News from The Associated Press

The future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock an American priest who confessed to molesting numerous children and even served prison time for it, simply because the cleric wouldn't agree to the discipline. The case provides the latest evidence of how changes in church law under Pope John Paul II frustrated and hamstrung U.S. bishops struggling with an abuse crisis that would eventually explode.

News from The Associated Press:

The Pope is busily pretending to be concerned about communicating with atheists (Link). I can speak for exactly one atheist. Make amends to the people who you and your organisation harmed before you try to tell atheists how to live.

Italian priests' secret mistresses ask pope to scrap celibacy rule | World news | The Guardian

Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved".

It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men".

Italian priests' secret mistresses ask pope to scrap celibacy rule | World news | The Guardian

Another reasonable request for the Vatican to totally ignore.

Gay marriage insidious and dangerous: Pope

Pope Benedict XVI criticised gay marriage and abortion as "insidious and dangerous threats to the common good" in a speech at Fatima as Portugal prepares to legalise same-sex unions.

The pontiff received a standing ovation from an audience of church and lay social workers when he described abortion as a "tragedy" and said the family was based "on the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman".

Link:

The Pope is morally bankrupt. He is clinging to the ideas that caused the systematic abuse of thousands of children. He thinks that he needs to do more of what he did in the past and that will make it work.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

This is attributed to many. Who knows who coined it. It sums up the Pope's attitude. The Vatican insists that they have the right solutions for the world's woes despite the evidence:
. if you're gay, you have to be celibate
. celibate priest are a good idea
. gay marriage and abortion are bad for society
. child abusing priests can be prayed out of it
These nonsensical ideas have caused enough harm in the world. Why continue on with them?

Tim Minchin - Pope Song

Tim recently recorded his own tribute to Pope Benedict XVI in time for his state visit to the UK. Annimation by Fraser Davidson.

Lots of swearing. I don't care about swearing. If you're that easily offended you're on the wrong fv(#ing blog.

We Can't Let the Pope Decide Who's a Criminal

It must be noted, also, that all the letters from diocese to Ratzinger and from Ratzinger to diocese were concerned only with one question: Can this hurt Holy Mother Church?

Slate:

Hitchens on the guilt of the pope in enabling the sexual abuse of children.

Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain "for crimes against humanity".

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

Times article:

Dawkins makes are clarification:

Oooh. Thoooose priests.

Only God Can Fire Pope Benedict After Scandals

As outrage mounted over the latest Catholic Church sex scandal, writer Christopher Hitchens called for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI, and singer Sinead O'Connor said the pope should face a criminal investigation.

Link:

Come on Pope. Sinead O'Conner said walk. Out you go.

If only God can appoint or fire a Pope, and God is omniscient and omnipresent, then God must approve of child abuse.

The Pope Is Not Above the Law - Hitchens

One by one, as I predicted, the pathetic excuses of Joseph Ratzinger's apologists evaporate before our eyes. It was said until recently that when the Rev. Peter Hullermann was found to be a vicious pederast in 1980, the man who is now pope had no personal involvement in his subsequent transfer to his own diocese or in his later unimpeded career as a rapist and a molester. But now we find that the psychiatrist to whom the church turned for "therapy" was adamant that Hullermann never be allowed to go near children ever again. We also find that Ratzinger was one of those to whom the memo about Hullermann's transfer was actually addressed. All attempts to place the blame on a loyal subordinate, Ratzinger's vicar general, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber, have predictably failed. According to a recent report, "the transfer of Father Hullermann from Essen would not have been a routine matter, experts said." Either that-damning enough in itself-or it perhaps would have been a routine matter, which is even worse. Certainly the pattern-of finding another parish with fresh children for the priest to assault-is the one that has become horribly "routine" ever since and became standard practice when Ratzinger became a cardinal and was placed in charge of the church's global response to clerical pederasty.

Slate Article:

The Catholic church is running out of excuses on the child abuse front.

The Pope Ignored Child Rape. THE POPE

The New York Times reports that Cardinal Ratzinger (aka THE GUY WHO IS NOW THE POPE), as head of the organization that was supposed to investigate and defrock molester priests, personally ignored cries for help from Milwaukee in 1996 when Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy was engaging in a 200-child no-holds-barred rape-a-thon. Oh yeah and the kids were deaf.

Skepchick link: