What Fresh Hell is This?

I have previously insulted the Catholic Church in this blog. I will now resume.

What is the deal with these guys? What is up with the fornicatin' and prostitutin' and gay fornicatin' and, oh yeah, molestin'? Is the Catholic Church just one particularly well-organized, well-funded, and fabulously dressed secret sex society? To be honest, most religion seems to me kind of suspect from the get-go. But okay, some churches provide the kind of communities that most people no longer have, and many of them do indeed go forth and do good works.

However. The Church as headed by Der Popenfuhrer (thanks, Jesus' General, for that one) has arguably done more harm than good. First they went after American nuns, which is a good idea, since so many women want to be the unpaid, unappreciated workhorses of a byzantine patriarchal organization. They went ahead and said they didn't think condoms were much help after all, because Every Sperm is Sacred, Even Sperms with HIV. Then they went back and clarified their stance on women as priests, from [quietly] "No, we don't think we'll be doing that anytime soon" to "Women are all sinful whores vaginas are scary never mention this again."

So I guess what I'm saying is that the Catholic Church is the originator, the Ur-Dudes, if you will, of the "Bros Before Hos" ethos.

And now all this bullshit. Some dude in a dress molests 200 deaf children, but while suggesting
that birth control is not actually counter to "God's will" is grounds for instant excommunication, molesting disabled boys is just fucking fine. Then there's this other guy in a gown in Germany, who had his little peccadillos reported to Ratzenwhatsit when he was head of what used to be the office of "The Inquisition" but is now called something much more bureaucratic, like "the Office of Making Reports Of Child Abuse Go Away." The Church got some guy to throw himself on the sceptre for that one, but oho, look what the Times is reporting today:

But the memo cited by the Times says that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest's reassignment, the newspaper reported.

The Vatican's response to this bit of news is:

The Vatican strongly defended Benedict on Thursday and denounced what it said was a concerted campaign to smear him and his aides for a problem that Rome insists is not unique to the Catholic Church.

I know, right? Seems like every goddamn day I hear about the Unitarians covering up for criminal pedophiles in their organization.

In the case of this shitheel who abused children who literally could not speak of what was happening to them, there was apparently an "internal" investigation, which showed that the abuse was not as widespread as had been claimed. They determined this without interviewing any of the victims. I guess they wouldn't have to, since God would just transmit the truth to them through their fillings or however he communicates these days. This is a good one:

Fasani said the diocese maintained that it did not interview the alleged victims because they never made a formal complaint to the bishop. The diocese also said it didn't know how to contact them, even though they are all members of a Verona deaf association with ties to the church-run school.

Somewhere, someone from the Bush Administration is saying, "Hey, they copied our notes!"