Creepy priest and a church with creepy priorities

Thomas Euteneuer was an up-and-coming star of the Catholic priesthood: he was a charismatic fellow who appeared on radio and TV and other media to fight for the dogmatic Catholic position on just about everything. He was a crusader against homosexuality, against sex outside of marriage, against contraceptives, against abortion. He was also an official Catholic exorcist, which tells you right there that he was batty all the way through.

But then he was suddenly dismissed from his position on the board of an anti-abortion group, stepped down from one diocese and was transferred to another, and went quiet. There was a conspiracy of silence to keep his crimes, whatever they were, hidden away. That has changed recently, thanks to constant pressure from many angry Catholics, and a few statements have emerged from the church and from Euteneuer himself. They don’t clarify much, and in fact leave me even more curious.

What we know is that whatever Euteneuer did, it was dire — you can rape children in the church and the wheels of Catholic justice turn slowly, but Euteneuer did something that got him whisked out of the public eye surprisingly abruptly.

Whatever it was, it had something to do with his job as an exorcist.

The circumstances that led to my departure from HLI were related exclusively to my own decisions and conduct within the ministry of exorcism that I carried out independently from my responsibilities at HLI.

Hmmm. Curious. Even curiouser, his crime was sexual.

My violations of chastity were limited to one person only, an adult woman;

The violations of chastity happened due to human weakness but did not involve the sexual act;

We also have some other accounts that suggest these events occurred multiple times.

Father [reportedly] admitted to having ‘an inappropriate relationship’ with an employee in his letter of resignation [and] a second woman [apparently] came forward to say that Father had engaged in sexual activity with her — not intercourse, but close to it — while he was performing some type of exorcism prayer(s).

Catholic prayers must be kinkier than I ever imagined. I admit it, I do have a somewhat dirty mind, but looking at that list of admissions, I am totally stumped about what Euteneuer actually did … which is actually amplifying my imagined creepiness of whatever it was. I’d speculate further except that there is a victim involved: as much as Euteneuer may deserve some contempt, the victim deserves some respect.

Which brings me to the really weird part. Everything I’m reading about this situation contains these insistent declarations that the act involved an ADULT! WOMAN! Even the Catholic bishop’s statement about the case emphasizes this.

Euteneuer has been undergoing intensive evaluation and counseling to address admitted inappropriate crossing of adult heterosexual boundaries on the occasion of carrying out his priestly ministry.

See? ADULT! and HETEROSEXUAL!

This bugs me. It’s like they’re saying, “At least it wasn’t gay sex, and it didn’t involve a child.” They’re trying to reduce the magnitude of whatever perversity was committed. And it’s as if they’re reassuring everyone that it wasn’t that awful homosexuality was committed.

And weirdest of all, it’s as if they’re saying that because a woman was the victim, it wasn’t so bad. Women are the designated victims; oh, sure, it’s not good that he was abusing a woman, but it would have been even worse if a man was hurt.

And then there are the people rushing to defend this priest…by attacking the victims.

I think these women are shameful. Their attack will probably backfire on them. They are possessed with evil and it seems that they are getting worse whenever someone disagrees with them. They seem very vindictive in character and self righteous. They don’t seem credible to me.

I have known Fr. Tom personally for more than 13 years and I can assure you of Father’s devotion to the unborn. I have never seen him falter in his ministry as a priest. Being exposed to demons is not an easy thing. Sometimes the demons will purposely twist the bodies of their victims that will have their sexual parts touch the one who is trying to remove the demons. This, I am sure must have happened several times to Father Tom. Many of the women who are possessed also have other mental problems like ADHD and Bi-polar and these people lie very often just to get attention.

Even when the church acts quickly to stop a predatory priest, they just can’t do it right. It’s all those demon women and their wicked ways.

The Nature of Existence

I forgot to mention that I did attend the local screening of The Nature of Existence, the new movie from Roger Nygard in which he traveled the world asking various people grand questions about the meaning of life, etc. It was entertaining, and it is subtly subversive of religious views, so I will recommend it. But I do have a few reservations that I was also able to bring up in the Q&A after the movie.

One thing that was alarmingly obvious when watching it is that almost all the gurus and authorities and religious figures that he interviewed were male. There were exceptions — the 12 year old daughter of his neighbor (who was an unrepentant atheist, and I thought the most sensible voice in the whole movie), a lesbian priest, the wife of a pastor — but otherwise, this show is one long sausage-fest. When I pointed this out, Nygard was apologetic and recognized that this is a significant omission, but explained that he simply hadn’t noticed when he was filming the material. Isn’t that the whole problem, that we’re oblivious to these omissions of half the population of the planet?

Another problem was actually a tactical decision, and I can actually understand why it was done this way. All of the interviews were friendly; Nygard made a conscious decision to be entirely non-confrontational and just allow the interviewees to speak without criticism. It’s a policy that opened doors and allowed him access, and encouraged the people to speak at length. I can’t imagine him making this movie any other way, but still…there were parts where the lack of a critical interrogation meant the subjects were able to effectively hide the more hateful parts of their beliefs. For instance, he interviewed the odious Zakir Naik, the Muslim fanatic who thinks it is a religious obligation to kill opponents of Islam (apostates should merely be imprisoned), and who also considers homosexuality grounds for execution. He also interviewed pompous ol’ Orson Scott Card, and his raving homophobia was left unexposed.

So I was left with rather mixed feelings. The movie only illuminates the middle ground of religious belief, and while it exposes the absurdity while avoiding being judgmental, it also manages to bury the worst aspects of religion. That’s tactically sensible and I consider it an overall good because it will get the movie watched by more people, but man, it’s not my style, and it sort of grated on my nerves. It was nice. I kept waiting for something to explode.

Poor Vatican

The Pope must be wearing ratty, ragged underwear under those silk robes; all the fancy gold statues in the Vatican must be gilt over rotting wood; the famous paintings are all cheap reproductions. The place must be on the verge of economic collapse. At least, that’s what I assume must be the case, since the UK government paid for the Pope’s visit out of Department for International Development funds, a part of the budget that is normally earmarked for aid to “war-torn or fragile states” as part of a commitment to fight global poverty.

So the Vatican must be sort of like Somalia. I had no idea they were in such a dire state.

I’m a middle-class kind of guy who is doing all right economically right now. But I think next time I visit Minneapolis I’m going to get my gas money by beating up some homeless folk, and then I’m going to eat by crashing a soup kitchen…oh, and I’m bigger than those scrawny half-starved old codgers, so I’m going to demand double helpings of everything. Don’t think badly of me, I’ll just be trying to live up to the Catholic ideal.

Eric Hovind just can’t help lying

Remember how I told you that Eric Hovind was giving away free DVDs for Valentine’s Day? And you all rushed over to place your order, and you got the sad notification?

We’re sorry, the Valentine’s DVD is now out of stock. Thanks to supporters like you, over 2,000 people will get to hear the gospel message!

We pray that the Holy Spirit will use these DVDs to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Awww, out of stock. Oh, well, that’s fair enough, you thought, and you turned away to go back to the kitchen and turn the roast-baby-on-a-spit some more. But wait! There’s something mysterious going on here!

Try this. Click on this link

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

And you’ll get the sad “out of stock” message.

If instead, though, you copy this same URL and paste it into the address bar of your browser:

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

Presto! You show up at the old page that allows you to order the free DVD. You can have your DVD and your roast baby at the same time! Huzzah!

Sneaky Eric put up a redirect to intercept any visitors arriving from Pharyngula to his fake out-of-stock page. He could have been honest, and done exactly the same thing, but have the page say something like, “Please, we are making these DVDs available to our Christian customers. We’d appreciate it if you’d leave them for people who will enjoy the content.” And that would have been cool. I think most of us would have just sat back and let it slide by, no problem, dude.

But no! Eric Hovind must really like us, because now we get the roast baby, the free DVD, and we get to point at a creationist and sneer at his pathetic dishonesty! This calls for something more than just a “Huzzah”, I think I’m going to give you all permission to run outside with your pistols (loaded with blanks, for safety reasons, of course) and fire them madly into the air while screaming “Yeeeeee-haaaah!”.

Thanks, Eric. We knew you were a lying toad, but it’s always nice to get confirmation.

Oh, yeah, I’m doing Darwin Day, too!

Hello, Southern Illinois University Carbondale! I’ll be heading south next week for SIU’s annual Darwin Day lecture.

Thursday, February 10: A public lecture entitled “The Evolution of Cooperation” will be presented by Dr. Paul (PZ) Myers, associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Dr. Myers is the author of Pharyngula, one of the most widely read science blogs. The lecture will take place at 7 pm in Ballroom B in the SIUC Student Center; refreshments will be provided after the lecture.

It’s free, too…I am so cheap. Show up and I’ll talk science at you for an hour.

Peter Goodgold is a scam artist

I had no idea that ions combined to produce fungi and bacteria in water — I guess spontaneous generation isn’t dead after all. That’s one of the claims of a con artist named Peter Goodgold who sells magic water ionizers that cure all illnesses…because, as he says, there is actually only one disease, acidosis. It’s complete nonsense as the video below explains.

His gadget can’t work, and has to be doing a lot of things to the water that he isn’t telling anyone about. How does he respond to the demonstration of his incompetence and dishonesty? Why, he threatens to sue and files complaints to get any rebuttal videos taken down. The creator of the expose explain his situation here:

So yes, if you can, mirror the video. I’ll just do what I can to promote it and make sure that Goodgold’s bluster just means many more people will see him exposed.

The Not-So-Evil Atheist Conspiracy spreads its tentacles deeper into the fabric of American life

Good news! The Secular Student Alliance is now working to promote godless organizations in high schools. They’re going to be everywhere! There is resistance, of course, but the law is on our side, and the schools have to allow students to organize for meetings with a secular purpose.

Are you a high school student? Are you interested in gathering your fellow atheists together to promote critical thinking? Then you need to email JT Eberhard right now and ask for his help. He’ll get you started, and you, of course, will make him work very hard to earn the massive salary he probably receives in his new job as the Campus Organizer and High School Specialist at SSA. In fact, it’s perfectly OK if you try to get in touch with him any hour of the day or night — tell him I said you had permission.

Now that’s misogyny

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with an insect — a creature that shares no moral or rational assumptions with me. Now I’ve seen something close, at least, a fellow named Seth, discussing his obligations to his partners in sex. Basically, he feels none. It’s a long ranty comment, and much of it is more explicit than I’d rather post here, but it amounts to insisting that pregnancy and abortion are all the woman’s responsibility, because it is her fault that she demanded a penis enter her vagina.

You want a man inside you, it’s up to you to deal with the mess left behind. I won’t bitch at you if you have an abortion, but you don’t get to demand ANYTHING from me, certainly not child support. If you don’t like the mess, don’t invite me to the party.

How’s that for fair?

It’s a marvel of twisted logic, and really had me wondering if Seth was a virgin.

I have to agree, though, that his demands are fair, as long as it’s not his fault that he’s having vaginal intercourse, and as long as he was honest and specific in his expectations with his partner before hand. Who would then, of course, refuse to have sex with him, ever.

It’s in the Daily Mail, so I’m confident it got everything wrong

Actually, I know they got a lot wrong. The Mail reports that a study “proves” students believe everything they read on the internet. They cite some work done with the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site, which they claim was created as part of a study to test student gullibility. This is wrong; that site has been available for years, and it’s a satire and humor site; look at the rest of zapatopi.net to see what I mean.

Also, I actually use the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus every semester, in the first lecture of our introductory biology course! After giving an overview of the scientific method and how to ask good scientific questions, I use it as an example: I show them the page, read a few excerpts, and ask them what they think…and always the majority of students are skeptical. The few who will grant it tentative plausibility always follow up with specific questions about the site and about where they can get additional information to confirm it.

Then we discuss how to validate scientific information, what we look for to trust a source, and further, I ask them to think more deeply about how, if the website passed a routine sniff test, we’d also go on to test unusual claims in nature. My experience has been that students are much more rational and practical about evaluating material on the web than we’d give them credit for (of course, there are also always a few students who still turn in papers with wacky web sites cited as sources — but they’re a minority).

And speaking of sources that rely on the gullibility of readers for credibility…the Daily Mail should not be casting aspersions. If you want to know everything you need to know about the Daily Mail, read this horrifying story.