That’s some magic spell

Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.”  - Bill O’Reilly, while declaring that such unexplained, magical events are the basis for his belief in an invisible sky monster.
                           
O’Reilly isn’t alone in his avoidance of reality in favour of grasping at sorcery to spoon feed him answers to everything.

Pope Benedict has asked Catholic priests to do a better job preparing people for marriage, saying that no one has an automatic right to wed.

But a bunch of old guys who have never been married are the best people to decide who is fit to marry, and who isn’t.

Because they have their magic book, their spells, and a direct line of communication with the invisible sky monster.  You know, the one who uses magic to make tides go in and tides go out.

That’s some spell they cast over people like O’Reilly who trip over themselves to bow at the feet of these old bachelors in their wizard robes.  Despite ongoing reports of child rape committed by the men in funny clothes, some people still hand the most important decisions of their lives over to them.

How can any sane person believe that leaders of a group which claims to have taken vows of celibacy and has no experience of the day to day struggles that married couples face trust such out of touch people to decide whether or not they should marry?

How can they even consider the words of people who preach celibacy as a virtue but rape and shelter rapists in their own group?

That is far more difficult to explain that why tides go in and tides go out.

We are an amazing species, capable of manipulating our environment, able to do long-term planning, capable of spatial/time thinking.  We wake up each day knowing we are free to make choices and decisions that will shape our day, our future, yet some of us cheerily hand over this freedom to those old guys in dresses who can’t even follow their own doctrines and laws.

I’ve heard many people try to excuse religion by saying that it gives people strength.  I don’t agree.  It allows them to avoid making difficult decisions.  It stops them from learning how strong and capable they are by facing challenges without a belief in magic.  It helps them avoid consequences to their actions.

Religion belittles what we are by giving credit for our strengths to some myth handed down through generations by ancestors who did not have the tools and understanding to explain the world around them and came up instead with explanations based on magical beings and supernatural events.

Now we can explain how tides go in and tides go out, but some of us choose not to.  We can also decide on our own whether we are fit to marry.  Some societies have fought dearly for that freedom, yet some people still choose to consider the dictates of the old, unmarried pretenders who claim to have some special, magically conveyed wisdom that the rest of us lack.

Benny the Rat does say one thing that carries some truth -

On Friday, Benedict said that public officials must set a good moral example for society.

He was referring obliquely to Premier Silvio Berlusconi and his escapades, feeling the spirit of the ghost bird no doubt inspiring him as to what is moral for a married man, but really, before looking to what married men do what their dicks, he should look to his own group of sorcerers and lecture them on setting good examples.

You know, little things like don’t go around raping kids, and don’t help members of your group cover up such rapes.   

There's a link between heterosexuality and pedophilia.

Well, there must be, according to the Vatican which is attempting to blame pedophilia on homosexuality.

"But many others have demonstrated, and have told me recently, that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. This is true, this is the problem.". - Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state

Since homosexuals are attracted to same sex, then I guess all those cases where girls are raped or molested by men proves that there is a link between straight sex and dudes who like to mess with little girls.

What utter rubbish.  Homosexuals are attracted to their own sex - adults, like themselves.  Usually, as with heteros, they want a relationship that is intimate, long term, and where both adults are compatable physically, emotionally, and intellectually - a partnership.

Same for well balanced heteros: consenting adults who are compatable.

Pedophiles have very different buttons.  Removing the vows of celibacy or allowing homosexual relationships in the priesthood would not reduce incidents of pedophilia because pedophiles don't want sex with adults anyway.  Or at least, they aren't satisfied by it.  They want to dominate someone much weaker.  They aren't attracted to either same sex or opposite sex.  They are drawn to children whose sex has not yet matured.  They don't want a mature partner, they don=t want a long term relationship, they can=t related well to another adult in an intimate relationship.

Considering that, it is not homosexuality nor celibacy that causes some priests to molest children.  Those pedophiles entered the church with their tendencies already in place, whether they had as yet acted upon them.

It is likely that the catholic Church itself draws these pedophiles.  It offers secrecy.  It offers an environment where they won't be looked at oddly for not being in an adult, intimate relationship.  It gives them access to kids.  It offers them a position in which they have influence over, and access to trusting and vulnerable kids.

And the Vatican has shown over and over that pedophiles will not have to face the law for their crimes.  Most won't even have to stop molesting because they'll just be moved to another parish where no one will be warned of their tendencies and past crimes.

They even get to die believing they will go to heaven, since they are rarely defrocked or excommunicated.

Where does a guy go who is very uncomfortable with women, needs an excuse for appearing celibate because he doesn't want sex with adults - male or female, and who thrives on having vulnerable folks under his control?  The Church draws them, offers them a place where they feel comfortable.

As long as the Vatican fails to hand them over to the cops and courts for their crimes, pedophiles will continue to feel that the Church is their safe place, their home.

This would have made my mother happy –

- good Catholic that she was.

However, she did not blindly agree with everything that came out of Rome, and her criticism over the child rapes would have been loud. (emphasis mine)

"It is important to us that unconditional transparency is brought to the past," the Swiss bishops said in a statement. They urged all abusers to "stand before God and the people whom they have wronged and report to the relevant authorities."

Switzerland, home of the Swiss Guard papal protectors, is considering creating a central registry of pedophile priests to prevent them from coming into contact with children. Swiss bishops are divided over the proposal.

Amid renewed outrage over the European scandal, Schoenborn announced over the weekend the creation of a church-funded but independent and clergy-free commission headed by a woman to suggest ways to strengthen church guidelines for dealing with sexual abuse.

Swiss bishops urged victims to consider filing criminal complaints. German bishops opened a hot line for victims. Danish bishops launched an inquiry into decades-old claims.

"Thank you for breaking your silence," Schoenborn told the victims. "A lot has been broken open. There is less looking away. But there is still a lot to do."

He’s right. While these cries for reform and words of condemnation are good to hear, there’s still a lot to do. So, on this holiest of weeks, what is the head of the Catholic church doing about this predatory conduct of its own?

Asked how Benedict was responding to the scandal swirling around the Vatican, Lombardi replied: "The pope is a person of faith. He sees this as a test for him and the church."

Right.  Like it's some outside thing testing them, poor victims.  Not their fault.  It's the church that's under attack, not the trusting children the continue to violate.

Benny is showing his humility this week through the tradition of washing his clergy’s feet.

That test, Benny? Massive fail.  My mother would not have been so happy about that.

Why isn’t this bastard being charged?

Arthur Budzinski was a shy boy of 12 when he was first molested by a priest during confession, while away from home at a school for the deaf.  Now, Budzinski's story is part of the latest sex scandal to plague the Vatican, as documents have surfaced that show the priest accused of molesting Budzinski and as many as 200 other deaf boys was protected from being defrocked in the mid-1990s by the office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Really.  With stories coming out nearly on a daily basis, surely there's enough for one of a number of countries to launch and investigation.  Not some bull-shit thing, but a criminal investigation.

"I think someone should be punished for this," his daughter Gigi Budzinski said. "His innocence was stolen from him."
 
No kidding.  Had it been some regular dude covering up for a buddy, justice would have been dealt out long ago, and the son-of-a-bitch wouldn't have had several more decades to cover up more crimes.

A big part of moving on after being molested is hearing the molester acknowledge guilt.  Without this, the victim carries the guilt and shame.  Victims need to know the wrong was done to them, and charging the molester then having a court say that what he did was criminal goes a long way in helping the victim heal.

It also lets people know that no one, under any circumstances, is allowed to molest a child.

But Ratzinger is sending the opposite message.  So are all of those justice systems to timid to charge him.

Some priest apparently would like to see some measure of justice taken, although I doubt what they request would go very far:

According to Church and Vatican documents obtained by The New York Times, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office of Ratzinger in the 1990s to let them hold a Church trial against Murphy.
 
But at the time, Ratzinger's deputy decided that the abuse happened too long ago for a church trial. Instead, it was recommended that Murphy, who was then ailing and elderly, should repent and be restricted from celebrating mass outside of his diocese, according to the documents.
 
And the child rapist?

On Thursday, the Vatican defended its decision not to defrock Murphy, who died of natural causes in 1998.

Safely tucked away in heaven, the Church must think, since they didn't even defrock him.

Well, 900, chill out.  It's only rape.  Not at all serious like using condoms.

Fuck the Catholic Church.  These were their crimes, this agony was brought on children by them, and they do less than nothing to stop it from continuing.

I'm not including decent Catholics in this, but if they really believe in the good things Jesus taught, they should really demand that the Church clean house.  Or find another way of practicing their spirituality.  Silence does give consent.