PZ was wrong wrong wrong

My esteemed co-blogger lists the usual pope field marks — old, male, conservative, homophobic, godbag — and says “that’s all you need to know” about New Pope. But it turns out, as pointed out by a few commenters downthread, that Francis I is worse than that. A lot worse.

Says commenter sc_e94313c775e472e2749a200883fdec2e (can I call you “sc_e”?)

As an Argentinian I can confirm your “rumours” and add that this guy was a collaborator with the military during the last coup d’etat during the 70′s : Among many things, he informed to the military that two monks that were working in a low income neighbourhood were no longer protected by the catholic church, facilitating their detention and posterior disappearance.
Mind you, to “dissapear” at that time meant to be detained by the military, held without rights or trial, possibly (and often) tortured under suspicions of being a Marxist/ “terrorist”, being completely incomunicated with your family and finally be killed and buried on an unmarked grave, or thrown form a plane into the river.
Thrown.
From a fucking plane.
Into the river. (Known as “deathflights”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights )

I’ve seen some “progressive” Catholics in the English-speaking world already lauding this guy for his apparent concern for the poor. I seem not to be able to embed Storify curations here, so here’s a link instead: Check out this Storify being collected by Asteris Masouras. And if you’re an English speaking progressive of whatever religious orientation who doesn’t know what the Dirty War was, you need to learn. This Al Jazeera documentary is a start. (Serious trigger warning for, well, everything.)

What? Zen Buddhists too?

This is getting ridiculous. Now there’s an ongoing sex abuse case within Zen Buddhism.

Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the founder and Abbot of Rinzai-ji is now 105 years old, and he has engaged in many forms of inappropriate sexual relationship with those who have come to him as students since his arrival here more than 50 years ago. His career of misconduct has run the gamut from frequent and repeated non-consensual groping of female students during interview, to sexually coercive after hours “tea” meetings, to affairs and sexual interference in the marriages and relationships of his students. Many individuals that have confronted Sasaki and Rinzai-ji about this behaviour have been alienated and eventually excommunicated, or have resigned in frustration when nothing changed; or worst of all, have simply fallen silent and capitulated. For decades, Joshu Roshi’s behaviour has been ignored, hushed up, downplayed, justified, and defended by the monks and students that remain loyal to him.

There’s something about being granted supernatural authority founded on claims that cannot be tested or supported with evidence that allows the nastiest side of some people’s psyche to run unchecked, isn’t there?

An argument for gun control that might finally resonate with wingnuts

A tragic story: a man stuffed a gun in his pants and it accidentally went off, shooting him in the penis and leg.

Let’s forestall the usual comments: no, he didn’t deserve to be mutilated this way, OK? But still, this kind of event is what we should worry about more, and which will occur far more, than some murderous villain blazing away at innocents with a gun. Accidents will happen, and the more casual (and incompetent) people end up with deadly weapons in their hands, the more often these irreversible and unfortunate errors will occur, and they will inevitably occur with far greater frequency than homicidal sprees. The best thing that can be said is that at least no one was killed…this time.

Although this particular man will be reluctant to ever hang out with his gun-toting companions in the future. Especially with the little detail that he shot himself with a pink pistol.

Perhaps they should have tried this technique on the priests?

I don’t know how the Catholic Church manages to hold itself together in the face of all these revelations. The Dutch church was practicing the usual heedless barbarities.

Up to 11 boys were castrated while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic church in the 1950s to rid them of homosexuality, a newspaper investigation has said.

A young man was castrated in 1956 after telling police he was being abused by priests, the newspaper reported.

Although it does suggest a better solution. Like the priesthood of Cybele, perhaps the Catholic priesthood ought to demand voluntary self-castration as a prerequisite to admission? I understand that they’re already having problems getting recruits, and this certainly wouldn’t help — but at least the ones you would get would be much more dedicated.

Wait, no…one thing we don’t need is more dedicated Catholic fanatics.

Sophisticated theology

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Catholic diocese has been apparently involved in major cover-ups of child abuse scandals during his tenure.He has promoted all kinds of sneaky maneuvers to keep priestly child rapers out of jail.

“Sounds good — please proceed!” the cardinal, now retired, instructed in 1987 after the aide, Msgr. Thomas Curry, cautioned against therapy for one confessed predator — lest the therapist feel obliged to tell authorities and scandalize the archdiocese. The two discussed another priest, Msgr. Peter Garcia, who admitted specializing in the rape of Latino immigrant children and threatened at least one boy with deportation if he complained.

That last sentence jarred me. So the priests are so explicit that they are now specializing in particular flavors of children? They must be parsing Holy Writ very precisely.

The Republicans really hate women

They’re still going at it, and the latest effort in New Mexico will take your breath away with its sheer vindictive nastiness.

Should a recently introduced bill in New Mexico become law, rape victims will be required to carry their pregnancies to term during their sexual assault trials or face charges of “tampering with evidence.”

Under HB 206, if a woman ended her pregnancy after being raped, both she and her doctor would be charged with a felony punishable by up to 3 years in state prison:

Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.

They really, really want you to keep that rape-baby, don’t they? Imagine finding yourself pregnant from a rape and then being told that because you were the victim of a heinous crime, your right to autonomy is being suspended. The victim is now the criminal.

This law is so absurd and extreme that it will never ever be passed, and its author’s political career has just been self-destructed, right? Right?