(My latest book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom has just been released and is now available through the usual outlets. You can order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the publishers Rowman & Littlefield, and also through your local bookstores. For more on the book, see here. You can also listen to the podcast of the interview on WCPN 90.3 about the book.)

The Catholic Church is battling the widespread perception that it is rotten to the core. Even the Chief Exorcist of the Catholic Church says that all this abuse and cover-ups by high officials of the church are signs that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican.” (Yes, there actually is such a post as ‘Chief Exorcist’, if you can imagine it. If anyone had any doubts that the church is still an institution with medieval sensibilities, this news should surely settle it. He claims that he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession in his 25 years on the job. That’s almost eight every day, including weekends and holidays! Give that man a raise.)
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(My latest book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom has just been released and is now available through the usual outlets. You can order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the publishers Rowman & Littlefield, and also through your local bookstores. For more on the book, see here. You can also listen to the podcast of the interview on WCPN 90.3 about the book.)

The way that defenseless children were treated in some Catholic orphanages or other homes for children is remarkable for its cruelty. The children were subjected to abominable treatment. In addition to the sexual abuse, physical and psychological abuse was also widespread. Stories are emerging that a bishop who is pope Ratzinger’s friend routinely slapped, punched, and beat with a carpet beater children who lived in a church-run home in order ‘to drive Satan out of them’. The gripping film The Magdalene Sisters, based on a true story about an actual home for ‘wayward’ girls run by the church in Ireland, details one such institution. You cannot see that film and not be horrified at what was done to those young women.
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(My latest book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom has just been released and is now available through the usual outlets. You can order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the publishers Rowman & Littlefield, and also through your local bookstores. For more on the book, see here. You can also listen to the podcast of the interview on WCPN 90.3 about the book.)

The recent revelations of the depths to which the Catholic Church hierarchy has sunk in covering up the disgusting actions of priests who have abused children has stunned even someone like me who is quite cynical about organized religion.

To provide some context for the current scandal and remind us of its history, Pat Condell provides a brief but informative recounting of the appalling history of the Catholic Church, with all its swindles, perversions, anti-Semitism, and anti-science craziness. I was unaware of (or had forgotten) some of these appalling things. (Thanks to Machines Like Us.)

The church has been flailing around trying to divert attention away from its sordid role in child abuse. Initially it defended itself by saying that abuse cases were localized to the US and that the problem was not with the church but with America, that its sex-sodden culture had corrupted everything in its domain, so that even some of its godliest people (i.e., priests) had succumbed to temptation. But now that it is clear that the problem is worldwide (and getting more widespread all the time), they have had to find new scapegoats.

Matt Taibbi points to an incredible statement by Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, who now blames the media for focusing on the abuse within the church and ignoring similar abuse by other institutions. Taibbi has some choice words for the institution he once belonged to:

[T]he archbishop’s incredibly pompous and self-pitying rant is some of the most depraved horses*** I’ve ever seen on the internet, which is saying a lot.

One expects professional slimeballs like the public relations department of Goldman Sachs to pull out the “Well, we weren’t the only thieves!” argument when accused of financial malfeasance. But I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I read through Dolan’s retort and it dawned on me that he was actually going to use the “We weren’t the only child molesters!” excuse.
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But even worse — what does Dolan’s whiny deflecting and excuse-making say about the church as an arbiter of ethical values? These pompous a******* run around in their poofy robes and dresses shaking smoke-filled decanters with important expressions on their faces and pretending to great insight about grace and humility, but here we have the head of the largest Diocese in America teaching his entire congregation that when caught committing a terrible sin, the appropriate response is to blame the media and pull the “All the other kids were doing it, too!” stunt!

Taiibi goes on to suggest that we should perhaps start considering the Catholic Church to be a criminal organization and broken up using anti-racketeering statutes like RICO, originally designed to go after mobsters. There have been rising calls elsewhere as well for putting the pope in the dock.

William Donohue, the media-loving Catholic apologist who, as head of an outfit called the Catholic League, makes his living whining about how everyone is mean to Catholics, tries to defend the church by blaming the parents of the 200 abused deaf children in Wisconsin for not complaining sooner.

It does not seem to strike him that parents may be silent because the church is so good at laying a guilt trip on its followers and brainwashing them into thinking that they are no-good, filthy sinners, meanwhile elevating its priests to be thought of as being pure and direct agents of god, who actually have the power to forgive you your sins. Just imagine that for a minute. Whatever evil act you do, you can go into the confessional and the priest has the awesome power, given to him by god, to say that everything is now fine and your conscience is clear. As singer Sinead O’Connor says about the immense aura of power that the church cultivated, “When I was a child, Ireland was a Catholic theocracy. If a bishop came walking down the street, people would move to make a path for him. If a bishop attended a national sporting event, the team would kneel to kiss his ring.”

Should it be any surprise that the first instinct of abused people is to think that they themselves must have been at fault somehow, that it was their actions that triggered the abuse, and that the priest shouldn’t be blamed?

Furthermore, abusive priests, like serial abusers and conmen in general, can often be charming and have superficially genial and avuncular personalities, which is what enables them to be so successful in their predatory pursuits. Parents who accuse priests of abuse know that they risk being disbelieved and can find themselves the targets of hate from other parishioners who cannot bring themselves to think that their beloved parish priest could be so evil. Furthermore, the police and other authorities are often religious themselves and so cowed by awe of the church and the ‘respect for religion’ trope that they tend to not want to investigate priests and would turn a blind eye to any allegations against them if they could.

Should it be any surprise that the victims and their families suppress their anger and hide their shame until it becomes too much to bear or enough time has lapsed that they feel it is safe to speak out?

The dawning realization by priest abuse victims that they are not alone and their allegations are more likely to be believed will likely result in more abusive priests being brought to justice. The process is already beginning. In Germany a hotline for reporting abuse complaints reported being overwhelmed with more than 4,500 calls on the very first day.

As I will discuss in the next post, the church clearly has decided that it is going to tough it out and can ride out this scandal the way it has previous ones.

POST SCRIPT: Oprah or the Catholic Church?

Tbogg shares his vision of what Easter Sunday was like at the Vatican.

Meanwhile, Louis Black moderates a debate to see who is more evil.