Archive for the 'Roman Catholic Church'

It seems that the Vatican is having a little trouble containing damaging internal information leaked by Ratzinger’s very own butler, who remains under arrest in the little nation of Pedophilistan.  Apparently, nobody is believing they’re not a corrupt organization.  Imagine that! In the crisis, what does the Vatican do?  Get their all-powerful god to come to their rescue?  Don’t be silly.  Everyone knows that will never happen.  They double down and hire someone who really knows how to solve the problem:  a propagandist from one of the world’s greatest propaganda empires: Fox News.  Fox News is now famous for their distortions and misinforming their viewers.  That’s just what the Vatican needs: more lies, better lies.  Lies that someone might actually believe. Good luck with that, Vatican.  You’ll need it.

The Vatican would like to be a religious concern when it wants to inflict its “moral teachings” on non-Catholics, control Cardinals and Bishops based on church teachings, and not pay taxes. On the other hand, the Vatican would like to be a country when the Pope is named in lawsuits or when they would like to sweep their minions away to the Vatican when they face legal trouble in some country. The Vatican has done a great job of advancing their agenda with this sleight of hand. For those of us with a shred of skepticism, it smacks of a con game. “Heads I win, tails you lose.” Since being a religion has never helped the Catholic Church with its depravities, let’s force them to just be the little tin-pot country they want to be. The first thing that has to happen is that the Cardinals, Bishops, and Priests here in the US all need to have their country loyalty questioned. One cannot serve two masters. Are they American citizens subject to US law? If so, then there should be no cover-ups, no hiding behind “church state separation” (where it suits their needs), and no misdirection of the legal system. Those who swear their loyalty to the Pope or god or some other authority should have their US citizenship revoked.  If the Vatican wants to issue them passports, that’s fine. However, let’s be clear: they are guests in our country and subject to our laws.  If they violate them, those involved should be prosecuted or deported. If they behave as organized criminals, then subject their institutions to racketeering laws and have their assets seized until they have had a proper trial. With their stonewalling, that could take centuries.  So be it. Since their criminal activities run internationally, such as money laundering and sex crimes, then let them be subject to international courts, where needed, to bring them into line. Tax favoritism of Catholic properties should be stopped immediately. There is no reason why the US Government should be...
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Today I was made aware of a Facebook group called — are you ready? — “catholics against ‘the atheist experience’”. That I know of, this is the first expressly anti-AETV Facebook group yet formed. Not that it’s a big thing or anything, with only 55 members at this point, the vast majority of whom appear to be atheists. The Wall posts are a blast to read. Saith the group’s creator, Nathan Boucher, who is only two years out of high school… so i came across this video today on youtube about these atheists who have a show…Now it is freedom of speech but what really annoyed me was the host was totally bashing catholics and he actually gave out the audience consecrated hosts or what he said were. its not right to make fun and mock that which you don’t understand! Which I do believe can be roughly summarized as “hurr de durp durrr.” I suspect Mr. Boucher is referring to this clip here. Read more

Is is just me, or does pretty much every news story about the Pope’s latest emanations annoy you, too? No matter what he has to say, the media is there like hungry puppies eager to lap it up and puke it out in your local newspaper or TV news program. There’s usually a whole series of puff pieces trying to add drama to his latest moral pronouncement. Rarely is there any real balance to the stories and the Pope is held up as some great expert on whatever he chooses to blather about. This week, the media was all about the Pope’s latest message about condoms being ok sometimes, but not others. Two stories have run in the Austin American Statesman about this “burning” issue. Here are my list of gripes: The media consistently fails to point out that whatever the Pope/Vatican has to say is self-serving. In this case. using condoms to stem AIDS infections would certainly take a little heat off the Vatican from health experts who have rightly pointed out that its policies are tantamount to murder. Condoms also have the very helpful benefit of not leaving DNA behind in the behinds of boys molested by priests. Furthermore the Pope still frowns on any contraceptive usage that might reduce the number of potential future tithers. Self-serving “moral” pronouncements are nothing more than propaganda and they should not be repeated in the media. Neither the Pope nor anyone at the Vatican is qualified to speak on health issues. They just have nothing valid to say and health advice from anyone so blatantly unqualified should not be repeated in the media. To make matters worse, it’s rare to see any news piece that will add at least a little balance by quoting a health expert. Even a junior trainee at a family planning clinic would be far more qualified. I have yet to see an acknowledgment in most articles about Vatican pronouncements that the they are on the wrong side of this issue by consensus of 99% of the people who...
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It just gets sadder and sadder. I received a response from the Catholic who spawned the last item I posted. Since she wasn’t interested in visiting the blog to see what people thought, I went ahead and issued a full response. Below is her initial note back to me today, along with my reply below that: Her note from today: Hey, thanks for the response. I knew when I first wrote you that we would most likely not be coming to an agreement or anything close to it, and I hope you realize that was not my point. I understand how this can look like bigotry because I used to be an atheist and felt the same way you do. I just want to share with you a short explanation of my perspective and only ask that you try to imagine my point of view (as hard as it may be) for the time being. I’ve been studying Theology now for a while and it only finally came to me when I saw the whole picture. First, I would ask you to accept the claim that those who truly, that being the key word, try to live out there faith, sincerely and genuinely, really believe what their religion teaches. Whether it is out of ignorance, or a great deal of investigating and researching to see if there is truth behind it is irrelevant. The sincere and genuine person truly believes in the good and beauty of God and their faith and that is why they desire and choose to participate in it. There are of course exceptions to this and people who are not in religion for the right reasons, and although this does not contribute to my point, I want to acknowledge it. So, if we can say that a person genuinely believes the Church’s doctrine, and is sincere in their belief in it, we can say that their belief in a certain teaching is sincere as well. When they agree with a teaching on, lets say, loving your neighbor as yourself, it is because they genuinely believe with all their being that loving your neighbor as yourself is the right thing to do. Now shift the gears to a not so fuzzy sounding topic such as...
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