Donohue is also an amazing fellow, always able to top himself in serial excuses for the crimes of the church. His latest escapade is to pardon a priestly abuser because his victims were over some magical age.
The head of the influential Catholic League says that the priest who allegedly sexually abused 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin did not engage in pedophilia because 'the vast majority of the victims [were] post-pubescent."
Bill Donohue made the argument during a raucous debate on Larry King Live Tuesday night, during which he repeatedly pointed the finger to homosexuality -- rather than pedophilia -- as the cause of the church's sex abuse problems.
He's playing word games, and managed to successfully derail the discussion into a debate over how young the victims have to be for it to count as pedophilia — Donohue is claiming that once a kid is over 12 or 13, he's fair game. At that age, it's just homosexuality.
Where to even begin? The problem is not the sex of his victims, it's that this was a priest abusing his authority, acting as a sexual predator on much, much younger members of his flock — young people who were in his charge, who were dependent on him, and who had been indoctrinated with the belief that they should trust the priest. Donohue is resorting to arguing that because a 13-year-old had pubic hair, he had the full autonomy of an adult and the abuse of the priest was simply a love affair between equals. And that is bullshit.
It's a mistake to get into an argument about a chronological dividing line at all. The one thing Donohue is really good at, though, is spewing out distractions, and that's what he has accomplished here — he's obscuring a clear pattern of abuse with a lot of irrelevant noise.
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Just let them self-destruct, seriously.
Did Larry King call him out on it btw?
Frankly, why bother to even refute this evil, lying sack of shit?
I can see engaging someone so selective in their beliefs that the refer to this evil, lying sack of shit's opinion to defend the Catholic Church, but not the evil, lying sack of shit itself, especially because having an evil, lying sack of shit champion the Vatican's position is more effective in tearing it down than nearly anything else could be.
If there's no point in talking to a brick wall, why engage in debate with an evil, lying sack of shit, even if our "balanced media" (rational human beings allowed "honorary white" status only; and no atheists) thinks that their viewers need to get the evil, lying sack of shit's view on these things.
More fun for the RCC paedophile club:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/28/pope-paedophile-priests-ita…
Let's see the catlicker league explain this away!
Has anyone noticed the unintentionally hilarious article from Bill Donohue on his site today.
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1817
Apparently faith is not now sufficient.
Evidence is required.
I feel like I've been hit on the head with an irony bar.
And this argument achieves what? At that age it's still illegal in most countries civilised isn't it?
#5 correction - "civilised countries"
Does this mean that Bilbo lives by the maxim 'If there's grass on the ground, play ball'?
Ew!
Sioux Laris #2:
Sacks are not big enough to contain the putrid mountain of rotten hypocrites that is the RCC.
Hopefully the stench will soon be so overwhelming that all but the poorest, most uneducated in the Third World will smell the rot.
And hopefully then also those poor bastards (in the Aussie sense) will start to wake up to the fraud that is the catlick church.
I have 2 comments on this:
1. I think Dawkins was right about this sort of thing, the religious indoctrination - going to hell for masturbating and all that - is actually worse than the child abuse because it happened on a scale more than 2 orders of magnitude larger.
2. But I would add the physical abuse in these schools was also an order of magnitude larger - I was personally a recipient of that. So the Bill Donahue's of the world do not surprise me.
By moving the topic to homosexuality instead of pedophilia, Donahue seeks to alter the conversation in such a way that the church's rabid anti-gay rhetoric gains traction.
"We have always opposed homosexuality"
"This is why it is so important for priests to maintain their vows of celibacy."
By employing such wrongheaded, backward, disgusting, ugly, vicious and myopic reasoning, he feeds the faithful a means by which they can bury their head in the sand about the rampant child rape within the church, the shameful and negligent covering up of those crimes, and invest some righteous outrage in demonizing gays instead of addressing the very problem they have both ignored and assisted for a couple of thousand years.
Disgusting in the extreme...which ought surprise no one.
He can call it "consensual heterosexual sex" if he wants - for all I care.
It is what it is and the insidious organization that protects it needs to be called to account before the civil authorities.
I can see how this attitude can make the world a little less painful for some minds:
The vast majority of victims of abuse in the world are probably above the age of 12, hence there's nothing to worry about. Hah! Solved another problem by divine ethics.
Fuck Bill Donohue sideways with a rusty knife. Yes, Intersection pissants, I said it. And I meant it.
Once again, I agree with PZ's moral stand on this issue, and with Jesus' advice (Matthew 18:6): drowning's too good for 'em. I'll settle for lethal injection.
Bill Donohue - paedophile facilitator
Pope Ratty - paedophile facilitator
Vatican - world's #1 paedophile ring
May they soon receive what they truly deserve!
Thank you, Mr Donohue,
For settling my mind,
My faith had been a-wavering,
'Twas getting hard to find,
As day-by-day I mused upon
The things some priests had done,
Like fucking poor deaf children,
As Yahweh fucked Christ's mom,
Without a please, or by-your-leave,
Without a friendly kiss,
Without a tube of sacred lube,
Without a "Thankee Miss!"
But now I see that niceties,
Are rude satanic tools,
Real Christians need no permit,
Permission is for fools!
For those whom God has set in place,
To rule His helpless flocks,
Are men of great compassion,
With God-like hungry cocks,
So do not blame them for their needs,
The victims light the fuse,
By being sweet and vulnerable,
A homosexual ruse,
Concocted by the atheists,
Who wallow in the dirt,
Of earthly carnal pleasures,
Morality ungirt.
"Do not despair!" cries Donohue,
"The Church of Rome will win,
Through bribe and inquisition,
Through cries of 'mortal sin',
Through excommunication,
Through threats of burning hells...
(And if we still have problems,
Through hiding criminals)."
"For when all's said and done", says Bill,
"We've lasted all this time,
As priests in golden dresses,
Force poorer men to tithe,
And in the drear confessional,
The children they molest,
While out at mass they have the sass,
To claim they pass the test."
So back to church I'll gladly go,
Forgetting the abuse
A Christian Brother did to me,
For faith is quite obtuse.
And I will praise God's Holy Name,
Perpetuate the farce,
While my corrupted Mother Church
Festers up Pope Benny's arse!
AMEN
"Members of my church have abused their positions and perpetrated abhorrent, abusive crimes against young persons in my church's name. There is no way to excuse this, and these priests should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and excommunicated from the church. The church does not condone this behavior."
Would that be so hard for anyone to say? Anyone? Donohue? Benedict? Nobody?
Well done Smoggy Batzrubble - always admire your poetry.
So, according to Billy, homosexuality is a sin UNLESS it's a man of the cloth sodomizing choirboys but ONLY IF THEY'RE BETWEEN 13 AND 16!
Gosh darn, all this sexual (im)morality is complicated!
nonsensemachine wrote:
Apparently, appearing to admit that your organisation is anything short of flawless makes baby Jesus cry.
Frankly, why bother to even refute this evil, lying sack of shit?
Because he gets invited to be on Larry King to spread his garbage. No attempts at refutation, he has the "public square" all to himself.
Hypothesis: Bill Donahue was teased at catechism class for having a proddy first name and his entire career is a vatiban loon has been a neurotic attempt to exorcise those demons.
Ok, he was succesful in derailing that discussion but in doing so he also managed to show once more what sort of a complete asshole he really is.
I really doubt he's obscuring anything. On the contrary, I think he's making this disgusting cover up even clearer.
Sigh. This is like claiming it's not rape because it's sodomy. It's homosexuality because most of the victims were boys? The girls who were victims are just tossed aside and ignored? It's not pedophilia because most of the victims were "post-pubescent"? The youngest boy victims are just tossed aside and ignored? Splitting hairs on definitions, are we?
The victims were children, they were raped, so this was child rape, no matter what other fancy word applies. Surely the Catholic Church opposes child rape at least as much as it opposes consensual sexual relations between two adults of the same sex?
The moral abyss yawns wider, Bill Donohue finds himself on the wrong side, and he lacks the courage and integrity to just jump.
Hope you like the company you'll be keeping, Billy boy.
So presumably if it was heterosexual sex with a post-pubescent girl of 13 that would be fine by Donohue? These people so spectacularly miss the point in such a particularly morally repugnant way it beggars any belief.
I'm speechless. Waking up in the morning to see someone say such a stupid thing really saddens me.
I hope Bill Donohue is arrested someday. The fact he's even able to speak this nonsense on live television is just deplorable.
I think Donohue does actually speak for a certain marginal group of older Catholics. His organization is certainly well funded and has a surprisingly large membership. That said, I think that moderate Catholics by now only hear from him what the rest of us hear - a pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible. He came on an Irish radio show a few months back and proceeded to attack a survivor of religious child rape, coming across about as unlikeable as was possible (I'm pretty sure even the Irish hierarchy couldnt have listened to him without cringing).
So keep up the good work Bill, keep pushing those moderates out the door.
I kind of think old Bill'The'Perv must be basing his reasoning to the age of consent in vatican which is 12, making 12-13 a fair game. So all catholic churches are part of the great vatican Nambla convention in his mind, I would guess.
One problem even with that reasoning is the Vatican law which states that when there is a relationship of dependence the age of consent is set to 15 years.
Nothing seems to show the immorality of religions better than the clergy and their fanboys.
I think that Donohue will continue to get away with generating this noise so long as we keep talking about it as pedophilia and abuse.
We have to call it what it is:Rape.
Well, the law doesn't agree with that idiot Donohue. Aren't you glad the church doesn't get to make up the rules? Hell, the rules would change all the time and there'd be one set for the priests and a different set for everyone else. Donohue is just making shit up - as you would expect from someone who believes religion is a source of morals.
Just for interest:
The age of consent (heterosexual only, of course!) in the Vatican is 12. But if there is a power dependency (teacher/student, etc) it is 15.
I guess priest/boy-or-man is not allowed, but priest/young-woman is OK once she is 15.
http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe#Vatican_State
I wonder how much of this is the fault of the secular Jews from Hollywood who love to fill movies with anal sex.
What movies ??? I missed them I think !
BillDo's argument is an old Muslim apologetic: people accuse Mohammed of being a pederast because he married Aisha when he was 51 and she was 6. The usual response is that he waited until she was 9 to have sex with her. Because that makes it all right, apparently.
Rorschach, I was making a reference to one of blow hard Bill's more disgusting episodes of shit flinging
All of this bile this early in the morning is not doing me much good.
Barry Pearson #32 I have a theory why the age of consent for women is so low in the Vatican. According to the Protoevangelion of James, a supposed biography of Mary (mother of Jesus), she was 12 years old when she got knocked up. So if their god can impregnate a 12 year old, it MUST be acceptable. Of course there is a power dependency involved and she didn't exactly give consent (she was told she was already carrying God's fetus). Go figure.
Try the movie Jade, I believe anal sex was a major plot point. I twas David Caruso's only (that I know of) movie that actually made it to a theater.
I didn't really hit puberty until I was about 15. Arbitrary ages are pretty silly, maybe we should use the generally approved legal age of 18 as a marker of when someone is "fair game"? And maybe we should recognize that even adults can be victims when someone in a position of authority engages in sex with them. It's a serious breach of ethics for a psychiatrist to have sex with a patient, and can cost them their license. Apparently priests aren't bound by such ethics. Too bad we can't revoke their "priest license".
Dr. Myers, love your blog (been an avid reader for some time).
An interesting and timely dichotomy has unfortunately arisen in our neck of the woods (NW Louisiana).
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20100401/NEWS03/4010323/Homicide-suspect-has-prior-convictions-for-sex-related-crimes-involving-juveniles
Horrifically, a sex offender has lured a young child away from home for molestation and torture. The community is outraged and rightfully so. So much so, that the arresting officers (that I know personally) have meted out justice prior to trial (if you know what I mean).
yet, while discussing the VERY SAME ISSUE with the Catholic church, the community is full of excuses, dismissals, and now, justifications.
@#32, of course, the pederasts and their supporters actions make sense in light of the fact that 12 years is the age of consent for catholics. The gender thing, of course, is probably just an misprint.
Technically I suppose raping post-pubescent children would be and act of ephebophilia as opposed to paedophilia. That some of the rapes were perpetrated on members of the same sex, and thus technically homosexual rapes, is also pretty much undisputable. SO FUCKING WHAT?
The undeniable facts of the matter are that ordained, catholic priests abused their positions of power, raped children (pre and post pubescent, of the same sex and of different sex, and under the legal age of consent in the many nations in which this has occurred), by both the legal definition of "statutory rape" and the definition of rape as "unconsenting forced sexual acts". No amount of weaselling disproves these facts.
Trying to shift the blame onto the "homosexuality" of predatory, ephebophilic, homosexual priests (in the technical senses of those words) misses the point wildly. Whether or not some child (a person, minor, under the legal age of sexual consent) had fuzz on his nuts or not is also not in any way germane to the point that an adult deliberately used their position of power to coerce or force sexual acts with that child.
These were not acts of legitimate consent, even if the child was post pubescent and apparently consenting (and I seriously doubt in anything but an insignificant minority of cases they were. In fact I doubt even that minority exists). At the barest of bare minimums, a child of ~13, post pubescent or not, cannot legally give its consent to sexual acts in most (all?) nations where these crimes took place. So at this (ridiculous) barest of bare minimums, statutory rape is undeniable. That is the absolute bedrock of these cases. For the apologists to try to dig through this bedrock, or more accurately to avoid its existence entirely, is an act of staggering mendacity and malice.
Even the poorly stated, bare minimum, toothless, overly technically nuanced, milquetoast description I give above is damning enough. If one then considers the most laudible (and I use that word with a large sense of sarcasm) acts of the church itself in light of these facts then the case gets even worse. The lack of apologies for these acts, the relocation of priests, the prevention of and interference in prosecutions are all the least sinister and morally deranged things the church has done as a response. They've done far, far, FAR worse.
My point is that even if one considers the least (if that word can even be used) of the actions of these priests and their church, then their crimes are still utterly, mind blowingly huge. Trying to escape the consequences of this by focussing (dishonestly) on a technicality a) acheives nothing and b) is irrelevant. It's an attempt to distract, to shift the focus of the discussion, to blame all of an already oppressed segment of society (homosexuals) for crimes committed by a subset of a privileged segment of society (priests). It doesn't even bear up to a second's scrutiny.
The problem with the acts of these priests is not that they were, by and large, acts of technical homosexuality (i.e. they occurred between people of the same sex), but that they were predatory acts in which an adult in a position of authority and responsibility used that authority and position to coerce and force vulnerable people in their charge into sexual acts. Bill is trying to avoid this fact like the fucking plague. In this case the vulnerable people were children under the age of majority, under the age of legal consent, pre and post pubescent, of both sexes. Whether or not the children concerned were "consenting", male, female, post pubescent or simply wearing a short cassock is utterly, dumbfuckingly ir-fucketyfuckfuckeringly-relevant. It changes nothing.
If I have a moustache and repeatedly beat you about the head and neck with a rubber mallet, then force you to comb my moustache, the moustache having and moustache combing are really incidental. Even if my beating of you was done with the sole purpose of forcing you to comb my moustache. The violence, the coercion, and the violation are the problem, not the moustache or its combing.
The fact that this simple truth (i.e. it is not the specifictechnicalities and descriptions of the actors or the act per se, but the manner and mode in which the act was conducted) escapes Bill Donohoe amazes me. I doubt if placed in a similar position he would espouse the same idea.
I know what we have to do. Rape Bill Donohoe.* We need to get a large gentleman, with a severely large rubber dildo just for extra glee, and rape Bill Donohoe. Hard. In the arse. A lot. I would like to see if he places the emphasis on the "homosexuality" of the his violator then. I'm guessing, and going out on a limb here, that he may make mention of the whole "unconsenting violation" issue first. My guess is that when he goes to the police he's not going to say "There was gayness occuring in my bottom! Gayness I tell you. A man put his penis and a gigantic rubber wanger in my bottom. The Gayness!!! The Gayness!!!......oh yeah, and I said no, but that's not important, it was I tell you, a gay man did some GAYNESS!!!".
Bill Donohoe disgusts me. I think this may be a common emotion.
Louis
*People at The Intersection and morons the world over, this part is hyperbole. I do not advocate rape anywhere at any time. This is not a "joke" is a deliberate, fantastical overstatement designed to illustrate a point. In this case, the dishonesty and irrelevance of Bill Donohoe's muddying of the waters. In no way do I advocate raping Bill Donohoe. In fact I strongly advocate the absolute, polar opposite. No one should ever have sexual contact of any kind, consenting or otherwise, with Bill Donohoe. It's only a shame that someone already has.
It's amazing how many priests are in hell. It's sick to think that an omniscient God presided over and sanctioned their ordination.
Donohue is a first class asshole of the highest caliber. His latest rounds defending the Church for these crimes against humanity is the sickest thing I've ever seen come out from him...and that is saying a huge hell of a lot.
I watched Hitchens eviscerate the Pope the other day on Fox (posted at Dawkin's site....I don't watch Fox), and they put Donohue on after Hitchens. It's too bad they didn't put Hitchens on after Donohue. But I suppose that they couldn't do that because Hitchens' could then destroy anything theological which was said and leave just a smoking ruin without even a carcass at the very end. And we couldn't have that on Fox "News", now could we? It might upset all the theologically-minded.
Pity. If there's anyone I want to see ripped up by Hitchens in this, it's Donohue, live on TV, until the guy crumbles in a puddle of his own sweat and humiliation.
Fucksticks.
That was tl so dr if you don't want to. Donohoe annoys me, I may have ranted a touch.
Apologies.
Louis
How does Bill explain the numerous cases where priests have abused female members of their parishes? Some of them were children ,some teens, some adults but all abused.
"...the Catholic League defends the right of Catholics – lay and clergy alike – to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination."
It certainly does!
It's too bad they didn't put Hitchens on after Donohue.
The Englishman shuts up when The Irishman speaks!
My mom was right. Masturbation must have made me blind.
I can't see how the fuck anyone can defend the Catholic Church.
If we're playing at bald assertions like Donohue, then I called it first.
Sexual abuse is sexual abuse whether the abuser is a paedophile or not. Certainly Donohue can't be trying to suggest that the sexual abuse isn't sexual abuse because some of the abusers aren't paedophiles.
If you check out what most of us mean by 'paedophilia' you'll find that it is RAPE of CHILDREN these days. And being labelled a paedophile makes life--deservedly--merry hell for those convicted.
Theoretically P. is the condition of being sexually attracted to children, but is now used on people who act out their desires to the detriment of children.
AFAIK it is not something convicts brag about while incarcerated, - in any country.
I'm not making this up, I swear: this morning, I finally went to see the post that got Alan Clarke banned, and then refreshed to find this post up.
Peas in a fucking pod.
Oh, and another appropriate but meaningless coincidence: intertwining their initials gives you ABCD.
It wouldn't surprise me if the vast majority of catholics in Norway (or even Europe) have not even heard of Bill Donohue. But then, they do have faith that someone in their preferred system of belief takes care of everything that is wrong, somehow.
I saw that! One of the last things I ever saw on TV before I cancelled DirectTV and have been living sans-TV ever since...
I remember thinking, back then, that Donahue was a douche. The only thing that's changed about that opinion was I didn't assign him to the "Maxi-Douche" category...
Though, thinking about it, I think he's more of an enema kind of guy... I suspect, some day, we're going to read about him being found dead, in rubber fetish gear, with a dildo up his ass...
Nothing despicable said by that sack of offal astonishes me anymore. His existence would justify the coining of the phrase "beneath contempt" if it did not already exist.
And totally OT, while the source sometimes tends toward sensationalism, you can find a report which indicates to some that morality is wired into the human brain, without the intervention of religion at this link (which may or may not show properly as a link): http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/03/30/magnetic-zaps-to-t…
From Mr. Donohue in 2004:
I'm not clear that a majority of cases were same-sex rape. Where are the actual stats for the reported cases?
Bill isn't trying to avoid it, he's trying to blame in on homosexuality, and thus shifting the blame from the church. In his world view, remember, homosexuals are predators. He knows exactly what he is doing.
OMG! I'm so glad I stay out of those threads...
Too early in the day, Mr. Fire. Too early in the day...
Re my post at 55, more diligence in editing before sending may be in order, if not a refresher class in sentence structure.
The difference between pedophilia and ephebophilia turns out to be fairly important when we are talking about prevention, treatment, etcetera. So there is a distinction, Donohue's not making that up.
But Donohue is still the world's biggest douche because 1) both are obviously terrible crimes, and 2) homosexuality does not cause ephebophilia (duh).
Thought you might be interested in another poll on religion. (left box there's a tab at the top for poll)
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/my_view/0331-religion-under-attack
Do you think religion is under assault in America?
Yes, I have to keep my views to myself
47%
No, I feel free to express myself
15%
No, religion is too pervasive already
36%
@ Smoggy - have you been mating with Cuttlefish?
Nice one.
I'm wondering if instead of 200 boys, he'd raped 200 girls - would that just be 'heterosexuality', and thus morally OK for Bill Donoshit?
Don't! You're missing out!
Alan Clarke is fucked up. If we invoke his name, like that of Mabus, does he come and haunt us even more? (Mabus has appeared on every forum I've visited. Like Beetlejuice if you say/write his name three times he comes. Is anyone will do do the Clarke experiment?
I actually wrote about this festering piece of crap a couple of weeks ago or so, when he did an opinion piece for CNN where he also defends the Catholic Church and whines about catholic persecution.
He disgustingly tries to make the argument that Jewish religious leaders and teachers are just as bad, but are not "attacked" the same way. It's really quite vile.
My favorite part though? The picture! Never has an image so aptly projected the true nature of the subject, in my opinion.
Thought you might be interested in another poll on religion. (left box there's a tab at the top for poll)
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/my_view/0331-religion-under-attack
I'm in Chicago for a conference this weekend. The local Fox affiliate ran that same "religion under attack" story. Orders must have come down from on high to terrify the sheeple.
Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.
I wonder how old Billy Donohue was when kindly Father Hardon invited him back to the rectory for some special instruction.
I get the feeling Donohue was so unfuckable he would have welcomed even that kind of attention. He honestly can't understand that the victims weren't completely willing, even eager, to have it happen. It's the only thing that I can come up with to explain his position.
"Donohue is claiming that once a kid is over 12 or 13, he's fair game."
Where, exactly, did Donohue say *that*? Huffpo reports him as saying this:
"The Times continues to editorialize about the "pedophilia crisis,: when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay."
Note the words "victims" and "abuse" here. He is not denying that there is something very wrong here. He is denying that it is pedophilia. (Perhaps because he himself finds pedophilia particularly odious.)
He is also implicitly claiming that the root source of same-sex assaults on post-pubescent males is homosexuality. That is a terrible argument, akin to claiming that rapists rape women because they are heterosexual.
But since for Donohue all homosexual acts are sinful, and since he would also agree that rape is a crime, he is not saying that post-pubescents are "fair game." Donohue is certainly open to criticism in lots of legitimate ways, but that punch was below the belt.
I see that the distinction between pedophilia and ephebophilia has been made, but there's also hebephilia, which is between the two in age groups. It gets complicated. But none of that matters, because Donohue is wildly off the mark. A difference in clinical diagnosis doesn't mean that he wasn't a sexual predator.
Michael -
reading for comprehension... try it sometime...
Donohue:
Meaning, in his opinion (and let's also note that he just asserts this claim without evidence), most of the victims are older than 12 or 13...
And therefor, since they are older than 12 or 13, it's not predatory pedophilia, it's mere homosexuality... in other words, the 14 year olds aren't prey, and the priests aren't pedophiles cause the kids are post-pubescent, so from the standpoint of a definition of "pedophilia", these kids are fair game.
Honestly... was it really that hard to comprehend that "once a kid is over 12 or 13, he's fair game." is exactly what he's implying?
addendum to my comment @64: 'missing out', that is, on the racous but generally friendly and informative nature of the Endless Thread. Not 'missing out' when applied to disturbed individuals airing their horrifically dirty laundry.
And another thing...
Even if this claim were true:
... does that mean that we should just ignore the 20% that were cases of definitive pedophilia? "Only 8 out of 10 of the kids were under 12... get over it already".
No, the moral and human thing to do is not make any effort at defending or mitigating the issue whatsoever. Period. Simply say "it's disgraceful and needs to be addressed" and leave it at that. Any attempt at a defense of any of this on any level is vile and indefensible.
What do you think he's trying to do by steering the argument towards a definition of "pedophilia"? Donohue's entire schtick has been to downplay the abuse and this is just another attempt. He may not be saying it, but the implication is that if it's not pedophilia, then it's not really as bad as it seems.
Show me one instance where he's even hinted that the RCC should take responsibility.
Tulse #57,
Sorry, I was on a rant, probably didn't express myself clearly enough.
In the first bit you quote I should have made it clear that this is what Bill et al are claiming. Even if it is true, it's meaninglessly irrelevant. I'm sure you can google the stats as easily as I can.
Which plays to the second thing you quote. My point was that Bill is trying to avoid the fact that the homosexual nature of these acts is irrelevant. He's not trying to avoid the fact that the predatory nature is relavant, as you say, he's trying to use it against homosexuals. He's trying to focus on an irrelevance so he can distract from the facts. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
Louis
Show me one instance where he's even hinted that the RCC should take responsibility.
Donahue can't hint that the church should take responsibility. After all, the institution is unable to do wrong, incapable of erring. Only individuals within it can do so...and we faggots are always worth attacking.
The world will be a better place when the RCC--and Bill Donahue--are no longer part of it.
Really? This is where we want to go?
Read this story on HuffPo yesterday and can't say I didn't expect him to find some weasely way to "discuss" the issue publicly. I will note it took several days for him to concoct his defense, but Donohue's job is to protect church income. If he can take the heat off the church for a couple days and pony that much closer to the Vatican's chief transvestite, he'll do it. The man is about business; that much is obvious to me based on all the MSM appearances of him I've seen. It's never about the issue when he speaks because he's on TV to engage in battle, not analysis, and certainly not to take blame. He's there to make sure the persecution complex has its say in the court of public opinion.
He's still a colossal asshat busybody know-nothing defending, aiding, and abetting serial sexual abusers of course.
Until at least the 1980s, girls weren't allowed to be altar boys (duh) ... dunno what they are called now. Assuming the stats are true, the fact that priests had greater access to boys might be part of the reason they are skewed.
Secondly, even if it is a problem of the church attracting homosexual men with psychological problems that lead them to prey on young boys, how does that let he church off the hook, in any way, for letting the abuse continue for decades?
The term was officially changed to "Altar Server" in 1983 in the code of Canon Law.
Yes. I was an altar boy (server). No, I was was never buggered by my priest. He was actually a pretty decent guy, as I recall.
Want to? No. It's where it took me.
Celtic Evolution @#72:
Perhaps *you* could try "reading for comprehension."
How does "predatory behavior" by "molesters" turn into "mere homosexuality"?
Or does "reading for comprehension" really mean something like this:
"I know what this man really means. So I don't actually have to pay attention to what he says and the words he uses at all."
Louis (@42):
Thanks; this is the term I've been trying to remember for a week or two now, as I've been reading the headlines on this scandal. As for the rest of your post, you're wrong (@45) to worry about it being a tl;dr rant. On the contrary, I thought it was just right — Molly-worthy, in fact — and leaves nothing for me to add.
Altar servers, last time I checked.
Which reminds me, there's nothing wrong with two altar servers of equivalent age and mental capacity, consensually making out in the sacristy while there's a mass going on outside. At least, I hope so, for my own sake.
Where's Brownian? I'm sure he'd back me up on this.
Louis # 42
Off topic but your rant reminds me of a friend who works in an adult store. In case of trouble they keep a *very* large, very hard, dildo behind the desk... essentially to add as much insult and embarrassment to any situation as possible.
Back on topic, Donohue really is a stupidly evil fuck with no sense of shame or any personal moral fibre.
The World Health Organization disagrees with
Donohue's definition of Pedophile also:
http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/index.htm?gf60…
F65.4Paedophilia
A sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age.
Donohue will probably just say..."WHO?"
..and he'll finally be correct.
Who doesn't?
Celtic_Evolution, your track record of beating others to the punch continues unabated :)
Leave little Billy alone you horrible lot!
He's doing a wonderful job.
Every time he opens his purty little mouth, the RCC sinks deeper in the shit.
I also like the word "most" here.
"You can't say I committed a war crime; most of the people I killed were enemy soldiers! Just not, you know, those 100 people in a helpless village."
"You can't say I'm a thief! Most of the money I have comes from legitimate businesses! It's just that $100,000 I extorted from charities."
Taking previous comments of Donohue's into consideration is perfectly reasonable when deciding what inference to place on what he says.
You might like to see how he reacted to the Ryan report.
Can't resist. Hatchet Harry is a man you pay if you owe.
The Catholic League is not officially legitimized by the RCC. But I find it hard to believe that shit-stain Donohue's vomitous rantings are not tacitly condoned by them. If the church for one minute found his spewings objectionable, you can bet he would have been repudiated by "holy mother church." It's the wink-wink nudge-nudge in all its flaming hypocrisy. This lamentable condition also gives the church plausibile deniability (shades of Nixon), should they ever want to use it. "Bill Donohue? Oh, he is an independent pundit. Nothing to do with us, no sir".
Lee Picton
Still not reading for comprehension. I never denied the fact that Donohue was using the term "molestation". Nowhere in my comment do I even address the use of the word "molestation".
I'll say it again, based on Donohue's own words, he is saying that since they are older than 12 or 13, it's not predatory pedophilia, it's mere homosexuality...
See? Never used the word "molestation" in that entire claim. He is claiming that it is simply a case of homosexuality... in fact it's his very first and main fucking point.
That he considers homosexuality a form of molestation in general is another issue. But it's not the point of his rant, and anyone with even mild reading comprehension skills can see that.
It is a shame nobody responded with a simple "Ok, Bill, it isn't pedophilia, I'll just call it rape. Or would you prefer sexual abuse of a minor? Is that better Bill? I'm sorry I misused the term pedophilia".
MrFire @ 85
No, so long as they're not using condoms. (According to Catholic 'logic'.)
I think it's a requirement, in fact.
QFT!
The things I experienced with the "alter girls" in the confessionals would make a sailor blush... received my very first oral sex right there in fact!
Kept me involved with my church for at least another year as a result...
That sort of makes me wish I was raised religious....
See how they get you?
@13
Forget the knife. Sideways with a rusty chainsaw and no lube!
So if only a small minority fit in a certain category, they don't exist? And since the accusers didn't realize that, all of their accusations are completely worthless, and the accused are not just innocent, but the most moral people in the world? The religious mind baffles me sometimes--the levels of cognitive dissonance are staggeringly deep, and the logic is completely twisted.
By the way, Ratzi the Popezi has immunity as a head of state.
Bill Dauphin #84,
Thanks very much for the high praise, but what I done writed is vastly too error strewn for Mollyness. I may have been in a slight mood when I wrote it. Luckily I went into the lab and swore at some reactions for a while. It's a well known fact* that chemical ractions work better when you swear at them.
;-)
---------
Hairy Chris #86 and Rev BDC #88,
There are very few situations which aren't improved by the use of a very large dildo, at least for comedy purposes.
Mr Fire @ #93 read my mind! "But what's it for, Harry?"
Louis
* Yields, purity and even e.e.s are improved. This is a well known fact of the "pub fact" variety. I maintain it is true despite an overwhelming amount of contrary evidence. It is a universal, Platonic, special unicorn pixie dust truth that doesn't need to match anyone's pathetic level of detail. So there. With knobs on.
I don't think Donohue is trying to justify the priests' actions. He is trying to use verbal Sleight of hand to distract and confuse the audience. By debating the legal definition of an obscure term, he has misdirected the audience away from the heart of the matter. It is a desperate technique.
Yeah, but that seems to be a legal opinion from a Catholic Priest. Since the Catholic Church in the US once tried to argue they were not aware raping minors was wrong, one has to wonder how good their legal advice is.
pedophile or ephebophile sexual assault on a minor is still a dick move.
these priests are sexual predators who are committing crimes against persons under the age of consent.
this isn't really a sexual identity issue, it's an issue of rape and violence. and the actions taken by an institution that allowed it to continue.
any discussion of whether or not the priests fit into any specific definition of pedophilia disregards the actual crimes that have been committed.
really what they are arguing is that the legal age of consent should be lowered to uhm, whatever they feel qualifies "post-pubescent". 12-13?
I presume Donohue hasn't had sex with anybody since his divorce...I can't find any information on whether he has remarried. By his own standards, he hasn't and can't, and that's got to be a whole load of bottled-up something.
Posted by: Tulse @ 57
"Bill isn't trying to avoid it, he's trying to blame in on homosexuality, and thus shifting the blame from the church. In his world view, remember, homosexuals are predators. He knows exactly what he is doing."
That doesn't change the fact that the priests are still sex predators. Gay or straight means nothing. Both the priests and Donohue need to get boned in the ass with a stick of dynamite.
Not specifically, no...
Donohue's goal is to defend the Catholic Church itself from the copious and justified accusations that it is an organization of unspeakable wealth and power that has knowingly and willingly acted as a safe haven for known pedophiles and child molesters, and that the position of power and influence held by the RCC makes such behavior especially heinous and deserving of an extremely high degree of scrutiny and condemnation.
His primary methods to achieve this goal are to attempt to diminish or lessen the acts themselves, paint the issue as one of "the evils of homosexuality", and claim it's the same everywhere and that the church is being unfairly targeted.
It's slimy, despicable and evil, just like Donohue himself.
great post sophia-daniels, but I can't resist:
choice of words for the win...
*ducks*
I can't belive Donahue would publicly support this crap and I am calling you out on it PZ! I remember watching his show in the late 80's early 90's and thinking it was really entertaining!
What?? Oh...that was Phil Donahue that had that show. My bad! Ya...Bill Donahue is an ass-clown!
He's not a pedophile, he's gay! Wake up people...get your mortal sins correct or you are likely to burn in hell for all eternity.
I was an alter boy for 3 years and all it ever did was keep me from falling asleep in mass...
Damn... I might have to put that on a t-shirt.
It's not as good as the one Celtic could wear, but that would seem more like he's trying to convert people to religion: "I was an alter server and I received oral sex in the confessional!"
-Kemanorel
And apparently I can’t spell Donohue correctly. I am probably going to hell for that too.
And to think... here in Finland, legislators are only now thinking of making sexual abuse of a defenseless person rape. So far it has been just that: sexual abuse. Which is a lesser crime in finnish legislature.
Nah. That's too quick for people that evil. Just an m-80 would be fine... septic shock and/or exanguination. Then again they celebrate death through torture, so they might get a sick kind of pleasure out of that as they die...
Okay. Dynamite stick it is.
I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused.
I was under the impression that the good ol' RCC hatedhatedHATED teh gheys. So, even if this was the case of a priest simply engaging in homosexual acts*, shouldn't that be enough to toss him out of the clergy?
*Instead of, you know, being a disgusting pervert that abuses his position of power.
What do you know. That Jesus dude is in favor of castration for these guys. Matthew 18:5-9
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2018:6-9&version=NIV
I have been led to believe they are just confused, they should star anew in a new perish and the rest of us should just stop thinking about it.
Nice. In this century, we call it 'blowjob', however :p
We are both British, chemists, atheists, have names beginning with L, and have a deranged sense of humor. We may even be separated at birth.
Well, of course. But there is still controversy. I belong in the school that maintains you have to swear clockwise for the R isomer.
Louis (@103):
Your... (ahem)... slight mood is a Feature, Not a Bug®, and its goodness utterly overwhelms any questions of mere editorial correctness.
To all:
Have any of you looked into the research (if any exists) on links between priestly celibacy and sexual dysfunction/abuse? Intuitively, I could posit two links, but I have no idea whether actual, you know, science has ever been employed to confirm or debunk them:
1. People whose sexual feelings are "abnormal" (by the social/religious standards under which they've been raised), and who believe in divine punishment for sin, may see the celibate priesthood as a "safe harbor." That is, they may think that if they publicly promise to not have sex at all, ever, they won't ever have to worry about whether the sort of sex they're having will send them to Hell. Of course, once in, they discover that merely making a vow doesn't make the feelings go away.
2. Celibacy involves an unnatural suppression of normal human impulses, and when those impulses can't be entirely extinguished, they tend to "leak" out through unhealthy (which is to say, immoral and illegal) expressions.
Of course, none of the above is offered as any sort of defense of priestly rape and abuse; I'm just curious about underlying psychosexual mechanisms. As I say, these are nothing but intuitive suppositions, and I know full well how unreliable those are. Does anyone have a gloss on the research in this area? I know I could Google it, but I also know I'm not qualified to evaluate primary sources. Any thoughts from a group I trust would be appreciated.
Sorry, but that immunity has been soundly rejected by the International Criminal Court. Heads of state are no longer immune from prosecution. General amnesties are no longer accepted unquestioned by the ICC.
Other refinements include: Using children in war is outlawed. Rape has been defined as a weapon of war, and abusing women or forcing them into marriage are punishable crimes. Looting and plunder — the age-old prize for warriors — adds prison time.
And we can see these in practice. Saddam's immunity defense fell on deaf ears. The Vice President of the Congo is being held for trial. The President of Sudan is under indictment. And there are a number of warlords in Liberia under indictment, as well.
The only real issue in all of that is the political will to do what is necessary to get the criminals under the rule of law.
Michaelplevy #96,
Oh I absolutely and wholeheartedly agree. Although I prefer the term "fucking kids", as in: "My apologies to Mr Donohoe and the Catholic Church for misusing the word paedophilia in this instance. So back to the issue. Bill, when those priests were fucking kids..."
Louis
Clarification of me (@120):
By...
...I meant to include both sexual feelings that sane people would consider normal (e.g., homosexuality), but which are demonized by religion and conservative social teaching and those that are actually pathological (e.g., paedophilia): Either way, a person might see a vow of celibacy as a way of hiding from himself, and either way, he might well be setting himself up to break those vows in illegal and immoral ways.
Mr Fire #119,
I knew there must be some reason I liked you! ;-)
As for your ridiculous, parity violating counterfactual claims regarding clockwise swearing for R enantiomers, I can only think that you must be some species of bastard. Any fool knows that it is clockwise for the S enantiomer because that's the way the magic works.
You see the swearing comes in clockwise and knocks the magic pixies that make the product chiral go in an anti-clockwise direction. BUT only if you swear clockwise from the re face of the reaction. If you swear from the si face, you get a racemate.
HTH HAND
Louis
"the priest who allegedly sexually abused 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin"
200 deaf boys. My brain just fell out.
Jebus. 200 kids abused. At a certain point, you have to have a little admiration. I mean, I feel that I've accomplished something if I get dressed and showered in a day. These priests have to do their voodoo AND manage to abuse at least one kid every two months to keep up with the quota.
Personally, I see this as the perfect opportunity to label Donahue as the poster boy for hebephilia. I would dearly love to see a Google association between the two. "Don't know what a hebephile is? Just Google 'Bill Donahue' and find out!
Seriously, how far around the bend are you when your best argument is "ONLY 25% of those accused were actually sexually molesting pre-pubescent children!" W...T...F?!!! So if I forcibly sodomize that worthless sack of shit with rusty rebar one day, and merely make inappropriate comments when he waddles by the next three, does that mean I've got a problem with sexual harassment?
Moral authorities my ass....
I really thought I was done being surprised by the bile that spews forth every time Bill Donohue speaks, but for fuck's sake! I think I threw up in my mouth a little reading that.
@101
Oh no, you have to use lube. Otherwise, the blades on the saw lock up and won't move. Careful maintenance of power tools is essential.
What Sinead should have said was "The American shuts up when the Irish woman speaks!"
It's going to be painful sitting at the dinner table on Sunday. Not even the appeasement of my family, or the promise of chocolate will make me participate in easter this year.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/everyone-outraged-catholic-priest-did-…
This comment to be quoted as proof of rape imagery on Pharyngula by the Colgate Twins in 3... 2... 1...
What should have been said on Larry King
Bill: First, he "allegedly" molested these deaf kids (making air-quotes when he says allegedly). And most of the accusers had pubes during the time of the "alleged" molestation(again with the air-quotes).
Larry: What does that have to do with anything?
Bill: That means he is gay not a pedophile.
Larry: This is an April fools joke isn't it. You are trying to punk me or something. Ashton!! Where's Ashton? Did our producers put you up to this? You got me! Good one guys!!
Bill: No I am serious. I am super crazy.
Larry: (stares in disbelief).
Cartman, it was one of your imaginary christmas critters that gives us the solution her!
Beary Bear says, "We can use the blood for lubrication!"
-Kemanorel
So, Donohue admits that liberals are the ones who want to protect children, while he stands for the old-fashioned values of rape and silence.
This what they say in their defense?!
from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia
This is how they define "Pedophilia" in the second paragraph... sounds like as long as the child is below the age of consent it is pedophilia, puberty does not matter, in a legal stand point. Looking it up at dictionary.com they have an entry from britannica online does state something about it under physiological disorders saying it is for prepubescent. Now i am pretty sure that the legal definition would be the ruling one as it is someone that has dominion over the boys as legal guardian.
Kind of feel dirty looking all that up, though. I need a shower now.
-=tbn=-
You know who else believed in the S enantiomer approach? Hitler!
I win.
This is why I always refer to it as child molestation and child rape.
But more to the point, this is just one more piece of the big huge puzzle that shows just how many men in our society don't believe in consent. Just have no ability to parse it.
Donohue's reasoning, as much as it is, is vile, but it would be impossible to reach without a fundamental lack of respect for the very idea of consensual sex.
To him, sex is something you do to women. You fuck them and they take it. The idea of consent doesn't factor into it, as such once a child has pubes and a sexuality, any form of rape must be sex as well and thus exactly the same as consensual sex between two adult gay men in a non-coercive relationship.
And what he says gains traction because a literally appalling number of people in our society haven't yet come around to the relatively new idea that consent in sex is kind of a big deal and that those in the penetrated "woman" role are worthy of being people.
Note, also that these same people tend to not just view their wives as property, but also their children. This coincidentally has a connection to incestuous rape and physical and emotional child abuse.
We need these people to spit out their real feelings, make them admit that they have no idea what rape is nor do they think it wrong.
At least in general, we can thank feminists. If it wasn't for feminists fighting tooth and nail since the 70s for a world where rape victims could admit what happened and fight for the right to consensual sex and the right to bodily autonomy, there wouldn't have been the also feminist-led movement talking about child molestation and educating the public on rape.
50 years ago, Donohue's statements would have been nodded along to sagely by many far and wide. Yup, it's just those faggots again. Now, we see him shifting goalposts on rape and thanks to feminist activism, many of us have grown up in a culture where we see exactly how vile that is.
With luck, within another 50 years there won't even be a Catholic Church to be outraged against.
I'm with Louis in #122: I'll stop using the term "pedophile" and start calling them "kid fucking priests". You're welcome, Bill Donohue.
It seems they are more "kid-raping priests" than "kid fucking priests."
It's the forceful nature of their kid-fucking that really just pushes this over the top. Whether they use violence, or just their power differential, they are forcing kids to fuck them. That is rape.
To Bill Donohue:
It isn't that the priests are homosexuals. Some are, and some aren't. It's not even that the priests were fucking kids. That isn't it either. It isn't even so much that the priests raped these kids. That's fucking evil -- but it's not what this whole thing is about.
It's that the pope and everyone else with authority covered this up. It's that they allowed child rapists to go unpunished. If the church had turned over these child-rapists to the proper authorities in the first place, there wouldn't be this outrage!
Instead, the church (including the current pope) enabled these child-rapists to continue unpunished. This gave them the clear signal that it was A-OK with the church.
That's what this is about, you moronic, sycophantic, evil git. You are a tick attached to the decaying rectum of the church, growing rich and fat off the fetid corruption that is the Catholic Church. If you didn't have your head (and livelihood) so far up the ass of the church, you might be able to see how inhuman this is.
Do the world a favor. Take your sorry-assed self out to a desert, and become a hermit. The less you speak to people, the less harm you will cause the human race. Mmmkay?
To be pedantic, pedophilia is not a crime. Child rape is a crime. Until people can be prosecuted for the thoughts and feelings they have, the act of feeling sexual desire towards a child can't be a crime.
There was an interesting discussion about this on Slashdot a while ago, where a pedophile wrote a comment about his experiences in feeling desire towards children, but knowing how despicable child molestation is, he doesn't and won't act on those impulses.
A capital idea! Having lived near or on the high dessert my entire life I have a fair idea of how Donohue would fair in a dessert, not at all well. He most likely would die a miserable, agonizing and prolonged death. In the end his bones would be gnawed on by Coyotes which is still too good for him.
Hate to say it, but if you break open an unabridged dictionary, Donohue is technically correct about the definition of pedophilia.
It's an attraction to people who have not yet reached puberty and acquired secondary sex characteristics.
But jebus, is that his whole defense? The 13-year-olds are fair game? What a piece of shit.
I don't necessarily agree with most of what Mr donohue says, but when people like you constantly rag on his religion and say its totally run by rapists i can't blame him for getting a little mad
Lots of newspapers put out a special joke edition on April 1st. Does that mean The Onion should put out one issue of real news on April 1st?
Because frankly, this article was spot-on accurate, actually.
Citation, please...
Or would you rather admit to just pulling that assertion out of your ass?
you guys are the ones pulling it out of your butts pz and hitchens and dawkins have said multiple times that catholic priests are all a bunch of child rapists
And, that throws the priest's celibacy oath out the window.
Your concern has been noted, douche canoe.
off topic:
ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) rejects donation from humanist organization:
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/04/01/aclu-turns-down-donation-from-huma…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/us/01prom.html
@jcmartz:
You missed the second part of that story:
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/aclu-apologizes-american-humanist-assoc…
First point... citation please... or shut the fuck right up.
Second point... so what are you trying to accomplish here? Priests raped kids. The RCC covered it up. People are rightfully pissed and directing it at the exact right people. You making shit up about anyone calling EVERY priest a rapist is more weak and lame attempts at crying persecution. Go fuck yourself.
What the ever-lovin' Jesus-fucking hell?
First, is this meant to be a defense of Donohue? The guy who is trying to excuse child-rapists, and those that protect child-rapists? Really? If so, it's a complete non sequitur. It has nothing at all to do with either this blog post, or the contents of the comments.
Second, saying that the Catholic Church has shielded child-rapists, and so is complicit in the crimes, in no way asserts that it is totally run by child-rapists. Your comprehension skills seem to need some calibration. What is being stated is that the upper reaches of the Catholic Church has protected child rapists. That's all. I don't think anyone here has accused the Pope of raping children. Yet.
Finally: did you receive a Catholic education? If so, I know you were taught to properly punctuate sentences. Punctuation is important. Can you spot the difference in meaning between these two sentences?
"A panda eats shoots and leaves."
"A panda eats, shoots, and leaves."
Also, :punctuation'; is, fun!
He is correct that psychologists do differentiate sexual attraction to pre-pubescent minors and attraction to post pubescent minors as two separate categories because they may very well be different conditions driven by different psychological causes. And he is correct that clinically speaking "pedophilia" only refers to the first category and not the second.
Where the lying scumbag Bill Donahue is wrong is where he then goes on to imply that this then means that since he's eliminated the term "pre-pubescent" from the phase "These priests had homosexual sex with pre-pubescent minors." that this means the only thing left in the phrase that's worth being outraged over is the word "homosexual". Bzzzt. Wrong. The term that's still left that should be raising everyone's ire is not the word "homosexual". It's the word "minor".
I'd love to meet him face to face and get up in his face and say, "Hey Bill Donahue, homosexual sex with post-pubescent minors whom one holds authority over is still sex with minors whom one holds authority over, you bigoted lying dumbass, and that's why it's an outrage, not because it's happens to be homosexual sex as well. The occasions where priests engaged in heterosexual sex acts with the minors under their care, even if you were correct that this happened less often than the homosexual acts, are still equally as vile as the homosexual acts were. The word 'homosexual' isn't the problem. It's the word 'minor' !"
It's bad enough to have sex acts with minors, which is already illegal to begin with right there in the countries where these allegations have come out, but it's even worse when they are minors whom you have some degree of authority over, as in the case of the orphanage or school situations.
(This, by the way, is why I think the incidents of priests abusingraping minors who were living in some type of church-controlled housing, such as at an orphanage or boarding school, is even worse and should be met with an even larger punishment than the situations where priests "merely" abusedraped altar boys deserve to get. At least the altar boys were only visiting the church and had somewhere else to run to after it was over, rather than going back to their beds still knowing that even there "at home" in their dormitory beds their rapists had them under their watchful eye 24/7 and so there was no escape.)
You know, being under the watchful eye of an abusive father figure 24/7 with no way out is actually a pretty good description of what the bible says heaven is like.
PZ rightly pointed out, "The one thing Donohue is really good at, though, is spewing out distractions, and that's what he has accomplished here — he's obscuring a clear pattern of abuse with a lot of irrelevant noise."
Precisely what Ben Stein did with "Expelled" and it turned into a gold mine for him & the fundies.
cameron (@141):
It's a good point, and one that deserves to be made more broadly: Feeling any sort of sexual desire should never be considered criminal, no matter how shocking the nature of that desire might be to others. Crimes are things you do, not things you think or feel. And the sexual things you do ought to be considered criminal if — and only if — they harm¹ others, or deprive them of their own right to consent. Sexual exploitation or abuse of children clearly falls into this category, as do other forms of rape and (arguably) public lewdness; other sexual acts that we often criminalize (e.g., so-called sodomy; sale, purchase, or use of sex toys or pornography; and [arguably] sex work), not so much.
I've bumped into this scenario a few times recently, including a letter in Dan Savage's column and (IIRC) a character in an episode of Law & Order: SVU. If we put aside our initial shock that they have theses feellings in the first place, I think these non-practicing paedophiles are really very sad cases: Imagine if your primary erotic focus (which by all accounts can't really be "adjusted" even if you want it to be) were something you knew for sure you could never actually do? Existence of these people also makes me question the wisdom of making even nonphotographic pornography aimed at this market illegal: Is it perhaps a mistake to deny people with these feelings a way to (however partially) work them out without actually harming anyone.
It's not impossible that this might be yet another case in which, by demonizing feelings that seem "icky" or "wrong," we may be paradoxically increasing the potential for actions that are truly harmful.
¹ This word was carefully chosen: Pain is not necessarily harm, if it's part of a mutually consensual private act.
There's more than one definition of "pedophilia" in current usage. Donohue is focusing on the one that allows him to say the priests aren't pedophiles in an attempt to downplay the crimes. It's a red herring.
I'm curious, in what sense do you consider "Expelled" was a goldmine? It was a critical disaster, and a box-office flop. The only dollar figures I can find are for domestic gross-
$7,720,487
and it's unclear what foreign markets it made it into. I can't find a worldwide gross figure.
Not really arguing with you (since it's OT anyway) but I don't really get the claim that "Expelled" was a goldmine.
"Blair Witch project"....now that was a goldmine...
Mr Fire #137,
Hitler. Lovely bloke. Used to give his mother flowers and that. Nice to people of all kinds. Honest.
Louis
P.S. I've only now just realised that I was spelling Donohue's name "Donohoe". My bad.
I think a new name for the excresence that is Bill DonoHUE is needed. I propose "Scumface the Kid Rape Apologist". Luckily the acronym is "SKRA" which is the noise I make whenever I see Bill Donohue speak.
While I loathe doing this, I must point out that while compared to general fiction movies, it does not fare well, but was considered quite successful comparatively for a "documentary".
The 7.7 mil it grossed ranks it #13 among documentaries since 1982.
Celtic, I hear you. But...goldmine?
But anyway, wrong thread. Back to the putrescence that is Bill Donohue and the catholic church.
Yeah... I know... made me twitch, too... but I can see one making the argument depending on your field of comparison, so I didn't bother trying to argue against it...
But it's not clear whether it actually broke even, much less made any money. It's hard to call a commercial venture "successful" or a "goldmine" when it doesn't make a profit.
Point taken... I was just trying to make a minor distinction, that's all...
By clarifying the technical meaning of "pedophile,' I did not mean to offer any support to Mr. Donohue's position.
I think Mr. Donohue should be waterboarded in a septic tank. Until dead. Which should take several days. Or weeks.
Have I made myself clear?
OK, so Bill Donahue now openly agrees with NAMBLA?
Is he a closet member?
Just sayin'.
Is he just fine and dandy with the Priests who had sex with under-aged teen girls in Ireland? At least they weren't gay, right? and probably didn't use a condom either...that'd be a sin after all...
I'm not defending donohue I'm just saying that you guys calling all priests child rapists is a non sequitur, you can't blame the center for the fringe
I didn't mean to suggest you were. My point was that there is more than one common usage of the word and Donohue was attempting to distract by arguing which one is "correct".
I'm confused. Do you like him or not? ;)
The Brit quality paper the Guardian has this comment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/apr/01/cath…
'But what Donohue said the other night is quite another. It was probably the most disgusting thing I've ever heard an American public figure say....
...Maybe he was just confused. But that's normally no excuse. Al Campanis was famously confused once on US national television, but it cost him his job, as such confusion has cost others.
Donohue will never lose his. He answers to boards that have been stacked with rightwingers (Dinesh D'Souza, Alan Keyes, Domino's Pizza chief Tom Monaghan). And needless to say this will only get him more television bookings, as hosts attempt to trip him up further, which in turn will only get his spurious league more and more donations. So we'll have to live with him. But that's not as bad as D'Souza, Keyes, Monaghan and the rest having to live with themselves for putting their weight behind a man who has now taken a public position scarcely distinguishable from that of the North American Man/Boy Love Association. The rest of us have to believe that on some level, in some solitary night, these believers have consciences that actually do bother them.'
Donohue is now becoming such an obvious shit that he can only contribute to the exodus of decent people from the Catholic church.
Small comfort to the abused, but at least some good may come out of it.
I missed that, can you point it out please?
augustine771 you are my new favorite dumbass.
Just reading the last few posts on this thread and others it is obvious you wouldn't be able to come up with an honest answer based on actually understanding the posts here if your life depended on it.
Fuckwit, what other institution than the RCC has a policy in place that shields the rapists from prosecution by civil authorities? That is our big problem, and the one that Donowhore tries to hide with his inane and insane logic. But either adddress the RCC shielding of the rapists, put in place by the present pope, or shut the fuck up. What an idjit if you don't see that as our main point.
And I'm just saying that making shit up that you have again and again been asked to provide citation for (and have yet to do) is an obvious and dishonest attempt at diversion.
@BigMKnows #43:
Why do you say the priests are in hell? Have a look at what an asshole god is - old testament or new - no, the priests will be in heaven raping child ghosts every few seconds with their murderous rape-loving god.
Your concern is noted again, douche canoe.
You did read the article and the comments, right? Can you kindly point out where anyone has said that all priests are child rapists? I'll wait.
...
...
...
Didn't think so. Now fuck along, little asshole.
@Augustine771 #168:
"you can't blame the center for the fringe"
Bullshit; the "center" is absolutely complicit in the crime. The vast majority of the "center" aren't doing a goddamned thing to put an end to this even though they know it's happening. Like Donohoe, many make excuses for the criminals.
still waiting for my new favorite dumbass to point to where people said all priests were rapists.
Also to support this statement
Come on dumbass, get to it.
Yes you are. You're saying he's got a right to be mad.
You've been asked several times to point out where those you claim have said all priests are rapists and failed to do so. I can only assume it's because you can't.
I don't necessarily agree with most of what Mr donohue says, but when people like you constantly rag on his religion and say its totally run by rapists i can't blame him for getting a little mad
who has said such a thing? The constant thing I see being stated is that the RCC as an institution was devoted to protecting child rapists. This is from legal authorities, and from negative sanctions flowing from child rape. Instead, the institution has worked very hard to protect child rapists. And, in the name of protecting these rapists, and the institution itself, they have provided these rapists more access to children.
So, Augustine: are you dishonest or incapable of reading?
And that it is a dumbass.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Can the tight coupling between religion and morality die please?
@ RickR & others,
Perhaps I could have used a different term; "goldmine" generally is taken to mean a commercial success. I realize Expelled was certainly no box office smash. But it instantly became a cause celebre (sp?) among the fundies and added steam to their vociferous stupidity & donations to their ever-gaping donation boxes. The right-wing evangelicals were totally taken in by Stein's smoke & mirrors.
@ RickR & others,
And I had brought it up as an example of misdirection much like Donohue's.
Apparently Donohue feels that if child-raping priests are homosexuals then the RCC is justified in protecting the child-rapists.
Let me piggyback on your excellent post here to point out, as a side topic, one big pet peeve of mine. This phenomenon you're talking about here is why it's a major mistake the way so many gay rights activists keep tying the strategy of building gay rights issues on the basis that being gay is nature rather than nurture (as in "the reason you have to let me have my rights is because I can't help it - I'm stuck being this way whether you like it or not."). And I think it's a mistake regardless of whether or not it's true that homosexuality is nature rather than nurture (i agree that it probably is, but I'm not an expert on the science so I'll leave that to other people).
Now, imagine if we managed to succeed at the goal of convincing the homophobes that they were wrong about homosexuality being a choice, but we failed to succeed at convincing them that they were wrong about it being harmful.
Then they'd adopt an attitude toward homosexuality exactly like the one you describe above, the attitude that society currently has about paedophilia.
No matter to what degree we as a society end up believing that a paedophile's desires are not his own doing, and therefore end up pitying him rather than blaming him, we will still not allow him to act on those desires as long as we as a society continue to believe that the act of an adult having sex with a minor is a harmful thing.
Or, to refine my point to shorter one-sentence statements (something I'm not good at):
Homophobes who oppose gay rights believe both of the following two things:
(A) Homosexuality is a choice.
(B) Homosexual activity is evil/immoral/harmful.
Gay rights activists who try to argue against homophobia by arguing against (A) are totally missing the point. They should be arguing exclusively against (B) and leaving (A) for the scientists alone (not the politicians, activists, and human rights campaigners), for it is truly where the problem lays. If you successfully got rid of A but not B, then homosexuals would end up in the same position paedophiles are in, as far as public perception goes - "Sure we can pity them instead of blaming them, but they still have to be stopped from acting out their twisted sexual desires regardless of whether it's their fault they have them or not. Let's check them into mental care 'for their own good' until they learn to curb their harmful desires. It's the humane thing to do.". .
You don't want that. That's the way things were in the '50s. The idea that you had to institutionalize people with proclivities toward homosexuality because it's a dangerous mental disorder - that we have to "treat their condition" "for the good of society" is exactly the attitude that killed Alan Turing, and that's exactly the attitude you would get if you successfully attacked (A) without succeeding at attacking (B).
The other benefit of addressing (B) instead of (A) is that it leaves (A) as being the totally objective scientific issue that it really is. It can be addressed dispassionately without fear of the social repercussions of publishing the results, regardless of what they may be. As it stands right now, I have to be a bit skeptical of any psychological studies announcing results one way or another on the issue of whether or not being gay is nature or nurture. Since the researchers go into the study with the knowledge beforehand that one answer helps the gay rights movement and the other answer hinders the gay rights movement, that hinders their ability to be dispassionately double-blinded while they interpret the results. They know vital civil rights issues hang in the balance. On the other hand, attacking point (B) and pointing out that homosexuality is a victimless "crime", and there's nothing morally wrong with it since nobody is harmed by it and THAT is why there should be equal gay rights makes it so that (A) is no longer a civil rights issue anymore.
(Or here's another way to put it - if (A) was the reason for gay rights and not (B), then that would mean that only those who are biologically "stuck" being gay have free reign to experiment with homosexual activities, while those who are unsure or are Bi or are experimenting don't have that right.)
"Just reading the last few posts on this thread and others it is obvious you wouldn't be able to come up with an honest answer based on actually understanding the posts here if your life depended on it."
I have only been honest in everything i've said, dawkins and meyers call the catholic religion evil and then get mad when catholics get mad at them. yes there are priests who rape kids and yes they should be arrested but you cant demonize an entire institution from the acts of a few
i personally am a protestant so while i think the catholic view on God is strange i dont view it as evil
Steven Mading (@186):
I agree entirely with what you've written.
Based on the lives and testimony of my gay friends and acquaintances and on my own (straight) experience, I'm persuaded (albeit simply as a lay observer) that one's orientation is, in fact, indwelling and not subject to choice, at least at the far ends of the Kinsey scale... but as I've said here before, so what? What we should be fighting for is people's right to choose their behaviors, regardless of how they came to be inclined to behave in a certain way.
The key principles ought to be [a] sex is not evil and [b] people should be able to do as they please — including WRT sexual matters — as long as they're not harming others. The fight for gay rights is part of a larger battle for these principles generally.
That will happen until the institution starts giving the priests over to civil authorities to prosecute, then defrock them when convicted, like any moral organization.
You still don't get it. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is saying the majority of the priests are criminals. But, the RCC is actively covering up the criminal actions of a few. That makes the hierarchy immoral, and the whole RCC suspect. That is what we criticize time and time again.
Still, you believe in an imaginary deity, and probably think your holy book is something other than myth/fiction. The RCC needs no apologists for it. You are a idjit fool. The sooner you STFU, the more intelligent you will seem.
South Park this week with its jokes against the Pope were hilarious!
I stand by my first comment. CNN and the rest of the "truth is wherever the lying, evil sacks of sit say it is" media is what needs to be refuted and reformed.
Oh, and the few defenders of these lying, evil sacks of shit come off as properly mealy-mouthed and ignorant. They are as convincing as Michael Palin talking about the parrot he sold. Feck off.
Kel wrote:
Oh, it's dead alright - but you know how Christians think; they'll just insist that if we wait three days it's going to come back to life again...
lol.
Okay just to clarify, can the perception that religion and morality are tightly coupled go away?
Did we read the same post? Maybe I had a total reading comprehension fail, but I don't see PZ complaining about the RCC or The Catholic League attacking him.
Lemme break it down for you dipshit:
1) A priest sexually abused 200 deaf boys.
2) Bill Donohue of the Catholic League defends the the priest (and by extension, the church), by saying that it wasn't pedophilia.
3) PZ and many others are outraged.
So... you disagree with the outrage over the abuse of children? We can't be angry 'cos not every priest is a fucking child rapist?
Fuck off, you fucking sniveling weenie. You have no moral high ground here.
So, if Donohue has a 12yo daughter or granddaughter, it'd be perfectly fine for me to fuck her brains out, because that'd be perfectly normal heterosexuality, yes?
No?
augustine771 #187
How is the Catholic Church not evil? Pope Palpatine, when he was Head of the Inquisition (now renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), ordered bishops not to turn child-raping clergy over to civil authority on pain of excommunication. How can you pretend that is not evil?
So supporting and protecting child-rapists is not evil in your eyes. I'm really fucking impressed by your morality, asshole.
And by the way, learn to use the shift key. It's not hard, even my five-year old great-nephew figured out how to use it.
way to miss the fucking point (again; you're good at that). it's not their "view on god" that is evil; it's their priorities: they'd rather protect their own and their reputation than protect children and let justice come to those who do evil. this is a structural issue with the RCC as a whole, and therefore it's not a matter of a "fringe" committing crimes, but about a systematic coverup by the entire bureaucracy of the RCC. A systematic coverup that permitted even more of these crimes to be committed. conspiracy to cover-up and aid a crime is a crime, too. and a complete moral failing.
This might be the case if the Catholic church's first reaction, upon uncovering evidence of this nature, was to dial 911, or 999, or whatever the local number is for law enforcement. When the institution itself is so messed up that the first thought is protecting its own image, rather than dealing with the issues, then yes, you can demonize the entire institution.
On these grounds I am going to do you the favor of taking some of the heat off you (hey you can even claim to be psychic if you want) - Catholics, be they the pope, cardinals, priests who don't rape kids, or just bums on pews - are all, or might as well be, serial child rapists if, in the wake of this scandal, they either don't demand wholesale change (including the legal prosecution of ALL Church officials involved, be that in raping kids, or covering up the rape of kids) or leave the church completely.
Augustine771 says, "yes there are priests who rape kids and yes they should be arrested but you cant demonize an entire institution from the acts of a few"
You're right. I can't demonize them. Because when an institution decides to protect the powerful or protect their own rather than protect the powerless, they have made themselves demonic!
And then to have the nerve to try to blame this abomination on homosexuality, when it is a demonstrable fact that pedophilia is about power and compulsion is just the icing on the cake.
I dedicate the following to Ratzi the Nazi:
Roy, Roy
the alter boy
was no ordinary dope;
he packed his ass
with broken glass
and circumcised the pope!
@augustine771,
OK let's go over this again. The Roman Catholic Church has been covering up for and enabling child rapists at the highest level since at least 1962 according to recent documentary evidence. In any of the countries where this has taken place that would count as criminal conspiracy making the Catholic Church a criminal enterprise.
The reason Dawkins called the Catholic Church evil was for, among other things, opposing the life saving use of condoms and thusly condemning millions to needles death. That is truly evil.
That's it in a nutshell. Yes, not all priests are paedophiles. But the Catholic Church instead of putting those paedophiles where they belong (in court to be tried), they not only covered up the abuse but they also put these paedophiles in new communities where further abuse took place.
The crime of the Catholic Church is not having paedophile priests, it was the systematic cover-up of the practice. And this is from a group claiming to be a moral authority?
Seriously, how hard is it to grasp that simple distinction? Are Catholic apologists so blind that they cannot see why there is such outrage against the organisation?
Where, indeed, to even begin. PZ asks fair. I'm fairly boggled by this and can only offer up for the olfactory edification of everyone the brain fart that was liberated by such casual dismissal:
Other than that, I can't think of anything else.
Rule number two: Never defend the indefensible.
(Rule number one being Never harass the
a)old sweeper
b)old warrior)
Kel wrote:
I think it's just par for the course. The Catholic church has both ordered and forgiven countless evil acts throughout its history; denying they are in any way responsible is as much a part of Catholic dogma as transubstantiation is.
He who posts as a_ray_in_dilbert_space has been reading my mail.
There's an old saw about using age and experience and something like ruthlessness upon the young. Damned if I can say it right now but I'm beginning to learn how it works.
Ah, here is something close:
--Ambrose Bierce
@ Louis: Your rants have made my day. And I'm enamored with all your chirality and enantiomer-speak. Please tell me you're not a 12-yr-old altar boy.
There's several versions of this saying. My favorite is "Age and cunning will beat youth and exuberance."
On a related note, today is my 62nd birthday.
Rule One from Terry Prachett's Thief of Time: "Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!"
And then there's Rule Nineteen, which is "Never forget Rule One, and ask yourself why it was invented in the first place."
Happy birthday!
"Age and cunning will beat youth and exuberance."
That's the one I was scrabbling for! Thanks 'Tis.
You big fat fucking liar. Put a fire extinguisher to those pants of yours.
You claimed that
and
Which is a completely different thing than
You fucking dishonest straw man building dumbass.
No one, including PZ, Dawkins, Hitchens or anyone in this thread as far as I can see ever said that all priests are all a bunch of child rapists.
You lied and said that to support your completely wrong assertion that they did.
Which makes you a liar and a tremendous dumbass who relies on straw men to try and form an argument to stay afloat with the people here who can actually form an argument with out relying on deceit and dumbfuckery.
Lying dumbass.
And you still can not spell the author of this blog's name correctly when it has been pointed out to you and is available at the top of the page RIGHT UNDERNEATH HIS FUCKING PHOTO.
Which makes you a lazy lying dumbass.
Thank you, Kel.
Happy birthday, 'Tis!
Dammit, Rev. You're impressive when unleashed. And correct.
Generally, only those who commit crimes are guilty; those who might be associated with them are not automatically accused, though some may be suspect. The vast majority of commeters here only point at the guilty. Anyone who says differently is riding a colt.
Sorry 'Tis, clumsy of me to not pass on Happy Birthday sentiment. I have one impending: 59 . . .
But it's not even that there were children raped by priest. That's evil, but the reason we call out the entire institute on it is because the head of the institute refuse to acknowledge it and refuse to punish those responsible. Instead they scapegoat on who ever they can: if it's not "secular Jews in the media" it's those "immoral homosexual". So if you don't want us to see the church as evil, then you had best change it's damned policy.
Ugh. There's some stupid Jesus-crap program on tv right now; they interviewed people who had survived bushfires in Victoria and they were talking about how wonderful it was that God had inspired people to help them rebuild. All the while I was thinking that it might have been even better if God hadn't let the fires burn down their homes and kill a whole bunch people in the first place.
I'll never understand that kind of thinking. Never.
The institution protected those paedophiles and covered it up. The church is not being demonised because of the actions of the priest, it's being rightly attacked for its own actions in the way it handled the situation - cover-ups, hush money and putting the paedophile priests in new locations where they were free to molest new children.
It's very simple - the institution is being criticised for its actions in the way it handled the situation. How hard is that to grasp?
Magical thinking absolves (or at least in the head of the person) the individual of the burden of responsibility. So when they thank God for the rebuilding efforts it's really like saying "Yes God activated those people, because I didn't want to do it myself."
Happy b-day 'Tis!
Or to put it another way. Say if this weren't the Vatican but the head of a large childcare organisation. And within a few centres of this childcare organisation they had hired people who molested or even raped the children.
Instead of firing those who committed the crimes or even turning them into the police, they instead transferred those carers to different cities and put them in charge of a different childcare group. That the organisation kept the abuse quiet by paying large sums of money to the victims family as such money.
Now if this were the case, what would we say about the organisation itself? Would it be fair to characterise what happened as the actions of a few bad individuals that in no way reflected the greater institution at large? Would we just ignore that the organisation sought to buy the silence of the victims? Would we feel comfortable that those who committed such atrocities were transferred to other childcare facilities? Would we think it okay that the present CEO of the company was one of those who presided in the decision to protect the image of the agency by allowing one of those who committed such crimes to get away with it?
I'm going to bet not, I'm going to bet that if it were a company, that company would no longer exist. That the CEO would be treated as someone who aided criminals and conspired to hide their crimes. That the hush money would seem as nothing more than a bribe. That the parents of those who had paedophile carers put in charge of their children would be absolutely furious! But because this is the Catholic Church, somehow its okay...
Happy B-day 'tis. Like the bumpersticker, you would rather be sailing...
Two things:
On Minnesota Public Radio this morning, Kerri Miller interviewed attorney Jeff Anderson, the guy who dredged up the documents implicating Ratzi. More than one of the people who called in played the "this is a homosexual problem" card, the stupid evil-enablers.
Podcast here: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/podcasts/midmorning/
I just got off the phone with a friend in Manilla, and she hadn't heard anything about Ratzi being culpable in the evil coverup. "The Pope? The Pope!" (She kept saying 'molesting', I kept saying rape.) She's not the news-following type, but it makes me wonder if this isn't being toned down (or buried) in the very catholic Philippines.
I was tempted, but did not say "Think about that when you're in church on Sunday".
Someone recently put two items up on our bulletin board at work, both from a local cat-lick church. One invites everyone to come celebrate Easter with the cat-lickers; the other is inviting former cat-lickers back into the fold, no questions asked. I think I'll go add a p.s. to each one: "free child rape with every new attendee." Think that would get anyone's attention? I'm offended and pissed that anyone's allowed to post this religious crap on the bulletin board of a state agency anyway.
I would be too. It's enough that I have to deal with it at a private company, I would be going ballistic at a government agency.
"free child rape with every new attendee."
How about "pedophiles welcomed"?
Oh hey, Happy Birthday, 'Tis Himself!
Rev. @ 226
I'm a manager at the private company where I work. We employ enough muslims that I can squelch that stuff. My Jordanian supervisor agrees it's inappropriate at work.
Just when you think Donahue can't get any lower, he proves you wrong.
And Happy Birthday to one of my favorite commenters, 'Tis. You wear 62 well, from what I can tell.
Yeah I'm in Charleston SC so pretty much everyone i work with is religious. The owners and directors are all part of one of those new feely goody happy time churches which is ultra conservative and ultra time consuming.
It's a battle.
I just love walking through the cafeteria and hearing one of the christ-ey ladies reading OUT LOUD from her bible during lunch. At work. At a government agency. Puke. It's all I can do not to rip her god-soaked book out of her hands and soak it in the potato salad instead.
My blood pressure went up reading this.
I'm on meds
holy
fucking
shit
I would just have to sit across from her and start reading aloud from the Buddhist suttas.
one of the christ-ey ladies reading OUT LOUD from her bible during lunch
And you haven't read aloud something, anything? If people complain, ask why that witch can disturb the peace, but you can't.
I'd read a dead body scene from a murder mystery. Maybe one of the early chapters of Black Echo, by Michael Connelly, with all the talk of the corpse found in the tunnel, then its autopsy.
Can't be any more violent and sickening than the babble.
And you haven't read aloud something, anything? If people complain, ask why that witch can disturb the peace, but you can't.
I do own a well-worn copy of the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I bet that would do the trick. I'd pee my pants laughing; she'd pee her pants in shock. It would work perfectly.
Sorry, I know I'm off topic.
There seem to be a number of Catholic priests who are all for tight coupling...just not of religion and morality.
And now, my coup-de-grace.
Ladies and gentlemen, gather 'round as I invoke the two methods behind my madness: April Fools and Poe's Law.
I'm not a creationist, I'm not a Republican, and I'm certainly not a Catholic sympathizer. I'm simply aware of what a perceived lack of capital letters, comma usage, and common sense can do to the intellect: incite the flames of righteous indignation and grammar rage.
So thanks for all the fun, and I hope my confession has restored your faith in humanity a little bit--because while people can be this stupid, they can also be totally pulling your leg.
Cheers!
P.S. Rev. BigDumbChimp, I normally very much enjoy your comments, and today I hope I didn't get you too riled up. Forgive me?
Well if anything you allowed me to vent on a day where I needed it.
And it is April Fools Day, and I've been the fool before.
So as long as I don't see you pulling that bullshit again...
You shall never see this account again after today, you have my word.
Fine.
Good job. Any other day and I'd throw a giant hissy fit.
Just ask Mrs. BigDumbChimp. She's seen it.
Oh, I believe it. Have a good night!
Dick move, dude.
augustine771
Care to tell us your regular moniker, forgive me?
Aquaria's response to public bible readings:
Not the first time I've heard that idea.
There, fixed. I was going to delete the whole MT account, but apparently I can't. Oh well, name change.
'Tis Himself-
Happy Birthday, 'Tis!
Here's a saying for your birthday:
"'Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life." ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox
And here's a photo: Crew Balancing
I have no regular moniker, as far as the Pharyngula blog goes. I'm a lurker.
Yeah well it is what it is.
Any other day I'd be pissy. But it is April first. So whatever. I got, got. No doubt about it.
That's a relief.
Is there something in the catholic genome which allows them to enjoy sex with children more than normal people?
Some of my friends are writing a report on this theory for their Biology class and I thought getting some opinions from this blog may give them some ideas for their argument.
'Tis, a happy birthday to you. All the 29 minutes that are left of it here.
'Tis good to know there are more people here in my age range.
And many more birthdays to us all.
Well, he's right in that this may not be pedophilia under some reasonable definitions. However, what Donohue is actually missing is that a) it's just as evil, disgusting and traumatizing for the victims and b) that homosexuals don't generally go after post-pubescent boys either. So he's still being incredibly stupid. Which is par for the course.
I was telling my husbeast about this thread (he likes to say that the one thing the Cathoholic Church taught him was what real evil was), and he pointed me to an article and suggested I point it out to the commenters here. (Yes, I know what HuffPo's reputation is around here. This article is one I can agree with.)
David A. Love: "The Catholic Church: A Safe Haven for Criminals?"
Enjoy....
Oh, and happy birthday to 'Tis from me, too.
Guesstimate, I'd say that when the Catholic Church is really claiming to be THE Christian church, and has a strong admiration for the Virgin Mary, you could look there at Christ's conception and Mother Mary for an example.
Christ was born of Mary, Mary is still a virgin, and God, about no matter how you consider it, was in a fatherly/priestly/parental position to Mary. She was God's child, so to speak, and certainly in no position to turn down the big guy.
So, taking all that as an example: It is perfectly within the rights of a religious leader to have sex with those under his protection. They will still be virgins afterward. And great things will be born out of the menage.
Your mileage may vary.
@Norseman424
Unfortunately I'm a vindictive bitch with no sense of humor who takes everything the wrong way. You are a disgrace to True Norseman everywhere.
I walk not in the spaces you know but between them.
It's a little late to ask, maybe, but ow many would agree with me that, though some might challenge the notion, there is no person living upon the Earth, not personally causing direct physical and psychological harm to basically innocent people, animal, algae or mineral resources, at this time as horrible as Bill Donohue?
Sioux Laris (@260):
Agreed re Donohue. Plus which, I'm just royally pissed at him for bringing shame on the good name Bill.
'Tis (@everywhere):
I guess it's belated by a few hours, now, but happy birthday!
I'm also late but .....
Happy Birthday, 'Tis Himself!
Oh, that irrepressible Bill Donohue.
What a scamp.
Will he ever stop being an apologist for the rape of children?
As for the church itself: sell the Vatican, feed the world, and put Ratzinger on trial. That toxic bastard deserves to slowly rot to his natural death in the darkest cell that can be found by human law.
Are there any studies on the rates of sexual abuse in schools versus the Catholic Church? Someone has made the following claim: a 2004 study prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
Does anyone know of the study referred to?
I don't buy it for a second, but I would like to find a solid response to this.
gregvalcourt #264
A couple of points:
First, anyone who uses a study to compare two situations, but then uses the word "likely" when actually making the comparison, is giving you a big red flashing warning sign that no comparison can be made because data for one side is either unavailable or unreliable.
In this case, it wouldn't matter what the numbers from a 2004 study on educator sexual abuse say, since in order to actually compare them to instances of sexual abuse among the catholic priesthood you'd have to get past the decades of standing practices of cover-up and denial. By its very nature, the RCC is an insular and surreptitious organization... you are never going to know the full depth and breadth of this scandal.
Second point, the best argument against such a statement is that it's an irrelevant comparison and a deplorable tactic to take to offer as any kind of defense. Such activity by either group, educators or priests, is extremely horrible, and comparing the rates of instance between the two is about as disgusting and pointless an argument as one could make.
Priests or educators, these are people in positions of enormous power and influence, and thus the reason such acts by those groups are particularly heinous. Even one act of such behavior should be treated with disdain and made an example that such behavior will not be tolerated. Period.
So in stark contrast to that, let's not forget the great lengths that the church has gone to to protect the criminals, and ignore the victims. This from a powerful, world-wide religious complex that purports to wield moral authority.
Bottom line, anyone who would go to the trouble of even bringing up a comparison of rates of sexual abuse in any other field is a morally corrupt, festering puss-sack and should be dealt with by simply frowning in disgust and walking away.
It would have been the perfect thing to say, imo. Obviously she was blind to the true goings on... if prompted to think about it, she might have shaken off the chains of religion.
Respond in kind... Put up a flier for a local atheist group. "Join the atheist community group and see what it's like to be with people that won't harbor child rapists." The reaction would be amazing I think.
Pffft. Go all out... read from The God Delusion or the Qur'an. Whatever seems to scare the piss out of her more.
Bonus points if you grow a large beard before reading from the Qur'an. Extra bonus points if you wear a baggy coat that makes it look like you're hiding something. Even more bonus points if you do the yell-tongue-yodel thing.
Or pull the 3rd place winner of the Project Reason video contest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-fCOsTafEs
Bonus points for using the following books: Harry Potter, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The God Delusion, The Scarlet Letter, and other books those crazy Christians find offensive.
First, I hope you're joking...
Second, in case you're not, religion is not genetic.
Third, "report on this theory?! I can only respond with a Charlie Brown style, "arrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh!" Learn the proper use of "theory" and "hypothesis."
If this ever happens, I'll call it a miracle and go back to church.
Damnitt, norseman being a fake means my great sarcastic comment about "how we wouldn't want to lose the center of rape apologists" must go entirely unsaid. Damn you Poe troll, damn you.
gregvalcourt @264
What Celtic Evolution said.
But also, what's most damning, heinous, and vile about the priest scandals isn't that child molestation occurred and occurred in large numbers. Sadly child rape and rape of all forms occurs and occurs a lot in our general culture due to the pre-existing rape culture and frankly if we want to only single out the prime molesters, no group of strangers can top family members. Most child molestation and abuse comes at the hand of close family members.
No, what's heinous was the response, cover-up, and continued actions of the Church. When a school finds out that a child has been molested by an educator or that an educator has molested their own children. That educator is fired and turned over to the police immediately. They aren't transferred to another school, the school districts don't try and convince the kid it never happened or threaten them with Hell and damnation, and they don't endlessly stall turning them over to the Police or refusing to engage with victim's organizations.
Mostly schools basically fire and send the teacher to the authorities and hope the amount the kid's family sues for isn't more than their last pair of pants.
On the other hand, the Church goes all in on the rape apologia. They try and make excuses, deflect blame, claim their priests are perfect so plantiffs are all lying, shuffle their rapists from parish to parish to maximize the pool of molested and when law enforcement is able to push past the stonewalling, they transfer them to the Vatican to protect them from justice.
They've practically shuffled their whole organization around the protection of child raping priests to the point that it's practically become the point of their organization.
And that's the big difference. It's not so much the crime, but the cover-up that's so outrageous (though the crime itself is horrendous on its own merits).
Not to mention of course, that they have been stonewalling so horribly because they want to claim the right of being morally perfect, of being the moral arbiters of everyone else's behavior and stand in moral judgment of societies and governments. They have literally been using their credentials as a nebulous "moral authority" to justify unscientific and often fatal ideas about condom use, sex education, abortion access, gay rights initiatives, poverty relief, human rights struggles, and the right of existence of, among other groups, jews.
No other credential but their "morality" as granted by hierarchy in the Church. So to have them committing this child rape at all already makes one question whether they are really "better" than us and the fact that they have sunk into such depravity to defend it shows that they are in fact quite morally worse than most secular authorities, organizations, and people.
Which makes their claims to moral authority and the very real ways that fucks up the lives of innocent people not of their Church as well as the innocent victims inside the Church, even more obscene and vile.
And yeah as one further point, downplaying rape by statistical chicanery is one of the oldest rape apologia tactics. Basically, "it wasn't as bad as they're saying" or "other people or cultures do it worse" is pretty much base one of rape apologia because when faced with the reality of what they or someone one admires has done is denial. If they can shunt it away, maybe people won't find the monster behind the facade of civilized man.
I'm sad to say that tactic works far too often to my liking.
Wait... what??
Was it still April 1st where you are when you posted this?
I was taken in by Norseman424, but...
"fool me twice... I... I won't git fooled agin"...
Comparing schools to Catholic churches in the child-molesting rates:
My wife works in a Missouri public school system as a counselor. She and many others are what are called "mandated reporters". If she hears of any misdoings, or even strongly suspects, she MUST report it to the government agency whose job it is to investigate child abuse. She can be fired for NOT reporting.
Granted, the investigating agency may mess things up, but there is a government agency, and there are people who are mandated to report to it the need for investigation. That system is in place in the public schools, and it is directly tied to the legal authorities.
In other words, a coverup will get you in big trouble. Even slacking off or keeping your eyes closed will get you in difficulties.
That's what the schools have.
Church?
Ok it's no longer April 1st so I can be bitter about my wasted attack efforts on intentional poe shithead yesterday.
/grumble
@270: Consider it good practice at keeping your skills sharp. Never a waste.
I wonder if they considered some other excuses first. Nah, it's too easy to just blame the gays. This tactic is about to stop working as the newer generations become the norm.
The solace and comfort some people find in church services can ruin other people's lives. (Quite possibly OT - the anecdote doesn't specify which denomination of church was involved.)
Along the lines of excusing abusers, Eugene Grant (the president of the Boy Scouts council for the Portland, Ore., area) has blamed the parents of scouts who were abused in the 1980's.
... I don't even know what to say.
Thanks Celtic_Evolution and Cerberus. My typical response to use of studies would be that numbers don't matter. It's a heinous act that they've covered up all while claiming moral authority. However, I don't want to let this notion that teachers offend 100 times more than priests go unchallenged.
The Anchoress wrote a pointless article for NPR defending the RCC., titled "Here's Why I Remain Catholic. "
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125493179&sc=fb&cc=fp
It's filled with mumbo jumbo and is pretty much summed up by, "We all do bad things. Get over it."
She's sick.
You know what's really interesting? Most of the people using this pathetic excuse, if they have or had children, would never accept "but mom, guess what Billy did as a defense if they did something far less terrible.
So why is that an acceptable line of argument for the church to these people?
When you think about it, the revelations of child sexual abuse perpetrated by all these priests, mostly against young boys, are really not that surprising. For what better cover for a pederast than to become a “celibate” priest. The fact that he’s never with a woman doesn’t raise eyebrows because he’s taken a vow of celibacy, and he gains access to a legion of young boys whom he can readily prey upon.
I read the article linked below at the US Catholic website. To my surprise, some of them actually seem to get it:
http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2010/03/absolute-wrong-response-sex-abuse
I have a son who has just turned 13 and I find it absolutely appalling that Bill Donohue thinks that assault on boys his age isn't pedofilia - that it is consensual homosexual sex. What is this evil man thinking!
While there certainly is a massive difference between pedophilia and ephebophilia, it doesn't really matter what age the victims were. They were being forced/coerced by someone who had power over them. That's wrong even if it's with an adult.
What really puzzles me is how such an antiquated, benighted, and backward institution such as the Roman Catholic Church has managed to survive and even thrive in the 21st century. Consider its track record: its opposition to Galileo and Darwin, censorship (as manifested, for instance, in its “index librorum prohibitorum”), its opposition to the use of condoms in Africa where AIDS is widespread, and of course all the allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of its priests. Why would anyone want to be associated with such a vile institution?
For the vast majority, it's because they were indoctrinated into it by their parents during childhood, who were in turn indoctrinated into it by their parents, etc.
For those few who join as adults, I have no idea.
People have existential crises. Believing in an external powerful entity takes weight off your shoulders and gives you something to look forward to, regardless of any past mistakes you've made. As for the horror, people can fall in love with Big Brother. It's not something approached through reason, generally. Unless they're sleazy politicians who become Catholic to help their public image (oh, the irony).
Re 282:
Why would anyone want to be associated with such a vile institution?
It truly is mind-bottling isn't it?
A couple years ago, I remember an NPR story about "American Catholics" and the [not so]subtle "differences" they have from the orthodoxy. Anyway, the interviewer was asking someone about her Catholicism. The person then went and recited a huge list of all the things she disagreed with the RCC about, essentially pretty damn close to everything that defines Catholicism. The interviewer commented on that but she was still "...but I'm still Catholic". It was just incredible to me the cognitive dissonance this person must tolerate to be able to call herself Catholic.
Shame on all the people going to mass this Sunday. If they had any moral sense, they would stay away in droves.
Instead, I'm hearing deflection (this is teh ebil homosexuals) and denial (the media is attacking the pope, shit happens).*
So, yah, indoctrination is at play here. But y'know, these people have long been aware that abuse of all kinds has been a part of catholic culture. The catholic neighborhood I grew up in, all the parents beat (not just spanked) their kids. Everyone knew there were, and put up with, cruel nuns.
Well, they think we are all inherently sinful. Beating and raping it out of kids is apparently reasonable.
*Coming soon...blame the Jews.
That's been done. As I recall, one of Bill's first lines of attack in the child-raping priest debacle was mentioning something in the news wherein a number of Orthodox Rabbis had abused minors. Of course, they weren't quietly transferred to another Synagogue by an overarching central authority in charge of making sure this never reached the secular legal system.
David B @ # 170: Donohue ... answers to boards that have been stacked with rightwingers (Dinesh D'Souza, ...
How interesting. Now I have a question to ask at the Hitchens/D'Souza debate next Tuesday at the University of Florida.
Many years ago, I met two Brothers who taught at a Catholic Seminary High School. They spent a lot of time exposing the boys to "normal" things - girls, rock music, sports, girls - because they felt that undue pressure from parents - usually the mother - for a younger son to enter the priesthood, which generally started when they were very young, stunted their psychosexual maturation. [These were two cool dudes, for guys who ran around in robes and believed in invisible things.] Their intent was to get these kids back on track and convince as many of them as possible not to become priests. Why? Because they had seen what that pre-pubescent resignation to celibacy did: It harmed kids, it warped their sexuality. One psychological theory about the cause of paedolphilia/hebephilia/ephebophilia is that the adult's sexuality is somehow time-stuck to that age group. If so, it would go a long way toward explaining why boys who are tuaght to suppress any sexuality at a young age become "stuck". The fact that priests do not usually have clear access to girls may explain why so much of the child-rape is same-sex rape.
[Tangent: the old myth that if one of one's child ren becomes a nun or a priest, that will speed one's trip to heaven, has been dealt a blow by the elimination of Limbo. But staunch Catholics probably still believe that such somehow confers extra gold stars upon the parents.]
BTW - For Thor's sake, stop calling them "cat-licks". Every time my cat starts to groom me, horrible visions of the Rat Pope sneak into my brain. Have pity - cat-licks are a good thing. Call them "Catheters" or something.
Love it. LOVE IT!
I just try to imagine my kitty licking her kitty-girl parts and/or butt* whenever someone uses "cat-licks."
*She makes a disgusting "SLUUUURP SLUP SLLLUUUUURP!" noises when she grooms herself. Totally gross.
Ha! My cats are ladeez - they groom quietly. What one also does, however, is wake me up at 4AM by sticking a wet nose in my ear. And by bringing me an octopus toy that has a bell in it and shaking it at me. Cephalopod noms! Yay!
Late to this thread & what need sto be said appears to have been.
Brilliantly put and sadly accurate.
If there is a more concentrated point of vileness and hate then Bill Donohue I have yet to hear of it.
Bill Donohue on the same issue in 2004:
Pierce R. Butler #294
The difference is when school administrators learn about child rape by school employees, they call the cops. When the Catlick* hierarchy finds out some priest is raping children they transfer him to another parish so he can get fresh victims.
*I have a cat also. She licks her butt to clean the shit off it after she takes a dump. Therefore I think Catlick is an appropriate name for the RCC.
Oh, it gets better:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/world/europe/03church.html?hp
OurDeadSelves,
The Vatican said Raniero Cantalamessa's did not represent its official view...
However, Fr Cantalamessa's sermon was printed in full on the front page of the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano! See Outrage at anti-Semitism comparison by Pope preacher.
This one Outrage at anti-Semitism comparison by Pope preacher will run and run! And further splits among the Goddists: Williams criticises Irish Catholic Church 'credibility'.
This is turning out to be a great Easter to be an atheist.
One psychological theory about the cause of paedolphilia/hebephilia/ephebophilia is that the adult's sexuality is somehow time-stuck to that age group. If so, it would go a long way toward explaining why boys who are tuaght to suppress any sexuality at a young age become "stuck". - DominEditrix
Interesting - I'd be interested in a reference if you have one. If that theory is correct, it would suggest a way of treating paedophilia, by encouraging the gradual transfer of attraction first to older children, then to adolescents, finally to adults. Do you know if this has been tried?
I haven't noticed any more chocolate bunnies than usual. Or baby barbecues.
It is true more chocolate can always improve things.
But fair play to the RCC who seem intent on as public self-destruction as possible. It is nice they should be so sporting about it. So many other organisations would be retreating and doing their best to say nothing at all.
And fair play to the ABC, for kicking the RCC when it is down.
Matt Penfold,
However, this BBC quote from the ABC suggests he sees things in a rather different light from most of us here!
"I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it's quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now.
"And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society, suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility - that's not just a problem for the Church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland."
*watches the RCC self-destruct over Easter in giggly amazement*
Matt Penfold #302
I'm surprised the RCC doesn't just huddle in the Führerbunker Vatican, keeping quiet about the whole mess. Every time some prelate or priest opens their mouth they stick their foot in it.
Pope Palpatine and his entourage seem very thin skinned about any criticism of protecting child rapists. They appear to be especially annoyed their usual tactic of blaming the victim doesn't work at all well.
If catholics now make anti-semitism arguments to their critics, Nazi comparisons seem completely appropriate.
This whole affair and the way the RCC keeps digging itself deeper into a big hole is to me what we call in German an inner Reichsparteitag !
:D
Matt Penfold | April 3, 2010 4:09 AM:
I have no chocolate. I have been unable to afford it for months, and there is no prospect of me being able to afford it in the near future. Therefor, this Easter is a disaster.
Easterbunnies go on sale on Monday...
Ambulance officers bring in Krispy Kreme donuts, allied health people and Consultants bring in fine chocolates....you work like a mad man, but at least you get your choc fix in my profession...:-)
Shit, llewelly, I'll send you some. If I had to do without chocolate, I'm pretty sure I'd look just like Carrie after the bucket of pig blood over the head. And I'd probably act about the same way, too.
It's a pity that real donuts (or doughnuts as the Brits would write) aren't available in Oz.
You mean the ones with jam in the middle ?
Tim Horton's donuts, Dunkin' Donuts or generic donuts
I don't like my doughnuts fucked around with. I certainly don't like icing on them.
Give me a jam doughnut dusted with sugar though and I am a happy man.
Yeah, I saw that. I don't buy it.
Llewelly:
I will totally send you delicious Easter (and not-so-delicious Passover) chocolate, if you like!
"*I have a cat also. She licks her butt to clean the shit off it after she takes a dump."
Can you have your cat teach mine how to do that? I hate when she scrapes her ass on the carpet to do the job.
Re sexual abuse in schools versus the church. My experience is that sexual abuse is absolutely rife in schools, but most of it is child on child. Which does not make it OK, in my view, but does mean that it usually goes unconsidered. Maybe we should be sending a stronger message about consent earlier on?
Ye FSMs and little fishes - what are your cats eating? Mine have relatively clean butts after they poop and don't drag themselves along rugs at all.
Knockgoats @#300 - I'll try to find those cites for you; I ran across them when doing a law school paper on gay adoption, part of which explicated why gay ≠ paedophile.
I doubt that knowing the source of someone's attraction to children would be all that helpful; paedophiles also tend to have very bad impulse control. And, of course, people generally have a mental picture of some drooling, greasy man in a raincoat saying 'Want a piece of candy?'; they think their children are safe with random adults who don't fit the image. Teachers, priests, rabbis, Scout leaders, Uncle George.
I would bet that much of the child molestation at public schools by adults is more seduction than forcible rape. Teens and tweens often develop crushes on teachers and are therefore easily manipulated. There is a difference between that kind of convincing by talking and the "talk" used by some priests - several of the Catholic rape victims were verbally coerced by threats of condemnation to hell of them or their families if they didn't cooperate; just because brute force was absent doesn't make it any less forcible rape, IMNSHO.
Now I'm going to go off and watch Bones reruns, because it's nice to have an atheist main character on a TV show. Give Dark Relic a pass tho' - the atheist, after being attacked by a demonic creature, decides she has to believe in God because she's had evidence of Satan.
Donohue is a media whoring oxygen thief. I'm disgusted that these media outlets supplied oxygen and a soapbox for him.
On another note it's not like they had a big choice of topics to go with for their Easter messages.."Whatever you do, don't mention Christian morality, and for Christ on a stick, DON'T mention those rape victim kids!"
Christian leaders use Easter to attack atheism
Yawn..
Grooming: a page from a Young Catholic Prayerbook called 'FRIENDS WITH GOD' the `act of contrition'
Father Cantalamessa's attention-grabbing little "unofficial" statement comparing all us anti-pedophiles to Nazis may well have been a sophisticated bit of media ju-jitsu.
Not sure I agree. A man who is sexually aroused by prepubescent boys and girls - a pedophile - is quite a different animal from someone who merely abuses their authority and position of trust to more-or-less rape impressionable teenagers. Pedophiles have a rather specific and tragic mental illness - a developmental defect in their sexual faculty. Grown men who prey on teenagers are simply evil.
I realize this thread is almost dead, but here is an article from February regarding the rampant abuse and cover-up in Alaska by the Jesuit order. It's sick and disturbing. Not one priest has been put on trial.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-pedophiles-paradise/Content?oid=…
Almost dead, but here's another link.
here's Bill Donohue with the same spiel but this time on Al Jazeera English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ZHCP6PflE
Nice to see him embarrasing himself on a global platform