The human cesspool you all know and love as Bill Donohoe has an awesome take on the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandals- it wasn’t pedophilia, it was faggotry! Not kidding:
Roberts: Bill is good but you cannot link homosexuality to a pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church.
Bill Donohue: It’s not a pedophilia… most of the victims were post pubescent…
Roberts: You know…
Donohue: You’ve got to get your facts straight. I’m sorry. If I’m the only one that’s going to deal with facts tonight so be it. The vast majority of the victims are post pubescent. That’s not pedophilia buddy. That’s homosexuality.
I’ll just stop here without any additional comment lest my non-existent militant atheism give some of you more delicate flowers the vapors.
Scott
Bill Donohue = Fred Phelps.
Redshirt
Not a Catholic, don’t know any Catholics, don’t really care at all about the Catholic Church; but! I am enjoying watching their pathetic spin.
But even then! I remember why they’re spinning – such horrible crimes, to so many, for so long, in the name of God.
I hope this crisis represents a fundamental weakening of that institution.
Short Bus Bully
Who will be our generations’ Martin Luther?
Erik Vanderhoff
You know, if we’re going to be accused of militant atheism, can we at least have a unit patch?
demkat620
@Redshirt: I’m a catholic. And I hate that fucker Bill Donahue. He is the most disgusting creature on the planet.
Apparently 12 or 13 year olds are the same as an adult sexually. That guy is a loon.
beergoggles
Once you realize that the age of consent in Rome is 12 years of age, this all makes sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe#Vatican_State
Rick Massimo
Oh, you can’t stop there:
Donohue: You’ve got to get your facts straight. I’m sorry. If I’m the only one that’s going to deal with facts tonight so be it. The vast majority of the victims are post pubescent. That’s not pedophilia buddy. That’s homosexuality.
Roberts: Bill, I don’t think as a person of faith that you really know what you’re talking about when it comes to a victim and a survivor. (crosstalk)
Donohue: It’s not of my opinion. Take a look at the social science data. I never said that most homosexuals are that way.
Roberts: No you just said that cut down homosexuals… (crosstalk).
Donohue: Yes! Practicing homosexuals.
—
O’Conner: Sorry Larry, at what age does somebody become, you know, post pubescent in America as a matter of ages?
King: What is the age?
Thomas: Ah… I don’t know. Let’s ask Bill. He seems to be the authority on post pubescency.
Donohue: 12, 13 years of age. Look, all I’m saying (crosstalk).
King: We’re out of time. We’ve just touched the surface. Now we’ve got Anderson Cooper coming on.
…
That’s right. According to Bill Donohue, it’s not pedophilia if they’re over 13.
I eagerly await his non-appearance in any public forum in this country. Yeah right.
Incertus (Brian)
There are some people I’m willing to risk the bad karma to wish bad things to happen to them. Bill Donohue is the top five names on that list.
Mike Kay
This is a step up, he usually blames the Jews and the “liberal” media.
Of course, Donahue (a former staffer of the Heritage foundation) gets paid $400,000 a year to run his wingnut front from a nice cushy office in Manhattan, with a lovely view. Yeah, it’s a winger front, like “Concern women” or the “independent women’s forum”
David in NY
Happens to be illegal to have sex with “post-pubescent” children under the age 18 (depending on the state), especially by coercion. They call that pedophilia in the courts in which I practice.
HumboldtBlue
Considering that freak had his issues with the shit that came out of his ass, I would say anyone who isn’t a Catholic and works in a law enforcement position would be a nice place to start.
Oh, oh, I’m sorry, we’re supposed to be ecumenical, sorry, I forgot, can’t say anything bad about the child-rapist protection society.
Silver
I woke up this morning, and decided I needed a reminder why I shouldn’t take morality lessons from people who defend pedophiles and apologists for a moral absolutist who wore a Nazi uniform in his youth.
So this is really good timing. Thanks Bill!
Cat Lady
Bill Donohue is the Vatican’s Baghdad Bob.
soonergrunt
I stick by what I said earlier:
Bill Donohue needs to stick his dick in a rat trap, shove a broomstick up his ass, set himself on fire and then shoot himself.
Dork
So even though there were a sizable amount of pre-pubescents, we can ignore them cuz that’s clearly not pedophilic behavior, even tho its pedophilia.
Willy D needs to find a way to step off an overpass.
Betsy
@Redshirt:
Wait, really? You don’t know any Catholics? How is that possible?
Tonal Crow
@beergoggles:
I first wrote, “I concur that that would explain a lot,” thinking that your post was mere snark. Then I refreshed, noticed your Wikipedia link, clicked through, and my jaw hit my keyboard.
Comrade Javamanphil
I have the vapors from John’s non-committal attitude toward my pet issue of the day.
And Bill Donohue is an awful human being.
Tom
There’s an argument out there among people who advocate that Catholic priests be allowed to marry that the only (or majority of) people who nowadays become priests are people who sexuality would ostracize them from “normal society” so they become priests and try to suppress it.
I don’t think Donahue is blaming this on homosexuality, my guess is that this a argument for allowing priests to marry. I don’t think he’s trying to say homosexuals are more likely to “molest,” but perhaps is saying that homosexuals who try to suppress their sexuality and hang around a bunch of teenage boys in close, private situations might be prone to breaking down and indulging their carnal desires.
That’s just my guess.
Punchy
There is absolutely nothing the Catholic Church could do that would give Bill Donahue pause or criticism. PoBenz could skull-fuck 2 minors and maybe some miners on live Christmas Eve Mass and Donahue would just jaw in awe about what incredible thrusting ability the Pontiff has.
Scum of the earth.
Mike Kay
Your moment of Donohue Zen
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-1-2007/tomb-with-a-jew
Fast forward to the 2:00 minute mark.
GReynoldsCT00
I can’t think of another institution that needs to implode more than the Catholic Church. Christiantiy has NOTHING to do with it anymore — if it ever did. And I can criticize them all I want, I grew up in that Church. Beyond disgusted by this.
Redshirt
@Betsy: I should clarify: I don’t know any “practicing” Catholics. Blessedly, my family and friends are almost completely religious free.
beergoggles
@Tonal Crow: amazing how reality follows snark..
Tattoosydney
Won’t someone please think of the tone?
Tom
So, I actually clicked through to the link. I read that as Phil Donahue, not Bill Donahue, so I thought the words were spoken by a reasonable person who deserved defense.
Forget what I said my previous post (at least in relations to Bill Donahue’s response).
gbear
…and don’t call me ‘buddy’.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
In this context (not in all contexts, at all) this is a distinction without a difference.
Manipulating kids into sex is wrong, no matter what the driving preference is that produces it.
The priests that have done this are operating outside of the law and of propriety, and should be treated accordingly.
RSR
There is a point of distinction between pedophilia and pederasty, but the abuse is the issue, not its classification.
Furthermore, the acts and perpertrators of abuse remain as criminal and legal issues, but the acts and perpertrators of covering up and hiding the abuse are a travesty. Those complicit in the cover up should be forced from their posts of leadership and charged criminally. They are criminals in a legal standpoint, and did far more damage to the Church in the long run than acting swiftly and justly would have done.
freelancer
@Cat Lady:
roflcopter.
This.
Betsy
@Redshirt:
Ah, gotcha. I have lived exclusively in places with large Catholic populations: Galveston, TX; Providence, RI; Santa Fe, NM; and Somerville, MA. I think that has probably skewed my sense of what’s “normal” in terms of one’s social circle’s likelihood of containing Catholics (practicing and non-).
geg6
@Tom:
You obviously don’t know Bill Donohue.
Edited to say that you have obviously discovered exactly WHO Bill Donohue is.
Some Guy
Saw that earlier. It leaves one slackjawed. I am waiting for his global conspiracy of gayness to bring down the church. You see, the same clever bastards who planned Obama’s rise to power before he was born also planned a 40 year campaign to infiltrate the priesthood and carefully select boys they knew would not legally meet statutory pedophilia in the early 21st century in order to bring the church down.
Oh wait, that is not far from what they have been saying. My bad.
Betsy
@Tom:
Are you familiar with Donahue? He’s an ultra-conservative Catholic whose loathing for women runs deep. There is no WAY he would be advocating for priests being able to marry. (Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I would be amazed.)
Edit: Oops! Didn’t see that you’d already figured that out.
Zifnab
So we’ve passed the buck from pedophilia to regular old gay rape. In the magical Donahue revisionism, did the perpetrators stop being priests?
I’d love to see this guy defend a Catholic Serial Killer.
“But, your honor, the victim wasn’t a boy. It was a girl. And she wasn’t wearing a red shirt. She was wearing a blue shirt. And the priest didn’t stab her through the chest, it was through the kidneys. Therefore, I blame minorities and immigrants.” /shakes fist at air
demkat620
@Punchy: I thought this episode was dead on balls accurate.
gex
@RSR: This is why there is such a crisis. One study indicated that 2/3 of bishops are involved in cover ups. The news lately shows how involved the current Pope is. If there is to be any legal accountability, it will either decimate the leadership of the Church, or it will simply be a scapegoating exercise for the those lacking the power to keep themselves out of it, despite having followed the orders of higher ups in Rome when assisting in the cover ups.
mss
Things I learned from Bill Donahue:
1. Is your institution raping small children by the hundred, covering it up, and bullying the victims to keep quiet? No problem! Just rape some adolescents to get the average victim’s age up!
2. It’s a good idea to be pedantic about the precise age boundary between pedophilia and pederasty. No one would ever doubt the moral compass of a man who reacts to organized child rape on a staggering scale by saying “we-e-e-ll, let’s carefully define terms, cause you wouldn’t want to unfairly condemn a priest who takes advantage of an 8th grader as, you know, some kind of molester”.
After this interview, I would never leave a child alone in a room with Donahue—though I suppose that would be a cruel fate at any age. Why hasn’t the Catholic laity organized against this jerk?
Mark S.
@Tom:
I’m pretty damn sure that’s not what Donahue is arguing. Sure, he thinks the problem is too many homosexual priests, but his solution is to get rid of those priests. He has never to my knowledge advocated letting priests marry. He basically thinks the Church can do no wrong and its teaching of celibacy for damn near everybody is perfectly reasonable.
Tom
@Betsy
See here. Poor reading comprehension.
MikeJ
@Short Bus Bully:
Got 95 theses and pope ain’t one
Skalite
Technically, Donohue partially correct, having sex with post pubecent (adolecent) kids is not “pedophilia”, by the actual definition of the term. If you want to get nit picky, it’s pederasty not pedophilia to sexually abuse a post-pubecent (adolecent) child.
Colloquially, though, the term “pedophilia” is taken to mean sex(ual abuse) with (of) anyone under the age of consent, and thus includes acts which are technically pederasty.
Of course, to assume he’s being this nit picky, you have to assume by his second point he means to say that it’s “homosexuality” to engage in sex with an adolecent (pederasty). This he directly denies claiming the very next sentence, so we can all assume he’s just being a giant douche.
Brachiator
That’s OK. I’m a pretty goddam militant atheist, so I will gladly take up the cudgel and do some serious bashing.
A while back, l looked at some of the age range of victims of church abuse that was documented in the excellent “Boston Globe” series on the pedophilia scandal (the archive may still be on the Net). Being a math-minded guy, I noted that the average age of the victims was younger than the average age that Americans have their first intercourse.
For me, this underscored the important fact that these evil priests were swooping down on children even before the kids would make their own sexual choices. To try to minimize this stuff as some sinful but understandable mutual homosexual dalliance is beyond despicable.
And shorter version. Is Bill Donohue saying that f*ggots don’t matter?
And from the Daily Mail we have this weasel attempt to avoid responsibility which could only have been developed by some PR hack.
Now, my mildest suggestion would be to disestablish the Catholic Church in America. I also would like to reserve a special hell for the ministers and heads of every other religion who have been silent on this issue because Catholicism is not their religion, and so they have no ethical imperative to condemn these vicious, glib, predatory basterds.
rikyrah
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1…
ok, I’m calm enough.
these PREDATORS…
CHILD PREDATORS….
need to be under the jail.
They are a subclass of human beings that belong UNDER the jail.
and Donohoe is a worthless human being.
Mark S.
@Tom:
LOL. Slight difference between the two.
Sentient Puddle
@Tonal Crow: Not only this, but I had to click through to the citations to make sure there was something of record that indicated this.
Holy fuck.
liberty60
Speaking as a Catholic, what I want to know is what magic mojo did Donohoe work to persuade every single producer of tee vee news that he is somehow The Official Spokesman For Catholicism?
At least the Pope can say that somebody died and he was elected.
Redshirt
It’s also quite enjoyable, as ardent Catholic Andrew Sullivan has pointed out, watching these various Wingnuts use the most extreme heights and depths of moral relativity to explain why they are the ones in possession of absolute morality.
Fascinating!
demkat620
@Tom: No Tom, I’ve watched Donahue for years. He fully believes homosexuals are an abomination not to be tolerated. He is completely opposed to the reforms of Vatican II and he was delighted by Ratzinger’s elevation because he saw it as continuation of John Paul’s desire for a more conservative church.
There is not an once of tolerance in that man.
gbear
Let us not forget that Donahue is also a puppy beater (don’t want to search for the link at work. I’m sure someone will gleefully provide it).
geg6
Ha! You think that’s bad? E.D. Kain says we hate on the Pope because he’s ugly. I shit you not.
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2010/03/a-brief-defense-of-the-pope/
Zifnab
@rikyrah:
You know, maybe this speaks to my own personal cynicism or maybe it just speaks to the madness of the world at large, but at no point did I ever honestly believe any of these bastards were going to jail.
To put this in perspective, I kinda had a pipe dream that Bush-Era administrators would get picked up for the reckless lawbreaking. But the Catholic Bishops in charge of wide scale cover-up? Not a chance.
Felonious Wench
@GReynoldsCT00:
I’m a volunteer hospice chaplain; I work with people of all creeds, including athiests, of course, to work through their last days and weeks.
I am not allowed to counsel Catholics because I am not an ordained priest. This causes me absolutely no problems at all. I have no desire to be associated with the church’s hierarchy or rules or creeds.
No offense meant at all to the Catholics on this blog. Just glad when I counsel Christians that Catholics are out of my scope, by their church’s desire, so I don’t have to get into pedophilia questions. :)
MikeJ
I’m afraid that what’s happened to the Republicans is going to happen to the Catholics. When everybody sane leaves, you have an institution with nothing but crazy people. And the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
Punchy
Would it surprise anyone if this is exactly what Donahue said next?
El Cid
It is correct but irrelevant to point out that pedophilia is a specific form of molesting/raping underage people who haven’t yet developed secondary sexual characteristics.
Apparently it’s okay in Donahue’s eyes to pressure a 12 or 14 year old kid into letting you molest/rape him or her if he has a bit of pubic hair or she has some degree of breast development.
And it’s okay to protect and cover up what clearly would have been something that an official in any other organization would have been criminally prosecuted for.
And furthermore, Donohue isn’t all that incensed when pedophilia proper went on as well.
I mean, if you’re a Catholic priest, or higher up official, that is.
Again, imagine the same child/underage molestation/rape going on for decades all around the USA by ACORN officials or by Democratic Party officials or by SEIU, and the hierarchy reacting by protecting the violators.
RICO investigations would be already underway, properties seized, vigilante attacks on officials’ housing, etc. You name it.
But apparently, if you’re a powerful and rich and right wing Church corporation (the hierarchy and its organizational structure, not necessarily the laity), you need to deal with child/underage rape/molestation in your own fashion, and not in such a way that people say bad things about your organization systematically engaging in the coverup of hideous crimes.
Bobzim
We’re fortunate enough for whatever reason to have the Phelps Phamily in Charleston, so God’s greatest real estate agent since Constantine sez:
As someone said during the GG/Hamster epic: Sweep around your own front door.
El Cid
And where are all those dudes from those TV shows where they lure in child predators and film the creepy dudes showing up to their presumed ‘dates’?
Couldn’t they do some sort of undercover thing inside a Catholic church or organization?
Les
I notice that Sully has an entry up titled “What About The Girls?” And I just read recently that SNAP (Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests) has a large female membership (40%?). I’m thinkin’ homosexuality has nothing to do with those abused girls and women, and very little, if anything, to do with abused boys.
Quackosaur
@Short Bus Bully:
Luther liked to talk about scat too much (and smear his opponents with it liberally), so I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find “sensible” people in today’s world who wouldn’t be offended by such (BoBo, et al. would flutter around complaining about how mean and dirty he was). There’s no state (or noble prince) from some Luther-esque figure to run to while breaking with Rome; not that he (or she, though we are dealing with the RCC) would need to given the severely diminished temporal power of the RCC since 1517, but anyway.
I haven’t really been keeping up with my contemporary dissident Catholic theologians, but surely there must be someone who’s willing to say that child molesters are bad?
MikeJ
@El Cid: This is correct. It’s horrible that people in positions of authority preyed on children, but that’s not the scandal. Had it happened and the church had assisted with prosecution and tried to prevent it in the future, very few people would be referring to a church as criminal enterprise (on these grounds anyway).
The catholic church should be abolished not because they had a few bad apples, but because they as an institution aided and abetted child molestation.
demkat620
Ah Jesus, Tweety is going to talk about this now. Bet you he has Donahue on.
Nope wait I’m wrong. Buchanan. Close enough.
freelancer
If the Catholic Church didn’t exist, not even Python could invent it.
RSR
For those celebrating or exalting the suffering of the Church, I’d like to remind you that there are good people in the Church.
From my kids principal Sr. Rose, to Father Mychal Judge (FDNY Chaplain, declared victim 0001 at Ground Zero) and Bishop Óscar Romero (chosen as one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy by the Europe-based magazine A Different View, assassinated), they devote and sometimes give their lives to their ministries.
The leadership of the Church complicit in the hiding and cover up of abuse has tainted the good works of many.
Jules
I wish Donahue would stop speaking for the rest of us Catholics.
It is time for The Church to stop saying “well they do it too”.
Or “it was with teenagers so it does not count.”
What I want to hear is this:
quia peccavi
nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere:
mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.
I want to hear repentance.
I want 2011 to be the year The Church goes though a deep and meaningful penance.
I want the Pope and the Cardinals and the Bishops to throw off their vestments and wear some form of sack cloth and ashes for that year.
I don’t want the Pope to resign, I want him to take responsibility.
I’d like to see the church bring any victim to Rome who is willing and have the Pope personally apologize to them.
I want them all to say over and over again (and I don’t care that it is no longer happening or that most of them were never involved or that a good amount of the perps are dead):
“We have sinned grievously”
That’s what The Church needs to so to fix this.
Fax Paladin
Why would anyone think you were kidding? What Donohoe is saying is the Vatican party line. Recall that JP2’s “reform” when the crisis first broke was a witch hunt to boot gays out of the seminaries…
GregB
Tell Bill Donahue that the Ghost of Carroll O’Connor called and he wants his Archie Bunker shtick back.
As for Pope Been-a-dick. Eff him and the rest of the dress wearing paunces who have allowed these criminal acts to go on unabated for decades.
-G
demkat620
Dear god.
Buchanan ” The church should handle this the way we handled Iran Contra. Get an Ombudsman”
Shoot. Me. Now.
No, ombudsman.
Lock. These. Fuckers. Up.
Yossarian
I want the next statutory rapist to go before a judge with this argument.
“But, your Honor, the kid was all of 13 years old. Give a guy a break.”
I can’t decide if this is unbelievable self-parody by Donahue or just pure moral monstrousness. Both, I guess, but does one laugh or cry?
Lavocat
No one ever expects the … um, well … Bill Donohue!
Bill is the Catholic Church’s One Man Spanish Inquisition.
Tattoosydney
@Les:
Well, you’d think that, but them homosexuals are so crafty they’re shagging girls as well, just to throw you off the track.
mcc
I keep thinking, year after year, there must be something, something Bill Donohue can someday say that will actually discredit him.
RSR
Not Throwing Stones: A Protestant Remembers The Best Of The Catholic Church
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/serene-jones/not-throwing-stones-a-pro_b_519126.html
.
.
.
And I think of blighted neighborhoods across America where all-but-ignored nuns, priests, and committed laypeople offer hope to the nearly hopeless through soup kitchens, schools, and community centers. For them, and for energetic Catholic women I work with and teach — so unjustly banned from a priesthood that sorely needs them — the importance of justice-making always exceeds the importance of collars and confessions.
Tragedies come and go; issues like labor and immigration burn bright in the public consciousness for a time and then are forgotten. Long after the rest of the world has moved on, however, often enough the Catholic Church alone continues to affirm economic justice, offer a moral critique of capitalism, and, most importantly, insist that a radical love of the powerless and marginalized is the truest form of faith.
All this makes these latest reports of priests molesting children — and getting away with it — that much more upsetting. Will the faithful work done by so many Catholics be overshadowed by a church hierarchy that goes on the defensive when questioned about cover-ups and complicity? I pray this will not be the case. I also pray that the church might change for the better as a result of these terrible discoveries. And I pray, too, for the deep, ongoing grief — indeed, belly-wrenching lamentation — suffered by so many everyday Catholics who feel betrayed by their own leadership…
Svensker
@Cat Lady:
But at least Baghdad Bob was actually entertaining and deserved some props for hanging in there while under threat of bombing. Donahue is just a big fat-ass living in luxury whose only worry is what restaurant has the choicest lobster and whether the manucurist is wearing a clean frock.
Edward G. Talbot
You know, I gotta think “But the children the priests had sex with were 13” is not the public relations strategy the Vatican really wants to run with here. In their defense, I doubt they are any happier with Donohue than we are.
Yossarian
The “us against the world” mentality that the Church and its spokesmen (official and unofficial) consistently exhibit astonishes me to no end.
Hey guys– YOU ARE NOT A PERSECUTED MINORITY ANY MORE. THERE ARE QUITE A FEW ROMAN CATHOLICS IN THE WORLD, MANY OF WHOM HOLD POWERFUL LEADERSHIP POSITIONS. IT’S OK TO ADMIT YOU ARE WRONG– THE CHURCH WILL NOT IMMEDIATELY COLLAPSE.
HumboldtBlue
That just means they were honorable human beings, it has absolutely nothing to do with the superstitious bullshit they purported to believe. There is nothing about joining a Catholic church that makes you any better or any worse a human being, and by claiming the church has good people as an answer to institutional criminality is the coward’s way out.
The church is wholly complicit in the rape of children and the subsequent cover-up, I don’t give a fuck how many meals they served to the hungry nor how many cloaks they provided to the naked.
T. Scheisskopf
This whole thing is starting to make us Episcopalians look very, very butch, indeed. You would think we were a bunch of breeders or something.
And while we are at it, someone shoot Bill Donahue with a tranquilizer dart and put him into The Mother of all K-Holes. Please. He’s starting to foam at the mouth and that does stain the carpet in the S&M playroom.
Ash Can
While Pope Ratzinger personifies everything that’s wrong with the Catholic clergy today, Bill Donohue personifies everything that’s wrong with the Catholic laity. If the Church survives the likes of the both of them, it’ll be a freaking miracle.
maus
Reminds me of the creepy anime fans who are sure to point out that their obsession with magical girl-children is ephebophilia, not pedophilia. The creepizoids doth protest too much.
tdd
Watch Bill get taken apart by a victim on an Irish TV show after the scandal broke..
Sick Fuck
aimai
Maybe this will seem a bit OT for this thread but something that has been bothering me is the artificial separation between the priests and the hierarchy as though they aren’t the same people. I really don’t understand why people in general talk about the scandal as though its a problem that “bishops” or “cardinals” were covering up for Priests. All those bishops and cardinals came up through the ranks and enjoyed the same priviliges as the priests they were to discipline. The odds, at this point, are very much against there being the slightest separation between the Priests whose acts we know about and the Bishops and Cardinals who failed to police them.
Father Maciel was the head of his own order–the order was rotten from the top down. Not because Maciel was gay, but because he was a child abuser and rapist.
When the secret history of the Vatican is finally written–if they don’t burn down the archives to cover it all up–we are going to find out that plenty of the Bishops and Cardinals had engaged in identical crimes with their vulnerable charges/parishioners when they were lower level priests. They didn’t police their own priests when they were asked to do so because they were equally guilty, and because until very recently they saw nothing wrong with the behavior.
aimai
goblue72
@Short Bus Bully:
You mean a guy who argued that Jews should be driven from their homes, their possesions taken from them and their synagogues burned to the ground? Well, I’d mentioned a guy we had last century who resurrected that idea, but that would just introduce Godwin into the conversation.
As a lapsed Lutheran, lets just say a guy who posts his manifesto to a church door with a spike ain’t exactly playing with a full deck. Course, we could use someone these days to help inspire a Peasant’s War.
geg6
As an ecstatically EX ex-Catholic, I have to ask the people still practicing, what are you thinking? How can you support this sort of thing with your dollars and attendance? How do the great nuns and laity I’ve known over the years look away and continue to proclaim your faith in the church (I don’t mention the good priests I’ve known because all of those have left the priesthood and church long ago)?
This is systemic rot. And the fact that the laity have no voice in how the church is run means that none of your anguish or concerns over this will ever be addressed. I cannot imagine how you can paper this over with the whole “there are so many good people in the church” or “the people ARE the church” excuses that all the Catholics I’ve known my whole life (remember, I grew up as one) have used over the years.
I am not meaning to accuse you of anything. But I don’t know how you live with this. I just don’t and I’d like to try to understand how you manage it.
Svensker
@aimai:
Yes.
Leelee for Obama
@Cat Lady: Au contraire! Baghdad Bob was ridiculous and rather pathetic. Bill Donahue is a complete and utter PRICK!
I got news for old Bill. Some sick asshole so much as looks at my 13 year-old Granddaughter and I’ll be knocking on their door with a sharp implement in each hand.
Fucking bastard.
gex
Frankly, I think “cover up” is starting to be too kind a term. To underscore that there is an unaddressed legal issue, an accounting with society, I will be using the terms “aiding and abetting”, “accessories after the fact”, “conspiracy to commit”, and “obstruction of justice”.
LuciaMia
Christ Almighty. What circle of Hell is Donohue bound for , for saying it’s hunky-dory to molest a 12 or 13 year old? Cause of that whole post-pubescent thing and obviously a fully mature adult.
“Sick Fuck?” Sums it up for me. Plus any ‘news’ show that has him on, ever again.
Tazistan Jen
@RSR:
There are many wonderful Catholics, and this must be just about killing them.
maus
@LuciaMia:
Pretty much saying that they wanted it, because they can “fight off” a trusted adult.
lamh31
Wow, I don’t know if anyone saw this just now on “Hardball” but Chris Matthews, Pat Buchannan, and Joan Walsh just did an extended segment on the church and the sexual abuse scandals going on, and it was actually intelligent, thoughtful, and Pat Buchanan actually came off as dare I say it…rational!!!
The church has really stepped in it when even GOP catholics are showing their “outward” disgust.
Someone should find the video. I think it might be the first real discussion of the issue on the MSM.
demkat620
@Tazistan Jen: While I don’t claim to be a wonderful catholic, I am a catholic and it is enraging me.
Alex S.
@Rick Massimo:
ROFL……
Donohue: “This whole scandal is about fags”
King: “Up next is Anderson Cooper”
mcc
@T. Scheisskopf: Well maybe you shouldn’t have carpeted it then!
Jules
@geg6:
Because of the Eucharist and because the Catholic Church is The Church.
It is not the hierarchy or the Vatican.
mcc
@goblue72: In 16th century Europe posting notices on church doors was common. They were sort of like community bulletin boards.
Martian Buddy
@Erik Vanderhoff:
How about an invisible pink unicorn, rampant, on a black background?
kommrade reproductive vigor
The thought that the R.C.C.’s attempt to spin the Baby Banging Scandal (Part V) are being [ahem] queered by Donohuencry makes me very, very, happy.
maus
@lamh31:
Republican Protestants loathe Papists when it comes to any issue that’s not the female reproductive system.
RSR
So the whole military is complicit in abu ghraib by that logic.
scav
yeah, you do have to wonder about their lines of defense: Everybody else was doing it; technically it’s not pedophilia, it’s the gay stuff we tell you to burn in hell for; I’m the leader of a sovereign nation but all those guys beneath me? I’ve got no control over them; oh, and scandals that go back at least to the 50s are because of the post-60s secular norms. And by the way, we’re the Moral Authority. Their justification is that it’s technically really only rape and/or harassment?
Tonal Crow
@maus:
Buchanan is a Catholic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan .
4tehlulz
Fiksd
HumboldtBlue
No you child-rapist defending fuck, it means that from the top down the entire fucking organization from the Pope to the lowliest fucking deacon didn’t lift a fucking finger to put a stop to it. And every time you put a fucking donation into the collection plate you aid and abet the criminals who to this day continue to rape children and abet in the cover-up.
Signed: a former altar boy who had no motherfucking problem telling Father Feely Hands that if he ever even looked at me again I would cut his fucking balls off with a rusty fucking pair of scissors.
Quackosaur
@RSR:
I don’t think any of us (well, perhaps most of us) seek to denigrate the contributions and sacrifices made by individuals in the service of others; those are lofty achievements, regardless of who has performed them. It’s commendable that you want to protect the reputations of those who have not committed these unspeakable acts, nor conspired to cover them up.
For better or for worse, the RCC is a hierarchical organization and people will identify the head as representative of the entire body. People can’t just act like ostriches and stick their heads in the sand and pretend nothing has happened; they can’t try to insulate themselves and claim that they aren’t responsible. As members of the Church, Catholics continually contribute to the Papacy with their donations. There comes a point when Catholics need to say enough is enough; sure, dissenting from entrenched power structures is hard, but people need to struggle through or nothing changes.
There are examples throughout history of supposedly good people who did nothing while the organizations and movements they belonged to did horrific things (I’ll let you extrapolate to Godwin if you wish). Should Catholics persuade themselves that these problems will just disappear if they don’t rock the boat? If people are appalled by these actions, why do they do nothing?
On some level I recognize that most lay Catholics and parish priests and such have little control over the inner-workings of the Church and are generally restricted from affecting doctrine, but they must know that what the Church hierarchy has been up to is indefensible? How can the Church maintain moral authority while simultaneously allowing evil acts to continue to plague the laity? How can anyone believe that God would want the laity to support a hierarchy rife with spiritual and moral corruption?
Sure, doctrine prevents reform in the RCC, but that doesn’t mean Catholics should sit idly by. But people have split with Rome over doctrine and tradition and practice before. There’s no reason that it can’t happen again, except for Catholics own refusal to accept that the Church has been co-opted by those who put their own temporal interests ahead of the spiritual.
Fern
@geg6: Clearly ridiculous – I hate him because he wears stupid shoes.
El Cid
@RSR:
If in a multiplicity of cities and states throughout the USA and countries around the world it had been shown through testimony and trial that U.S. military officials had repeatedly tortured innocent people and their superiors had simply covered up for the officials, never truly disciplined them, and didn’t subject them to the criminal proceedings warranted, for decades, and that this attitude of protecting these torturers had gone all the way of the chain of command to the highest military officials, how could it not be the case that someone would hold the military as an institution accountable?
Is there any other organization or corporation which would be allowed to get away with this and still conduct business as a functional institution without systematic reorganization?
What if the Red Cross or Salvation Army (and I reeeallly hope I’m not being unintentionally prescient here) had done what the evidence clearly and legally shows the Catholic Church’s organizational leadership as having done, would anyone be confused when there were instant, sweeping consequences?
I’m pretty sure that if Greenpeace were ever to have been shown to have acted like this, their boats would be sunk by U.S. Naval vessels at sea.
Quackosaur
@Jules:
I think there are quite a few other Christians who would disagree with those statements.
Felonious Wench
@T. Scheisskopf: We Episcopalians are such bad Christians that we have openly gay priests…and BISHOPS! And our Presiding Bishop is a WOMAN! Down the hatch to hell go the lot of us.
God, I love being a Heathen Whiskeypalian.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Rick Massimo:
If Donohoe or his supporters in the church have any newly post-pubescent daughters I wonder if they would be ok with those daughters having sex with adults, maybe even priests? If Bill thinks that the problem with priests and victims is that they are gay and thus are doing nothing wrong then it would seem to make sense for heterosexuality between minor children and adults to be treated the same way.
I am a (horribly) lapsed RC and former altar boy who ‘survived’ my contact with the church without being molested so I know that a blanket statement like ‘they fuck boys’ doesn’t fit all. Amend that to ‘they allow some priests to fuck boys because they can get away with it’ and then I’m on board. What they (the rapist priests and their enablers) did was wrong and plain evil yet the church refuses to face the music and admit that the have child molesters and enablers running the show, let alone do something about it.
Evil is evil and Donohoe embraces and defends the evil in the church. If there is a hell I hope his type will get their own level and have it all to themselves.
Quackosaur
@Felonious Wench:
You were DOOMED the instant you appointed SINNERS to the clergy. Obviously only those without sin should lead the Church.
maus
@102 Oh goodness. I’m sure I read that at some point in the past, thanks.
@103 yase.
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: I would agree with your rationale. People in the church are defending the priests, the pope, the hierarchy and saying that the whole thing is either lies, blown-out of proportion, the kids’ faults, or whatever else. As more and more cases are being uncovered (and shown to have been covered up for decades in some cases), it’s hard not to think, “If you guys don’t like the press, do something about it. Find a way to make these priests be, at the very least, ex-communicated (prosecuted would be better).” The whole Church (with a capital C) has participated in the cover-up, from the Pope on down. Every devout Catholic should be livid over this and doing what s/he can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
WereBear
@Felonious Wench: Bless you for doing that.
Quackosaur
@Quackosaur:
I should clarify that I don’t think homosexuality is a sin; I’m merely pointing out that those who do shouldn’t be so quick to cast them out because everybody’s guilty of something. So yeah… Explaining the joke, blah. blah. blah…
Ash Can
@Tazistan Jen: @demkat620:
I’m nobody’s idea of wonderful either, but yes, it’s a nightmare.
@Quackosaur: You raise excellent questions (and civilly, yet).
Jules is talking semantically — the RCC calls itself “the Church” and defines itself exactly the way he said. We Catholics use the term as shorthand, and don’t mean to slight any other sects by it.
Also, regardless of what the RCC heierarchy either says or wants to believe, the RCC is not a monolith. I can’t speak for clergy, but laity can and does fight back on the grass-roots level. I know of one parish in the area that ran a pedophile priest out of its parish, and I’m sure I can find more examples. The trouble is, we can’t stop the brass from redeploying the pedophiles. All we can do is to keep hounding them out of the parishes — those of us who, unlike Bill Donohue, aren’t brainwashed into thinking that priests can do no wrong, that is.
Also, keep in mind that the only way we laity fund the Vatican is through the annual Peter’s Pence collection, which is entirely separate from the regular Sunday collections and clearly identified. It’s up to us whether we want to kick in, and it’ll be interesting to see how many Catholics actually do this year.
El Cid
Somehow I doubt it would work for too many organizations to defend themselves by saying “hey, we don’t fuck every kid!”
Mike
The proper term for that is ephebophilia or hebephilia. However, I understand that the Pope is going to claim immunity because he is a head of state. Awesome dodging of any legal and moral responsibility.
The email for the morally depraved William Donohue is [email protected].
Share you feelings.
Ripley
Donohue: Fuck the children!
Pope: Do we have time?
(Rimshot! Free nachos ’til closing time.)
Ruckus
@Quackosaur:
I think there are quite a few other Christians who would disagree with those statements.
Agree, disagree what the hell difference does it make? The current leaders of the organization have covered up and perpetrated crimes against children for at least decades. They have no moral authority. None. I feel for those who belong to the church and really can do nothing except leave. But to try to make excuses, like this really isn’t the church, makes one no better that the leaders and Bill D.
Emma
RSR: It already has. And it is a pity, but there you have it. When the highest and mightiest of the Church are revealed to be enablers of decades of child abuse all over the world, what would you have us say?
We all know good Catholics. One of my dearest friend is the head of the St. Vincent de Paul society for the parish. She and her ladies have singlehandedly fed more poor in this area than most government programs. Every Christmas I throw a few bucks their way so they can help with the grocery shopping for the migrant families, and the unemployed-parent families, and the uninsured-mother-with-cancer families. It’s heartbreaking work and they do it with a discipline and a toughness that would make a marine proud.
But they aren’t the face of the church, are they? By design, women like my friend are kept in the background. Nuns are being ordered back to their convent in droves. Don’t even think about women priests.
The face of the Church right now, at this moment, is a bunch of old white males going out of their way to protect child molesters.
Donald G
The term I’ve seen and heard Catholic priests use when discussing the sexual abuse of post-pubescent minors in previous outbreaks is, I believe, “ephebephilia”.
Distinguishing ephebephilia from garden-variety pedophilia is useful, since, presumably, for the church, as these victims are post-pubescent, being an ephebephilic priest isn’t as bad a thing as being a pedophilic priest.
El Cid
In the 1980s, the formal hierarchy of the Catholic Church was more than happy that U.S. foreign policy was to help local paramilitary and rightist government forces assassinate, slaughter, and destroy those local Catholic priests who had began pressing for Liberation Theology (i.e., ‘Hey Why Don’t We Take That Jesus Shit Seriously And Stop Fucking The God-Damned Poor He Talked About So Much’) and they were much happier when their authoritarian, women and abortion-hating buddies were back in charge with their rightist, death squad allies.
Then-Cardinal Ratfinker was pretty hopped up about it, too, directly issuing a condemnation of this heretical view from his position as leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, because, hey, it’s not like they were just raping kids or pre-adolescents, you know.
On the plus side, with many liberal-left regimes not only assuming power throughout Latin America but examining, rejecting, and prosecuting the recent tyrannical past — El Salvador’s ex-FMLN President Mauricio Funes officially apologize for the state-backed assassination of liberation theologist and fighter for the poor Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 — there doesn’t seem to be much Pope Benedict can do about it the re-emergence of Liberation Theology, in a weakened but no longer hidden form, at present.
scav
@Donald G: whee. Technically true but in no way to really be understood as a defense, which is really the point (not that I’m implying that you buy into that point as you still use the word victims). How is it really useful in their minds? It shouldn’t even be the difference between murder and manslaughter under even their rules as these are supposed to be freaking celibate priests. Rule out the celibacy and they’re still in positions of authority over kids, not even just the regular garden variety of guardianship grownup authority over kids in their care, this comes freighted with spiritual authority. This is angels dancing on pins sophistry of the most self-justifying kind.
Digital Amish
In an earlier thread there was complaints about the animosity that commenters here seem to have towards Christians. If you’re looking for a cause, look no further than Donohoe. Over the last 30 years it is assholes like him that have lead me from sympathetic understanding to ambivalence to scorn. When the day comes that Jim Wallis is the norm instead of an outlier, come back and talk to me.
Veritas78
Fine, so kick all the homos out of the church. Ask the last one to turn out the lights.
I was raised a Catholic (I’m now a happy, gay atheist) and there wasn’t a SINGLE priest in our parish who wasn’t gay. I’ll bet worldwide 90% of them are.
El Cid
Now the Swiss are apparently picking on those darned Catholic priests again.
Midnight Marauder
@RSR:
As an institution, yes.
Felonious Wench
@WereBear: Thank you. But if you asked the other chaplains, the nurses and social workers, the pallative care doctors, all of us would tell you that working with the dying and their families is a great blessing to us.
All of the religious debates are interesting, sometimes very personal, sometimes heated. To me, a criminal us a criminal no matter what they choose to wrap it in. And what I’ve learned is whatever powers may or may not exist in the universe, all of us die and find out the truth anyway. So the God I choose to believe in is much bigger than our squabbles and discontents, and calling Her a raging bitch couldn’t mean less; I hear people do it daily. That’d be a pretty crappy diety who would say “hey, you remember all those times you said I was a unicorn? How you joked about staples and cedars? Down the hatch with no Bactine, buddy!
And if I’m wrong, no harm done. Acting like I’m told to as a Christian is a net positive to the here and now. That’s my faith. YMMV, and I love ya anyway.
gil mann
Yeah, the celebrating and the exalting got a little out of hand. We’re all just so jazzed up about how the Church got taken down a peg, and all that had to happen was for thousands upon thousands of children to have their lives destroyed!
The next apologist who tries this shit–“stop pointing out what an irredeemably despicable and corrupt institution I belong to, because I’m nice”–gets locked in a room overnight with Bill Donahue.
Not to be molested, mind you, you’ll just have to listen to him talk. Though I suppose that’s a distinction without a great deal of difference.
jvill
I’ll spot Bill the pedophilia point, if he’ll admit Ratzinger assisted the Catholic Church in a concerted and systematic coverup of the rape of
childrenyoung teenagers.Cause that’s waaaaaay better…
Quackosaur
@Ash Can:
Regarding what Jules said, I think it was just the way he/she emphasized “the Church,” which set off my “we’re the one and only true religion” alarm bells (not that every denomination/religion doesn’t at least wink and nod at that claim). I’ve used “the Church” as short-hand for the RCC before myself, mostly in historical contexts, but I’ve done it when speaking about current events as it is the single largest church (again, it was mostly the emphasis thing, so I may have just jumped a bit prematurely).
As for the money thing, I suppose I specifically mentioned the Vatican, which was a poor choice of words on my part. I more generally meant the Church structure (so include the Vatican, the archdiocese, diocese, etc.), to which I assume (especially on the diocesan level) there are more regular contributions from local parishes. I’m not really familiar with how the RCC gathers money from parishioners; I assume all giving is more or less voluntary, but is there any attempt to solicit annual pledges from members (in the “I intend to give X this year” sense)?
I guess my question is: How much control does the parish have over its own finances relative to the diocese/archdiocese?
americanadian
Many years ago at the age of 16, when in high school, our homeroom teacher was a catholic sister who’s name fit her dimensions, she was huge & mean. I wasn’t catholic & didn’t have to attend religion class which was right after the morning bell. Every morning she made the class get on their knees & pray. We were the only class doing this & some classes would go by the door & laugh that we were actually on our kness praying.
One morning I decided not to, it was my choice & dammit I wasn’t getting on my knees to pray. She ordered me three times with spittle flying through the air to get on my knees but I refused. She said God would send me to hell if I didn’t get on my knees. Finally she said she’d make me pay & headed down the aisle with big, fat hand outstretched to hit me.
This woman often told us she longed for the hickory switch days when she could beat on children with abandon. I saw her hitting one of my classmates with a ruler across his bandaged frost bitten hands while he broke down crying (he just came back from being lost 2 or 3 days in the woods during a snowstorm).
Anyway, as she headed towards me I stood up & grapped my fiberglass desk (you know, the fiberglass bucket seat with the little flip over desk), picked it up & threatened to throw it at her if she made one more step towards me. I was so angry, I think I would have. She stopped in her tracks & told me to get out & never darken the classroom doorway until after morning religion class was over.
I went the rest of the year showing up at shool an hour later. Sleeping in was great. As for threatening a catholic sister, doesn’t bother me a bit…horrible, nasty woman.
Donald G
@scav:
I left off the “sarcasm-tag” in my post. No, I’m not defending the actions of the accused priests, nor am I defending the actions of the enablers and defenders.
However, when a cloistered, secretive hierarchical society finds itself at the heart of such a criminal scandal, it is only natural for it to flail around trying to find reasons to show that the crime isn’t really as bad a crime as everyone else thinks. It’s part of the chaff thrown out to deflect the incoming fire, along with “it’s all part of a smear campaign against this Pope and this Church” to “authority figures in other religious sects do it, too, so why aren’t you on their cases?”
The Church is flailing around trying to find a way to get off the hook for decades, if not centuries, of heinous misbehavior. Previously, they dealt with these cases by “keeping it within the family”. The “family scandals” are now coming out, so the Bishops and the Catholic League are circling the wagons.
They will use a wide variety of attacks, often mutually exclusive. The Church as its representatives will simultaneously play the victim and go on the attack in an attempt to smear and browbeat and intimidate those who bring up the issue. They will try to obfuscate and deflect criticism, and they will jump through all sorts of rhetorical hoops to convince both outsiders and insiders that the situation is nowhere near as bad as has been portrayed.
These tactics are useful only insofar as they serve to muddy the waters, or to gain sympathy from those already inclined to excuse their transgressions.
Remember, this is the religious sect that gave us the Jesuits, who could argue and justify anything.
scav
@Donald G: Seriously, I in no way thought you were excusing anything. It was simply the pent up frustration with the lack of fundamental basic human logic, rather than nit-picking legalisms, that finally got to me. Even if we forget their pretense of chastity, they prated on and on about humility, contriteness and confession for centuries and they can’t connect the dots and see how it might apply to their sanctified selves? The soul, let alone the mind, reels.
Donald G
@scav:
I understand the frustration you feel over this. Until the Church comes clean on what it has done and until it officially and genuinely repents what it has done, and until it practices within the hierarchy what it preaches for the laity, the Church is a whited sepulchre.
fasteddie9318
Goddamn it, first the Dutch army homos cause the whole Bosnian massacre, and now the homo priests are destroying the Catholic Church! Not to mention all the wanton destruction they’ve already caused to the American family! When will it be enough, homos? When will it be safe for a pasty white, paunchy, shrieking fucking asshole like Bill Donohue to live his life without worrying about all the destruction you’re causing? Huh?
Seriously, if I actually believed there was a hell, I don’t think my imagination could conceive of the hell that would be a fitting punishment for Bill Donohue. Maybe Hindus are right and he’ll come back in his next life as literal pond scum instead of the figurative version.
Mr Furious
Awesome. John Fucking Cole has come back to chew gum and kick ass.
And he’s all out of gum.