), and people are still watching to see if he will bring change to The 
World's Most Corrupt Organization (TM).


Early signs suggest not. Here are three recent news items suggesting it's business as usual with the Catholics.

He is planning on keeping up the war on women religious leaders. As reported in Slate:

Pope Francis announced Monday morning that he will stick to his predecessor's hard-line approach to reforming an umbrella group representing about 80 percent of U.S. nuns, an organization that Benedict XVI believed was promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

And two items showing the church intends to stay firmly planted on the wrong side of history on gay rights:

That was a brief honeymoon, Rhode Island. Just hours before becoming the 10th state to approve marriage equality, the slim, pocket-sized state — which also happens to be the nation’s most Catholic — received a stern warning from the Bishop of Providence.In a seriously buzzkill message, Bishop Thomas Tobin issued a pastoral letter to his brothers and sisters in the Ocean State suggesting they might want to decline invitations once same-sex marriage becomes official in August. “It is important to affirm the teaching of the Church, based on God’s word, that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2357),” he writes, “and always sinful. And because ‘same-sex marriages’ are clearly contrary to God’s plan for the human family, and therefore objectively sinful, Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others.”

And in New York, not only are they telling Catholics not to go to same-sex weddings, they're actually threatening to arrest gays who have the temerity to show up at church:


Cardinal Timothy Dolan today used the NYPD to prohibit from Sunday worship services gay Catholics and their allies by barring their entry into NYC’s historic St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the iconic home of the Roman Catholic Church in New York.

The small group of silent Catholic protestors were threatened with arrest by a New York City Police detective — unless they first washed their hands.

Apparently the irony of the Catholic church accusing someone else of not having clean hands, after decades of covering up for child rape, was not obvious to Dolan or any of his advisors.

Change could come, but so far it looks like "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Ratzinger Out: What Next?

Okay, so this isn't news anymore, but it's still a big deal. Ratzinger announced he's gone at the end of the month, which leaves a vacancy for god's vicar on earth.

The question is, what's next?

Who next to replace this venomous old man, the man who engineered and institutionalized the coverup of child rape by Catholic priests? The commissar who determined that to report the rape of a child by a priest would be a sin punishable by excommunication. (Thanks to Christopher Hitchens, who also pointed out in 2010 that "Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children.")

Still, it's not quite fair to say that the church conducted a coverup of child rape by its employees. No, not fair at all, because what the church actually did was a much greater crime than a mere coverup. A coverup would be one thing, but Mother Church not only concealed the rapes of children by her officials, Mother Church transferred the rapists to other parishes, other territories, where new victims would be delivered to them.

Yes, what the church did with the assistance of Ratzinger was much worse than a mere coverup, but the question now, as I said, is how to replace him, and with whom?

So a few of the details. The election is carried out in the College of Cardinals, but not every cardinal is eligible to vote, just those under eighty years of age. Of those, a majority were appointed by Ratzinger himself, and can be expected to follow his doctrinal conservatism. Of the voting members, only five are younger than sixty. One of those voting members, incidentally, is Roger Mahony (or to use the Catholic construction, "Roger Cardinal Mahony"), who was recently stripped of all his public duties because of his involvement in the coverup; he remains a member in good standing, and says, "I look forward to traveling to Rome soon to help thank Pope Benedict XVI for his gifted service to the Church, and to participate in the conclave to elect his successor." One wonders if he will take the opportunity to stay at the Vatican in an effort to duck extradition, should the United States seek to charge him for his crimes.

So the electorate is a group ranging in age from fifty-three to seventy-nine, with the great majority seventy or older. The eligible candidates are largely the same group. All of these men have been priests, bishops, and cardinals during the same decades that the church has concealed thousands of rapes by its priests. The John Jay Report, a 2004 investigation into the extent of child sexual abuse in the United States from 1950 to 2002, found that there were nearly 11,000 allegations of some form of sexual abuse by over 4,000 priests just in the United States. Of course, the problem extends to every continent.

Generations of priests committing crimes against children. Generations of bishops and cardinals who knew about these crimes and who failed to protect the children from their subordinates.

How many of these men who were priests, bishops, and cardinals during these years have clean hands? How many participated in the crime, either directly and actively or passively? Or, to put the question another way, where is the bishop or the cardinal who stood against the tide?

Can any bishop or cardinal be a credible choice? Can any person elected by this group be accepted as a legitimate moral leader?

Time to stop laughing

If you're a former Catholic, or if you know many former Catholics, or if you've always been mystified by nuns, their dress, and their habits (get it? Habits?) you've probably had occasion to think of nuns as a joke. Well, it's time to stop. The old men who run the Catholic Church are the Navy SEALS of the Republican war on women, and the nuns are on the front lines.


Just look at recent history.


Two years ago the bishops excommunicated a nun and hospital administrator for approving an abortion to save the life of the mother.


Last month they basically declared martial law on the Leadership Conference for Women Religious, an organization  of more than 1500 members, who represent more than 80 percent of the 57,000 women religious in the United States,  on the grounds that it was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women's ordination  . What did they do that was so bad? Well, for one thing they supported health care reform. Pretty shocking, huh?


And this week the Vatican . . . censured Sister Margaret A. Farley, who teaches at Yale Divinity School, over a 2006 book she wrote that the church said is out of step with official church teaching on human sexuality.


But you know what? The nuns are not backing down. After a series of meetings their statement says that the conference believes that the matters of faith and justice that capture the hearts of Catholic sisters are clearly shared by many people around the world. As the church and society face tumultuous times, the board believes it is imperative that these matters be addressed by the entire church community in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and integrity.


"Justice"?
"Honesty"?
"Integrity"?


These are strange concepts to the Catholic Church, but I know the nuns are up to the challenge of teaching the bishops a thing or two.


So as I say, the nuns are no laughing matter. Like all oppressed people standing up for their rights, they deserve our support and respect.

"Hate the sinner . . ."

You know how the extreme Right likes to talk about Islam, and how Islam doesn't fit into western society because its particular brand of theocracy is incompatible with the respect for pluralism and human rights we observe here?

Hold onto your hats, but it turns out that Islam may not be the only religion that puts a low price on individual rights.

For instance, here's what happened at a Catholic funeral the other day.

Deep in grief, Barbara Johnson stood first in the line for Communion at her mother’s funeral Saturday morning. But the priest in front of her immediately made it clear that she would not receive the sacramental bread and wine.

“He put his hand over the body of Christ and looked at me and said, ‘I can’t give you Communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church, that is a sin,’ ” she recalled Tuesday.

The guy also refused to stay on the altar while she gave the eulogy. Or to go to the burial.

I guess he didn't tell her "Who gives a rat's ass that your mother's dead?" but he really didn't have to, did he?

Even the diocese said it was against "policy", but it appears that their objection had to do with the public nature of what he did, rather than the substance of it.

It's their club, they get to make their own rules. Still, I know that when I used to be a Catholic I was taught to judge people by their actions.

I think I've seen enough.

Obama's pious falsehood

From his statement yesterday announcing the deal on contraception:

This is an issue where people of good will on both sides of the debate have been sorted through some very complicated questions to find a solution that works for everyone.

I suppose he had to say it, but I have to say this: it's just false. There are no people of good will on the other side of this debate. If you are in favor of denying women access to contraception, even if it's because an imaginary man in the sky told you to do it, you are not a person of good will.

This is a fucking surprise.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced President Barack Obama's compromise over whether to require religiously affiliated institutions to provide contraception to female employees, saying the proposal raises "serious moral concerns," according to a statement posted on its website late Friday.

"Today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deploy held convictions," the statement said.

First off, we all knew that the bishops wouldn't go for this, right? Contraception is inimical to the central value at the heart of the Catholic Church: the oppression of women.

The statement released by the Catholic Bishops conference said the proposal requires "careful moral analysis,"

CAREFUL MORAL ANALYSIS??????? Excuse me, but I'm not much interested in being schooled in moral analysis by a group that asserts a scruple against contraception but doesn't hesitate to transfer known child rapists around the country for fresh meat.

Catholic Diocese: Give us our freedom!

Freedom of religion is an important value in American society, right?

This week, if you're the Catholic Diocese of Burlington, apparently freedom of religion means the freedom to rape little boys with impunity.

It's hard to believe, but that's exactly what they're arguing. According to the Burlington Free Press, in a brief filed in the United States District Court this week, here's what they say: “The State cannot infringe on a protected freedom by imposing damages and penalties that the church cannot pay,” . . .

“If the protections of the First Amendment are to mean anything, the government should not be allowed to shut the doors of a church and put it up for sale,” church lawyers Kaveh Shahi and Tom McCormick wrote.

Yes, you read that right: if they are required to pay damages to the victims of their criminal conspiracy to cover up rapes by their employees, and to move their employees around to where they could rape more victims, that would be a violation of their freedom of religion.

In the view of their lawyers, making the church pay damages is taking away the right of Catholics to practice their religion.

Is it just me, or does this seem to put the Catholic seal of approval on child rape to an unprecedented degree?

Color me unsympathetic.

Who's the victim here?

The classic definition of chutzpah is of a defendant who murders his parents and then asks the judge to have mercy on him because he's an orphan.

We have a new contender.

According to today's Times:

ROME — The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland on Monday, citing reaction to a recent Irish government report that said the Vatican had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sexual abuse to the police.

If you're wondering, the report of the Irish government, over 400 pages, is very strong in its condemnation of the church's responsibility for the rape of children all around Ireland by Catholic priests.

Last week, the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, denounced “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and the narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day,” in a speech that represented the government’s sharpest-ever direct attack on the Roman Catholic leadership.

The prime minister told Parliament last week, “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation.’ ” Mr. Kenny added that the Vatican had not listened “to evidence of humiliation and betrayal” with compassion, but had instead chosen “to parse and analyze it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.” The Irish Parliament also passed a motion denouncing the Vatican’s role in “undermining child-protection frameworks.”

Any decent human being, or any organization with the slightest regard for human rights and human dignity, would be so humbled the the only possible response would be abject apology, or, in the case of the organization, to dedicate all its resources to compensate the victims and help them to heal.

Of course, the Catholic church, having no regard for human rights and human dignity, takes the opposite approach, recalling its ambassador in affront over the Taoiseach's comments, noting that, "the decision “does not exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions.”

Yes, believe it or not, in this situation, the injured party is not the rape victims, or the government officials who stand up for them, but the criminals who were at the receiving end of "certain excessive reactions".

Chutzpah, anybody?

A tale of two bishops

How an organization treats is employees can be instructive as to that organization's core values.

Especially if that organization is the Catholic Church.

That thought is occasioned by the treatment of the bishop of a place called Toowoomba in Australia. You've probably never heard of the place, or the bishop, but the story is worth knowing about. That's because this particular bishop, William Morris, has recently been fired.

People get fired all the time, although not usually bishops. It's not unheard of for someone to be hired for a job, turns out not to be very good at it, so they get rid of him. No big deal, right?

In this case, though, the bishop got fired for a thought crime, the crime of entertaining the idea that the church might be well served if it considered the idea of women or married priests.

UPDATE: Last night the Vatican confirmed the resignation of Catholic Bishop William Morris and released him from the governance of the Diocese of Toowoomba in an official statement from Pope Benedict XVI.

“Catholics stand with the Pope as the successor of Peter and his role is to strengthen his brothers and to defend the apostolic tradition, and it’s now Catholic teaching that women cannot be ordained priests. That’s not an optional belief; it’s now part of the Catholic package,” said Cardinal Pell.

So that's pretty clear: the church has said that it will not tolerate disagreement when it comes to its core principles and values. It doesn't care what people think, to be in the club you need to think whatever they tell you to think.

It's a private organization, they have the right to set their own membership standards.

But who doesn't get fired?

How about serial justice obstructer and aider and abettor of child molesters Bernard Law?

Also a bishop who climbed the greased pole to cardinal, but when things got too hot for him not only did they not fire him, they arranged a sinecure for him in Rome. A guy who by rights should be spending the rest of his days in a dank prison, wondering when the next assault would meet him, instead gets to live in luxury in a palace, apparently with the high regard of the congregation.

Well, given that his current boss told bishops that they'd better STFU about what they knew of child rape or risk being kicked out, I guess it isn't surprising.

Ratzinger on child rape: STFU

Yes, another day, another chance for the Catholic Church to come out strongly against child rape and for the child victims.

Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow.

Instead, today the Pope's anger was directed at news organizations that have the temerity to report on the crimes of the church and its employees, agents, and officers.

Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz said the church should take notice of individual tragedies and treat sex abuse cases very seriously, but at the same time he criticized the media for "targeting the whole church, targeting the pope, and to that we must say 'no' in the name of truth and in the name of justice."

National Catholic Reporter vs. Ratzinger

Who would have thought?

I'm told that tomorrow's Palm Sunday (actually, someone told me yesterday that Easter is a week from tomorrow, so I just figured the Palm Sunday thing out), and even Catholics are starting to challenge Ratzinger to come clean on the child rape story.

The Holy Father needs to directly answer questions, in a credible forum, about his role -- as archbishop of Munich (1977-82), as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1982-2005), and as pope (2005-present) -- in the mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis.

We urge this not primarily as journalists seeking a story, but as Catholics who appreciate that extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary response. Nothing less than a full, personal and public accounting will begin to address the crisis that is engulfing the worldwide church. It is that serious.

They go on:

Like it or not, this new focus on the pope and his actions as an archbishop and Vatican official fits the distressing logic of this scandal. For those who have followed this tragedy over the years, the whole episode seems familiar: accusation, revelation, denial and obfuscation, with no bishop held accountable for actions taken on their watch. Yes, there is a depressing madness to this story. Time after time, this is a story of institutional failure of the deepest kind, a failure to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a failure to put compassion ahead of institutional decisions aimed at short-term benefits and avoiding public scandal.

The strategies employed so far -- taking the legal path, obscuring the truth, and doing everything possible to protect perpetrators as well as the church's reputation and treasury -- have failed miserably.

It's high time that people within the church are taking this issue seriously, and holding the church management responsible for their crimes.