27 Nov 2015
24 Dec 2014
Pope Francis Delivers Blistering Christmas Message To Vatican Curia
To the Catholic Church's "seven deadly sins," Pope Francis has added the "15 ailments of the Curia."
Francis issued a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth, of living "hypocritical" double lives and forgetting that they're supposed to be joyful men of God.
Francis turned the traditional, genteel exchange of Christmas greetings into a public dressing down of the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See which governs the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church. He made clear that his plans for a radical reform of the structures of church power must be accompanied by an even more radical spiritual reform of the men involved.
Huffington Post - The 15 ailments of the Vatican Curia, according to Pope Francis at washingtonpost.com
Oh, also see: Eyewitnesses Testify: Pope Francis Raped and Killed Children
17 Mar 2013
Mother Teresa: Hell's Angel
In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa 's reputation was deserved.
26 Feb 2013
Genocide in Canada by Church & State - Verdict and Sentence
The final Verdict and Sentence of the International Common Law Court of Justice, in the Case of Genocide in Canada by Church and State - Includes the Court Order issued to the Defendants - Issued February 25, 2013
26 Jan 2013
A Fetus Is Not a Person if it Costs the Catholic Church Money
The Church's insistence that life begins with your very first hell-worthy dirty thought and must be protected at all costs, despite all consequences, including, of course, the consequence of dead women, whose lives are not nearly as valuable as the "life" of an unborn fetus. In just the past year, the Church has called upon its faithful followers to march, to starve themselves, to go to jail, to even take up arms—all to protect those fetuses. No exceptions. None. Not if the fetus is already dead inside the womb. Not if the fetus is going to kill the actual living woman carrying it. No goddamned exceptions EVER.
Well, except for one: when it's going to cost the Church money.
Turns out, when a man sues a Catholic hospital for malpractice because his wife and the twins she was carrying inside her died when she turned up in the emergency room and her doctor never bothered to answer a page—well, things get a little tricky. Yes, the Catholic hospital adheres to the strict Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church, as set forth by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And yes, those directives include the claim that "[t]he Church's defense of life encompasses the unborn" and a mandate to uphold "the sanctity of life 'from the moment of conception until death.'" But come on. That obviously does not apply when Catholic Health Initiatives, the Church-affiliated organization that runs the Church-affiliated St. Thomas More Hospital where a young woman and her two unborn fetuses died, is the lead defendant in a lawsuit:
Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.
13 Jan 2013
11 Things The Bible Bans, But Christians Do Anyway
Pulling out. The Bible doesn't get too much into birth control... it's clearly pro-populating but, back when it was written, no one really anticipated the condom or the sponge, so those don't get specific bans.
But... pulling out does. One of the most famous sexual-oriented Bible verses... the one that's used as anti-masturbation rhetoric... is actually anti-pulling out.
It's Genesis 38:9-10: "Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother's wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; so He took his life also." (full story here)
Yep -- pull out and get smote. That's harsh.
15 Nov 2012
Woman who was refused an abortion has died
Irish health chiefs have launched investigations following the death of a woman in a Galway hospital after she was refused an abortion.
Savita Halappanavar, a dentist aged 31, was 17 weeks pregnant when she died after suffering a miscarriage and septicaemia.
The woman’s husband Praveen Halappanavar, 34, claimed she had complained of being in agonising pain while in University Hospital Galway.
He has said that doctors refused to carry out a medical termination because the foetus’s heartbeat was present.
Mr Halappanavar has claimed that following several requests by his late wife for a termination, they were told: “This is a Catholic country.”
The woman’s death is expected to spark a backlash against the Government for failing to reform health laws to allow abortion if the life of the mother is in danger
3 Oct 2012
The Ten Commandments
Christopher Hitchens revises the Ten Commandments. "The Ten Commandments were set in stone, but it may be time for a re-chisel. With all due humility, the author takes on the job, pruning the ethically dubious, challenging the impossible, and rectifying some serious omissions."
Hitch's article on the subject on vanityfair.com.
18 Sept 2012
24 Aug 2012
23 Aug 2012
Why I'm Not a Christian
Bertrand Russell 1872-1970
British philosopher, logican, mathematician, historian, and social critic.
30 Jul 2012
Anti-Putin punks Pussy Riot go on trial in Moscow
The trial of three Russian women who face up to seven years in jail for performing an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a Moscow church got under way on Monday, in a case that has divided the country. Initial hearings in the trial earlier this month saw the court order the three members of rock group Pussy Riot to stay in detention until January 2013, a move their supporters condemned as travesty of justice.
With the initial hearings in the trial now over, Monday's audience will see the first legal arguments in a process that is growing into a landmark event in the struggle between President Putin and the emboldened opposition. The hearing at the packed Khamovnichesky court in Moscow got underway with all three detained present shut in a glass-fronted defendants' box as judge Marina Syrova declared the session open.
In February, the three women climbed into an area reserved for priests in the Church of Christ the Saviour, the country's top Orthodox cathedral, and performed a "punk prayer" against Putin. (RNW)
Official website/blog - Official YouTube channel - Free Pussy Riot web-site - no prison for art
12 Jun 2012
Church of England warning on gay marriage
British Government proposals for gay marriage would dilute an institution "vastly" important to a healthy society, the Church of England has warned. Responding to a consultation on the issue in England and Wales, the Church said the legislation was "shallow".
Government plans to open marriage to gay couples by 2015 could undermine its status as the state church, it said. The Home Office said religious bodies would not have to conduct gay marriages and that it was considering all views. Gay rights campaigners accused the Church of "scaremongering".
7 Jun 2012
Tribute to Christopher Hitchens
The 2012 Global Atheist Convention's moving tribute to Christopher Hitchens. www.atheistconvention.org.au
6 Jun 2012
Catholic Cardinal Authorized $20K To Pay Off Paedophile Priests, Then Railed Against ‘Immorality’ Of Gay Marriage
Cardinal Timothy Dolan has led the charge against same-sex marriage, describing gay and lesbian unions as “unjust,” “immoral,” and unnatural. “This is a very violation of what we consider natural law that’s embedded in every man and woman and we’re really worried as Americans that it’s going to be detrimental to the common good,” Dolan said in a radio interview in June, as New York prepared to legalize marriage equality. “[W]e still worry about the detrimental effect upon society, upon culture, and certainly upon our individual churches.”
But church documents showing that Dolan paid off priests who had been accused of sexually abusing minors suggest that the prominent Catholic leader was willing to overlook these very same religious convictions to help colleagues accused of egregious wrong doing. The documents, obtained by the New York Times, also show that Dolan lied to reporters when he initially dismissed news of the payments as “false, preposterous and unjust”:
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. […] But a document unearthed during bankruptcy proceedings for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and made public by victims’ advocates reveals that the archdiocese did make such payments to multiple accused priests to encourage them to seek dismissal, thereby allowing the church to remove them from the payroll.
2 May 2012
Fox News Says Dan Savage is 'Bullying' Christians
Dan Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives and Rick Santorum's views on homosexuality. As a gay man, Savage has often been the subject of controversy regarding some of his opinions that pointedly clash with cultural conservatives and those put forth by what Savage has been known to call the "gay establishment". In 2010, Savage and his husband Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.
Wikipedia - Video from The Young Turks
12 Apr 2012
Who needs a $30,000 watch?
The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church was caught on camera wearing a $30,000 Breguet watch. I can think of little that’s more worthless than spending the entirety of a middle-class working person’s yearly salary on an ostentatious geegaw that has no function that isn’t served as well as a $10 throwaway or the ubiquitous cell phone…no function other than showing off that you’re more profligately wealthy than anyone else, that is. You know, if someone gave me something that trivial and that overpriced, I would thank them, quietly sell it, and then find a cause on Foundation Beyond Belief that could make better use of the money than being tied up in flashy bling. But what do I know. I’m a godless atheist, he’s the moral leader of millions.
But he does have some shame. After the photo appeared, the church quickly whipped out a copy of photoshop and doctored the image to hide the jewelry. Can’t have the peons witnessing the church’s conspicuous consumption!
17 Mar 2012
Forced castrations in Dutch Roman Catholic care
Underage sexual abuse victims were castrated in Dutch Roman Catholic psychiatric wards in the 1950s, according to the Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Castration was performed on young men who were thought to be homosexual, but also as a means of punishing those who blew the whistle on abusers, the paper quotes sources as saying.
NRC discovered proof of the forced castration of one young man and strong evidence that at least ten other abuse victims were subjected to the removal of their testicles. The proof includes court documents, medical records, letters from lawyers and private correspondence.
According to the paper, the practice was reported in 2010 to the Deetman Commission which completed its investigation of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church last December. The commission, led by former cabinet minister Wim Deetman of the Christian Democrat party (CDA), made no mention of the castration of abuse victims in its final report. NRC also writes that a prominent Dutch politician tried to secure a royal pardon for Catholic brothers convicted of sexual abuse at Harreveld, a former boarding school in the Netherlands. The politician was Vic Marijnen, who later became Dutch prime minister.
Spanish baby-snatching investigators accuse 80-year-old nun
An 80-year-old nun has become the first person to be accused of baby snatching in the scandal over the trafficking of newborns in Spanish hospitals. Sister MarÃa Gómez has been formally named as a suspect in the investigation into one of more than 1,500 cases of suspected illegal trafficking of babies who were stolen, sold or given away by adoption over four decades until the 1980s.
Last year, as hundreds of alleged cases of baby snatching began to emerge, Torres's other two daughters set out to find their lost sister. In July a TV programme put the families in contact and paid for DNA tests. Campaigners are demanding a government inquiry into the scandal. They claim that networks of doctors, nurses and nuns who stole and sometimes sold babies were allowed to operate freely in many parts of Spain up until the early 1980s.
A campaign that started with an alleged 261 victims in January 2011 has since seen more than 1,500 complaints lodged at court houses around the country. It appears that what began as a system for removing babies from families deemed politically dangerous by the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco allegedly evolved into an illicit business that targeted single mothers and the poor. In one Madrid clinic where Gómez worked it is alleged that doctors kept a baby's corpse to show to mothers as proof that their child had died.