Catholic archbishop: If you disagree with church on marriage, don't bother with communion

How about if you disagree with the church aiding and abetting pedophilia?

And what a surprise that the Catholic church is again trying to usurp our democracy only one month out of an election. And these are the same folks who tell us not to worry about uber-religious candidates, they won't let their church control them in office - until their church tries to control them office.  (There's a bit of a "deny me three times" element to the ongoing denial of uber- people of faith on this point - your faith is your number one guidepost but you won't legislate based on it.  Right.)

What a mean-spirited faith. And the Catholics wonder why they have such a hard time getting new priests and followers.  Perhaps because no one wants to wake up early on a Sunday to get yelled at.

In a sweeping pastoral statement to be made public today, the leader of more than 1 million North Jersey Catholics urges them to vote “in defense of marriage and life,” and warns that the passage of same-sex marriage laws might lead to a government crackdown on their religious freedoms.

Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said the statement on gay marriage was not timed to coincide with the November election, now little more than a month away, and that he was not calling on Catholics to vote for a particular candidate. But he said they should examine the “full spectrum” of each candidate, including how they stand on abortion and “a proper backing of marriage.”

He also said in the statement, a copy of which was provided to The Record before its release, that Catholics who disagree with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on marriage should “refrain from receiving Holy Communion.” He said he issued the statement because of what he described as a lack of clarity on the subject by other bishops.

(H/t Towleroad)
Read the rest of this post...

Catholic cardinal now calling gay marriages "friendships"

Yes, and they know a few things about special friendships, those cardinals.

Think about this.  At a mass to celebrate the marriages of 400 (presumably hetero) couples, the Catholic cardinal of Chicago decided to take a swipe at gay couples and marriages.

If I were one of those 400 couples celebrating my anniversary, I'm not so sure I'd have been happy with the Cardinal using a celebration of my marriage as an opportunity to advance his angry political agenda.

I wasn't brought up Catholic.  But I was brought up Greek Orthodox, and the religions aren't that different (and once were the same).  And while I admittedly am not much of a church-goer anymore, unlike what we always hear from the Catholics, Greek church services were never hate-filled at all (at least not in America).  They were about loving your neighbor.  They were never about abortion, or gays, or anything else controversial or political.  They were simply about being a good human being in the way we used to think of good human beings.  Not people who vote Republican or hate women or bash gays, but people who lived by the golden rule - and that was about it.

It's really quite a depressing view you get of Catholicism from the outside.  So angry all the time.  Who wants to wake up early for that? Read the rest of this post...

Incoming Catholic archbishop of SF arrested on DUI

The article discusses whether this could stop him from getting the archibishop job. Puhleez. These guys don't lose their jobs for pedophilia. They're certainly not going to lose them for driving drunk. Read the rest of this post...

Pope no longer opposed to condoms, kind of

Good, but at the same time, whatever. Telegraph:

After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the Pontiff has ended the Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms.

He said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to “reduce the risk of infection” from Aids.

While he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act – even outside marriage.

This part was a bit odd:

“There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to redevelop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes.

“But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”

The one concrete example is a male prostitute?  Uh ok. Read the rest of this post...

French Catholic church says gays are pedophiles, tries to veto marriage in France

The Catholic church.  That bastion of pedophilia, and pedophile-enablers - to this day - now claims to be worried about the welfare of children.  That's why the Catholic church has yet to fully fess up to its role in enabling the rape of children across the world for decades, if not millennia.

Now, the Catholic church is bringing back a move from the king - a figurehead the French violently overthrew, mind you - in an effort to inject religion into politics and effectively veto a Democratic state.

A tradition will be revived in France next week when a “Prayer for France” will be read out at Catholic churches across the country. The text, which attacks the government’s plan to legalise same-sex marriage, has angered France’s gay rights groups.

The annual “Prayer for France” was a centuries old custom but died out after World War Two. It was first uttered in the seventeenth century after King Louis XIII decreed all churches would pray on August 15 for the good of the country.

As well as opposing gay marriage, the prayer also makes clear the Catholic Church’s resistance to gay adoption.

The cardinal invites congregations to pray that “children cease to be objects of the desires and conflicts of adults and fully benefit from the love of a father and a mother.”
These words provoked the wrath of Inter LGBT.

The Catholic church is worried about children becoming objects of desire? (And please don't tell me that they're not talking about pedophilia - "objects of desire"?) Yet they still have not come fully clean on the pedophilia racket they ran for generations. Their hypocrisy is priceless, and sickening.

France, like much of western Europe, wised up long ago about the Catholic church.  While most French are Catholic, most French arenare not religious.  The Catholic church thankfully doesn't have the power to overthrow democracy in France like it, and its brethren the Mormons and the religious right, do on a regular basis in the states.

But seriously, the greatest gathering of pedophiles and their enablers in the history of man has the audacity to accuse us of sexually abusing children?  If the Catholic church is so worried about child molesters perhaps it should take a look in a mirror.

How do you say NAMBLA in Latin? Read the rest of this post...

Child-rape-enablers to play crucial role in opposing marriage in Maine

I'm sorry, but I simply don't care what an institution that tacitly sanctions the rape of children has to say about anything. Nor should you. Read the rest of this post...

Suit says Catholic hospital refuses to give meds to HIV positive man because he's gay

The Catholics recently warned that they might just let non-Catholics die, rather than obey federal guidelines on contraception.

And we know that the Catholic church would rather let orphan children go homeless than obey civil rights laws (and would rather let children be serially raped than obey laws on rape and child abuse).

And we know that religious right Republicans want pharmacists to have the right to turn away anyone they don't morally agree with.

So it was only a matter of time before the Catholics chose to let gays die in the name of the Lord. Read the rest of this post...

NOM spokesman to have dinner at Dan Savage's house

NOM guy had challenged Dan to a debate, anywhere any time.  Dan said, fine, my house, over dinner. NOM guy has now agreed.

So that's what they're going to do, with a NYT journalist moderating the discussion.

Dan also made an, I think, unintended observation on the religious right's intolerance of Catholics.  First, what Dan wrote:

It looks like I'm gonna have to clear all the Catholic kitch out of our living room and dining room—my 5' plaster Jesus, our 3' plaster Mary, all my other plaster saints, the dozens of rosaries hanging around their plaster necks, the stack of disintegrating hymnals on the mantle, etc. Wouldn't want Brian to think there's something disrespectful about our collection. Our Catholic kitch is all family heirlooms. My late grandfather's rosaries, most of them prayed to pieces, were headed to the dump when I picked them out of the trash. But will knowing that my 5' plaster Jesus has been evacuated to our bedroom be more of a torment for Brian?

Dan may not have realized, as he wrote this, that even though it was in jest, it wasn't totally wrong.

Remember: The religious right doesn't think that Catholics are even Christians. They think that Catholics worship Satan. That the Virgin Mary is a "whore." So when Dan writes about NOM being offended by displays of Catholocism, Dan may in fact be right. Read the rest of this post...

ACLU and Lambda to sue for marriage in Illinois

Chicago Trib:

The gay rights group Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois each plan to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the clerk of Cook County, claiming that not issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the Illinois Constitution.

Activists say they will continue to press lawmakers to legalize same-sex marriage. But these lawsuits mean that the judicial system, and possibly the Illinois Supreme Court, will play a role as well.

This is interesting.

Because the governor has voiced his support for same-sex marriage, it's unclear whether the state will fight the lawsuit.

And what would a discussion of civil rights be without a passing moral judgment from a representative of the religion that aids and abets the serial rape of small children:

Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, said the lawsuits show that the gay rights advocates who fought for civil unions never intended to be content with that law.

"Civil unions afford all the benefits of marriage," he said. "The justification for passage of civil unions was to get all those legal rights. But we had said all along that civil unions weren't the issue and that same-sex marriage was really the issue. This clearly proves our point, that really what they want is marriage."

The only reason Catholic leaders aren't the subject of a RICO investigation, and behind bars, if because far too many politicians fear their political power.  I'm not sure why anyone should care what a Catholic leader thinks of the morality of anything until that church comes clean about its serial rape of America's children. Read the rest of this post...

Canadian Catholic leaders say "bullying" is a "distraction"

It's sad, but as Gaius wrote earlier, what in God's name has happened to Canada?  From the Toronto Sun:

Ontario Catholics are pushing back against the provincial Liberal government’s plan to force them to accept Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) in their schools.

Thomas Cardinal Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto and President of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, said in a statement issued Monday that all people, of faith or not, should be concerned by this action.

“If it happens to us, it can happen to you on this and other issues,” Collins said.

He's right, you know.  If they try to stop the gay kids from killing themselves, some day they may stop your child from committing suicide as well. And we all know how upset Catholic leaders get when someone tries to stop them from harming children.

Check out the insouciance, and near contempt, that this Catholic leader has for the very notion of bullying:

Marino Gazzola, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, said the government’s Accepting Schools Act now emphasizes gay bullying over all other grounds that a student might be intimidated, harassed or physically assaulted by peers.

”In our view, the word itself is a distraction,” Gazzola said.

When asked if he believed the word “gay” was a distraction, Gazzola said, ”It can be. It just it takes away from the entire focus of our message which is the safety of all the students.”

Im sorry, but when you aid and abet the rape of small children, and refuse to come clean to this day, you have zero moral authority to say anything about anything. Read the rest of this post...

Catholic church threatens to turn away non-Catholics from emergency rooms

Get these people out of the hospital business, now.

The Catholic church is now making rumblings about turning away non-Catholics from the emergency rooms of Catholic hospitals. I shudder to make a Nazi analogy, so I won't. But what other analogy is there for a hospital to even dare start talking about picking and choosing who lives and who dies based on their religion? Welcome to the Vatican death panels.

Don't anyone think for a moment that this isn't a veiled threat of what's to come.  And after they block Baptists, and Methodists and Jews from entering their emergency rooms, guess who's next.  You.

Remember, the Catholic church warned that it would have to stop foster care and adoption services in Washington, DC and Illinois, rather than abide with anti-discrimination laws, and what did they do?  They stopped providing those services in those states.  The Catholic bishops are nothing if not consistent when it comes to following through on their threats to harm their human shields.

What's to stop them from turning away non-Catholics from the emergency rooms of Catholic hospitals - which they just threatened in writing, mind you? These are people who excel at punishing innocent victims, from a raped five year old to a homeless teenager.

From Maureen Dowd, writing about the latest Catholic scare tactic, distributed in tax-exempt churches, to oppose President Obama's new contraceptive policy that Mitt Romney previously endorsed as well.

The Archdiocese of Washington put an equally alarmist message in the church bulletins at Sunday’s Masses, warning of apocalyptic risk:

“1. Our more than 600 hospitals nationwide, which will need to stop non-Catholics at the emergency room door and say, ‘We are only allowed by the government to heal Catholics.’

The poor oppressed Catholic church.  So oppressed that they get $2.8 billion of taxpayer money every year from the US government.  Call them "God's 1%."

As Dowd reminds us, the Catholic bishops don't really speak for actual American Catholics.  Note the gay polling, below.

I wasn’t surprised to see the Gallup poll Tuesday showing that 82 percent of U.S. Catholics say birth control is morally acceptable. (Eighty-nine percent of all Americans and 90 percent of non-Catholics agreed.) Gallup tested the morality of 18 issues, and birth control came out on top as the most acceptable, beating divorce, which garnered 67 percent approval, and “buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur,” which got a 60 percent thumbs-up (more from Republicans, naturally, than Democrats).

Polygamy, cloning humans and having an affair took the most morally offensive spots on the list. “Gay or lesbian relations” tied “having a baby outside of marriage,” with 54 percent approving. That’s in the middle of the list, above a 38 percent score for abortion and below a 59 percent score for “sex between an unmarried man and woman.”

All they speak for is a Vatican that every four years tries to throw the American election to the Republicans. Read the rest of this post...

Gay porn priest to step down

Think about it. A priest accidentally shows some gay porn on the screen during a powerpoint presentation, and he steps down from his job. But another priest serially rapes children for decades and he doesn't stop down, rather, the church leadership covers up his crime and shuffles him off to another parish where he can again rape more children. Nice double standard. Read the rest of this post...

Vatican launches attack on U.S. nuns for not being homophobic

Posted about the Vatican attack on the U.S. nuns for not being anti-gay enough at AMERICAblog. To complete the homophobic circle, the Archbishop of Seattle, J. Peter Sartain, who is leading the jihad against the nuns, is also leading the effort to repeal Washington State's new marriage equality law. But, this past weekend, a number of parishes rejected the Archbishop's edict to collect signatures for an anti-marriage referendum. In fact, via Igor Volsky at Think Progress, we learned that one Catholic priest got a standing ovation from his parishioners by announcing he wouldn't participate in the effort to gather signatures for an anti-marriage petition. Read the rest of this post...

Catholic Church defunds immigration advocates over ties to LGBT group

A great Holy Week story.

Leaders of the Catholic Church continue their jihad against all things gay by cutting funds for groups that treat their LGBT neighbors as human beings. From today's New York Times:

For three years now, Compañeros, a small nonprofit organization in rural southwestern Colorado, has received thousands of dollars from the Roman Catholic Church to help poor Hispanic immigrants with basic needs including access to health care and guidance on local laws.

But in February, the group was informed by a representative from the Diocese of Pueblo that its financing from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops devoted to ending poverty, was in danger.

The problem, the diocesan liaison explained, was Compañeros’s membership in an immigrant rights coalition that had joined forces with a statewide gay and lesbian advocacy group, recounted Nicole Mosher, Compañeros’s executive director.

The Catholic Campaign, which doles out $8 million annually to about 250 groups nationwide, has been under increasing pressure from conservative Catholic groups to ensure that it is not unwittingly aiding organizations that run afoul of church positions on issues like birth control and marriage.

These are some sick people running the church these days. Their homophobia knows no bounds.

According to The Times, Compañeros is affiliated with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC). CIRC "began a partnership with One Colorado. It was One Colorado’s support for civil unions that was at issue, Mr. McCloud said." So, those Bishops are really looking hard to find connections to anything gay-related. It's a modern-day Inquisition.

Compañeros isn't backing down, despite the financial impact:

Compañeros’s board recently voted to remain a member of the immigrant coalition, despite the prospect of losing $30,000 in annual financing, which comprises about half its budget.

Said Ms. Mosher: “We can’t go against our core principles by taking money that we think will ultimately result in the division of this community.”

The Catholic Church cut funds for Preble Street in Portland (also mentioned by the Times) after the organization opposed the repeal of Maine's same-sex marriage law back in 2009. The people of Maine, including then-Governor John Baldacci, rallied around Preble Street. I hope the same thing happens in Colorado.

The website for Compañeros is here. On this Good Friday, while Catholic leaders are cutting funds for those who need help. I donated to Compañeros, just like I donated when the Bishop cut funds for Preble Street. If you are so inclined, the best way to donate directly to Compañeros is through one of these sites:

CIRC/Companeros page

One Colorado

Charity for All

I grew up Catholic and it seems like Compañeros is doing what Jesus would do. Read the rest of this post...

Catholics report priest to the cops for having adult pornography

Seriously?  Raping kids, not so much as a peep.  But accidentally show some gay porn in your Powerpoint presentation to parents, and the church calls the cops.  Seriously?  CNN:

The Catholic Church in Ireland has launched an investigation into claims that a priest accidentally showed gay pornography pictures during a presentation to parents.

The church reported the incident to police, but it appears a prosecution is not being considered.

I admit that under normal circumstances, a priest flashing some gay porn on the screen for parents is a bit odd. But considering how little this church has done to rectify its serial rape of children, this comes off as simply more Catholic gay-bashing.  Zero tolerance for anything gay.  But raping a kid?  Not so much. Read the rest of this post...

Question for today: Who saw NOM's plan to start a race war and agreed to fund it? Mormons? Catholics?

Last night's breaking news about the explosive documents showing that NOM wanted to create a race war between gays and blacks is reverberating. You really don't see many organizations put in writing that they want to start "fanning the hostility" between Americans of different races. And NOM's language on Latinos and assimilation is also highly offensive. Zack Ford wrote a post on the "Top 10 Highlights From NOM’s Race-Wedging, Donor-Hiding, Victim-Playing Confidential Strategies."

This scandal creates a number of questions. For me, the first one is: Who saw NOM's plan to start a race war and agreed to fund it?

There are some likely suspects who have close ties to the anti-gay industry, led by NOM, including the Catholic Bishops, Mormons and the Knights of Columbus.  Someone needs to ask each of those groups if they saw this racist plan and if they funded it.

Sure explains why NOM wants to keeps its donors secret. But, I hope we get some answers. We better.

NOM must be stopped. The next chance to do that is on May 8th in North Carolina. Last month, Maggie Gallagher told Chris Hayes that marriage is on the ballot in that state. And, she wants another win. That can't happen. Our side can win -- if we have the resources. Maggie and Brian want to start a race war with their money. We want to achieve equality with ours. If you haven't contributed to the campaign defeat Amendment 1, do it now. Read the rest of this post...

Catholic church allegedly castrated boys for reporting priests abused them

Just when you thought you couldn't be more disgusted by a church that lost its moral authority a long time ago. But the news isn't all bad. The Pope has commissioned his own personal cologne.

He should call it "Rape." Read the rest of this post...

NY Cardinal says he’s child rape scandal "whipping boy," as church leaders attack victims

Yesterday, The New York Times had two articles about Catholic Bishops and the child rape scandal, which show the continued hypocrisy of the Catholic church. NY's Cardinal thinks people are being mean, while his fellow church leaders are trying to destroy the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

New York's Cardinal was in Albany, attempting to put the scandal into the past:

Cardinal Dolan criticized a legislative proposal that would, for a year, drop the statute of limitations for filing civil claims for sexual offenses, allowing for lawsuits by people who say they were abused long ago. The cardinal said he was concerned that a flood of lawsuits over abuse by priests could drain the church of money it is using for charitable purposes.

“I think we bishops have been very contrite in admitting that the church did not handle this well at all in the past,” he said. “But we bristle sometimes in that the church doesn’t get the credit, now being in the vanguard of reform. It does bother us that the church continues to be a whipping boy.”

Hmm. Maybe the church is still "a whipping boy" because the church is still trying to screw over victims -- as evidenced by the other article in the NYT:

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims, and a relentless adversary, for more than two decades. “If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, “it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”

As for the NY Cardinal Dolan claiming that the Catholic Church leaders have been "very contrite" about having enabled and protected child rapists for decades - not true.  An editorial in today's NYT takes church leaders to task for this latest assault on victims:

When the sex-abuse scandal erupted a decade ago, church leaders spoke of reconciliation with the victims. Now, in threatening to expose private files compiled by advocates for abuse survivors, they are giving victims new reason to retreat into fear and secrecy. For the church to target SNAP compounds the horror.

And let's not forget, just a fews weeks ago Dolan's predecessor, Cardinal Egan, recanted his 2002 apology for enabling child rapists. He now says the church leadership didn't do anything wrong.  That's their definition of "very contrite." Read the rest of this post...

Priest who denied communion to lesbian at mom’s funeral is suspended

Hmmm... This is all well and good - it's great, actually - but coming from the Catholic church, it's downright weird. This is not a church known for its love of fellow man. Yes, they responded appropriately. And no, they never respond appropriately in these sort of matters.

From MSNBC:

A priest who denied communion to a lesbian at her mother's funeral has been placed on leave, according to the Roman Catholic archdiocese.

A letter from an archdiocese official said that the Rev. Marcel Guarnizo was placed on leave for engaging in intimidating behavior, according to NBCWashington.com. The archdiocese had previously apologized for Guarnizo’s behavior.

The priest also refused to accompany the dead woman to the cemetery for her burial. So this was pretty bad. But it's hardly any worse than anything the Vatican, or US Cardinals, do on a daily basis to gays, or to pro-choicers. How is the Catholic churches annual attempt at influencing the US elections on behalf of the Republicans, when they ban John Kerry, for example, from taking communion, any less "intimidating"?  And it's not intimidation when the Catholic church cuts off services to foster children in Illinois and DC than simply treat gay people fairly?  Trying to influence legislation by abandoning needy kids isn't intimidation?  Talk to the kids the Catholic bishops used as their pawns.  And let's not even speak of the intimidation involved in aiding and abetting the rape of young children.

Yes, this is a great step in the right direction by the Catholic church. It's also totally hypocritical and completely out of step with the church's actions and pronouncements to date. Read the rest of this post...

Catholic church in UK freaks out over gay marriage

This is an institution that aids and abets the rape of children.  And whose own followers don't even agree with, and outright ignore, the church leaders on a host of "moral" issues.  So we care what the Catholic church has to say about morality, why exactly?

Guardian:

At the Designer Civil Partnership show at Shakespeare's erstwhile theatre, excited couples discussed the colour scheme of invitations, whether wedding "favours" were a necessary part of the big day – and the decision of the Catholic church to wage war against government plans for gay marriage.

"I think it's disgusting. We are not second-class citizens and the idea that this archaic institution should dictate how we live our lives is appalling," said Matt Turrell, 37, a photographer specialising in civil partnerships. "At the end of the day, the union of two people should be about love. Why should we be denied the right to express that publicly?"

On Sunday a letter from two senior Catholic archbishops was read in 2,500 parish churches during mass, arguing that a change to the law would reduce the significance of marriage. Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and Archbishop Peter Smith, the archbishop of Southwark, urged their flock to sign a petition against the move, telling them it was their "duty to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations".

I watched "Elizabeth" again the other night. It's amazing the degree to which so much of Catholic history becomes readily understandable when you see the moral decay, and hate, in the church leadership today. Read the rest of this post...