The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
Not content to make the lives of people on this planet miserable, the Vatican has a newfound interest in extraterrestrial life. According to a story in today's AP News in Brief:
"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
So the residents of other planets can now look forward to having all the joy and pleasure drained out of their lives, too. And heaven help them (you should pardon the expression) if any of them are gay or, like a number of earthbound life forms, can change their gender during the course of their lives.
I'd end this with an appropriate wisecrack, but too many come to mind, and they're all too easy. Blenders?
Let's see...is Papa Ratzi and Co.'s strategy to say flaming BS like this over and over to convince themselves this lie is true? No it's not because their child-raping priests are gay, it's because they are deviant and sick men who haven't dealt in any kind of healthy way with themselves as sexual beings. And many of the molestation cases involved young girls.And the church knew that praying away the deviance didn't work and continued to ship these criminals around. Pay special attention to Tomasi's "look over there at other scandals" BS.
The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican's representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is "more correct," said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.
"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17," said Tomasi. His statement is backed up by a report commissioned by the US bishops that found that in the overwhelming majority of cases the clergy involved were homosexuals, with 81 percent of victims being adolescent males.
Tomasi also responded to criticisms, saying that while the Catholic Church has been "busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it." According to information from various sources, the problem of sexual abuse of minors in religious organizations is widespread among Protestant churches and Jewish communities.
And this whinefest is falling on deaf ears, since the UN Human Rights Council published a damning statement by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) that makes no bones about it -- the Vatican was responsible for the raping, molestation, child porn and other ghastly offenses by priests -- and the coverup. It charges that the Catholic Church has failed to honor obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child."
The Holy See has been heavily implicated for decades in covering up cases of child abuse carried our by its clergy and religious orders, in obstructing justice, and in failing to deal appropriately with abusers," said Roy Brown, IHEU Main Representative at the UN Geneva.
"Yet for too long it has been given a free ride by the international community because of its presumed moral leadership. Our report is the first to bring the issue to the attention of the Council. We shall be referring to our report in the plenary of the Human Rights Council next week."
Yep, presumed moral leadership. Instead it was an amoral criminal enterprise that damaged how many families of faith who trusted them?
The Catholic Church's damage control over its lack of attention to the repeated crimes against children by its raping, pedophile priests has been to settle the cases with huge payoffs to those who come forward, as if cash could buy off the pain and suffering to the families involved.
For David Guerrero, Dominic Zamora and many others, the psychological toll of the heinous clergy abuse plays itself out over and over as an adult, regardless of the buyout. (AP via MSNBC):
Dominic Zamora rages at his father, who suspects he bought a house in someone else's name. You're not my father, Dominic screams. You just want my money. When the 36-year-old finally calls his parents three weeks later, he is drunk and angry at the world - and most especially, at them.
This was not the future the Guerreros and the Zamoras imagined when their sons received millions from the Roman Catholic church to settle claims they were molested by their childhood priests. But that was before the money ushered in a new and never-ending nightmare.
The money was meant to soothe the victims' wounds and be a bridge to a better life, and for many it did. But for a few, the most deeply scarred, the six- and seven-figure checks have instead made things far worse.
For these victims, the money has seeped like a poison into every relationship and laid bare feelings of anger, mistrust, bitterness and guilt that have been buried deep in their families for years. It has fed drug habits and alcohol binges, divided siblings and fueled resentment in parents who walked through hell with their children, only to find rejection and blame on the other side.
After molesting and doing who knows what to as many as 30 boys from the suburbs of Chicago, Fred Lenczycki, 65, a Roman Catholic priest, has earned the dubious title of being the first of Papa Ratzi's criminal pedophile syndicate members to be declared "sexually violent." What are the chances that he's been "rehabilitated"? Um...I'll put a bet down on...zero. (Chicago Trib):
State officials said that he will be living in Cook County, not with a family member, and that the people in charge of his future treatment will register him at a local police station today as a child sex offender.
The exact details of his treatment plan and his residence were not released this morning. DuPage Judge Bonnie Wheaton impounded the case file last year to protect the identity of the abuse victims. "There will be a lot of people watching you," Wheaton told Lenczycki this morning. "This case engendered a lot of media attention and you will be closely monitored.
"You have a heavy responsibility," she continued. "The people in (the state treatment facility in) Rushville are counting on you to show how you act. You owe it to the people who were young, the victims, you owe them the responsibility. Don't disappoint them.
"The court is going out on a limb. I decided this case not as a criminal case, but as a mental health case."
So you mean to tell me that Judge Wheaton thinks that a man declared sexually violent with a pedophile problem is going to receive mental health treatment that will "cure" him? First of all he was only sentenced to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual abuse of three boys in the 80s. So he got a slap on the wrist as far as I'm concerned.
What do you think about these terms of release for Lenczycki?
He'll have a GPS ankle monitor on him.
He'll register as a sex offender.
He'll have to tell officials where he does go.
The judge will receive a report on his progress in 6 months.
Give me a flippin' break. In a sanctimonious and erroneous speech of epic proportions, "On Development That Respects the Environment," the Prada Papa Ratzi takes a brief break from his incessant homo-bashing to give a swift kick of blame to atheists for sending the world into hell in an environmental handbasket.
The earth is a precious gift of the Creator, who has designed its intrinsic order, thus giving us guidelines to which we must hold ourselves as stewards of his creation. From this awareness, the Church considers questions linked to the environment and its safeguarding as profoundly linked with the topic of integral human development. I referred to these questions several times in my last encyclical "Caritas in Veritate," reminding of the pressing moral need for renewed solidarity" (49) not only in relations between countries, but also between individuals, as the natural environment is given by God to everyone, and its use entails a personal responsibility towards the whole of humanity, in particular, towards the poor and future generations.
..."Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where his existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the 'final authority,' and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible."
Wow. Does this man sit around all day, with his assistants at his beck and call, thinking up ways to shuttle blame for the state of the world on every group and institution except his own domain of child-raping, faithful-family ruining priests and cover-up cardinals? It's mind-blowing that he can so effortlessly bleat out these statements when his own house isn't in any kind of moral order. Paul Fidalgo@Examiner.com:
According to Joey Ratz here, atheism is a cause of environmental rape. It's the usual false equation usually made about atheists and morality--if there's no God telling you how to behave, how do you know not to kill? Or in this case, how do you know not to selfishly ravage our earthly habitat? But here, he even goes a step further, and implicates people who simply don't have God as a central part of their lives, "where God is marginalized," not always at the forefront of thought. That's rough.
The heavy dose of anti-atheist bigotry in this message is not only on the surface, blaming atheists for the plunder of the planet. Worse yet, those heads of corporations and governments who couldn't give two Hail Marys about our current habitat or what our children will inherit are primarily religious believers. In America, mostly Christian. And by "mostly," I mean "for all intents and purposes all of them." These folks are not denying God's existence--in many instances God is used as a justification for insane waste, exploitation, and brain-dead policy.
A response from Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society:
"This is rich coming from the leader of an organisation that has plundered the world to enrich itself. As he sits in his golden palaces, surrounded by unimaginable luxury and material wealth, he lectures the rest of us about restraint and greed. We have nothing to learn about environmentalism from this hypocrite."
Raymond Arroyo, "news" anchor of the Catholic cable channel EWTN, has been touting this incessantly for the last few days. So never mind lumps of coal for your enemies. You know what to put in their Christmas stockings this year.
"Geffen Records, whose roster of stars has included Guns n' Roses, Elton John, Donna Summer, and Snoop Dogg," said Mark Brown in the London Guardian, has just "signed a new artist—Pope Benedict XVI." The album, Alma Mater, will feature "his holiness" singing a Marian prayer and speaking Lauretan Litanies in various languages, accompanied by eight original pieces of modern classical music, and it's scheduled to be "released in time for the Christmas rush."
The Pope could easily be "a contender" for the No. 1 Christmas album, said Ben Hoyle in the London Times Online. "He is a debut artist with an established global following," and if his album "connects to even a small percentage of the world's billion Catholics it should blow the likes of Jay-Z, Robbie Williams, and Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent out of the water in the race for end of year sales."
If you can't do, teach. And if you can't sing, make a Christmas album. The latter adage has been proven again by the announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will join Regis Philbin, Colonel Sanders, and The Brady Bunch in releasing his own Yuletide recording. In announcing the disc, an executive at Geffen Records, which will release the record Nov. 30th, said, "''The Pope has got almost a lullaby tone to the way he sings.'' Even when you're talking about an 84-year-old theologian, that's pretty faint praise.
In the last four decades since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, many American nuns stopped wearing religious habits, left convents to live independently and went into new lines of work: academia and other professions, social and political advocacy and grass-roots organizations that serve the poor or promote spirituality. A few nuns have also been active in organizations that advocate changes in the church like ordaining women and married men as priests.
Some sisters surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.
And one inquiry seems to go out of its way say the nuns are simply not homophobic enough.
The second investigation of nuns is a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization that claims 1,500 members from about 95 percent of women's religious orders. This investigation was ordered by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is headed by an American, Cardinal William Levada.
Cardinal Levada sent a letter to the Leadership Conference saying an investigation was warranted because it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to "promote" the church's teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.
The letter goes on to say that, "Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses" at assemblies the Leadership Conference has held in recent years, the problem has not been fixed.
Former Roman Catholic priest Desmond Laurence Gannon is finally going to do some hard time after largely getting away for serial sexual abuse of children. (Jonathan Turley):
Gannon, 79, was previously convicted of such abuse in 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2003 but remarkably has served only one year in jail. The latest charge stems from 1968.
What is interesting is that he is claiming that he really did not know it was abusive to have such sexual contact with children at the time: "I thought it was less formal rather than inviting him into the presbytery, and that's all ... I won't say sexual abuse because at the time I didn't know what it was."
Turley notes that this pathetic, sick defense has been tried before - by former Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland.
Weakland insists that he and other priests did not know it was a crime to have sex with children and thought they would not remember or they would "grow out of it."
In his book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church," Weakland writes: "We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature." That's right. Despite the daily stories of child abuse arrests and basic common sense, Weakland did not understand that raping choirboys was not actually a crime.
And the church wonders why its numbers are shrinking? Deacon Keith Fournier's screed @ Catholic Online, "Should Disordered Appetites be Civil Rights?", only reinforces the belief that the moral and logical center is missing from the domain of pedophile-enabling Prada Papa Ratzi's domain. He pulls out all the old saws, quoting the Pope's nonsense, using the "parts don't fit" argument...then pulls out a comparison of equal rights committed same-sex relationships to affirming eating disorders.
The Catholic Church will not change its position on the nature of marriage because it cannot. Truth is not up for grabs.
Among the clearest summaries of the teaching of our Church on this matter was set forth by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XI) in the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" promulgated in 1986. Here are just a few of the clearly stated insights: "The Church, obedient to the Lord who founded her and gave to her the sacramental life, celebrates the divine plan of the loving and live-giving union of men and women in the sacrament of marriage. It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally."
"To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent".
...Some maintain that same sex attraction is a genetic predisposition. This is disputed. Even if it were the case, that does not give homosexual activity any more of a claim to being given a special civil rights status. Should we really give disordered appetites civil rights status under the law? Let's consider an absurd example. I have struggled most of my life with fighting obesity. I am on the "winning end" lately, but just give me another Holiday! A very good argument can be made that obesity also has a genetic predisposition. However, I will fight it my whole life because it is unhealthy. It is a disordered appetite. Should we as a Nation decide that fat people have a civil right to be fat? Should those who insist that they resist that "genetic predisposition" to overeat be called Fata-phobic?
Disordered appetites - and the actions engaged in by those who give into them - simply should not be called civil rights. Certainly, those who succumb to them should be treated with the human dignity that they deserve and not be discriminated against. However, that is because they are human not because of their behavior! Homosexual sexual acts are simply homosexual sexual acts. Our bodies do not lie, they speak the language written within their constitution and confirmed in the Natural Law which binds us all.
Now since I belong to these two groups he brings up -- fat and gay -- I ask this question, does being overweight/obese mean you have fewer civil rights than a thin person? We're not talking about actuarial tables, pre-existing conditions or cost of health care here -- those are certainly debatable topics (and policies are being affected by the debate). We're talking about a man who is actually saying that being gay (or overweight) itself is grounds to be considered "less than." I doubt he's the only one who believes this, and it's a pathological cultural problem on both calls.
Pope Benedict XVI triggered yet another scandal when he criticized the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS in Africa. Now the protests are taking an unusual form: The pontiff is about to receive a deluge of condoms by post -- gifts from international members of a Facebook group.
...Now that anger is being expressed in an unusual way: An Italian group on the social networking Web site Facebook is urging people to post condoms to the pope in protest over his remarks. It expects 60,000 subscribers will send a condom to the Vatican on Friday.
...Similar social networking groups supporting the condom campaign have sprung up elsewhere on Facebook, triggering pledges of participation from across Europe and beyond. Some estimate that deliveries to the pontiff may total 5 million. One Web site calls on people to either send a real condom addressed to "His Holiness" at the Vatican or a photograph of the contraceptive to his email address.
Send a condom to the Pope asking him to distribute them to folks in developing countries. Send a photo of a condom to his email at: benedictxvi@vatican.va send a real one to his address at: His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Apostolic Palace
00120 Via del Pellegrino
Citta del Vaticano
As Lev pointed out last night, it looks like some anonymous Vatican insiders have had enough of the Prada Papa Ratzi's gaffes, bigotry, ignorance, and complete disconnect from reality. Check out the headline. Some pithy quotes:
"The Pope is isolated and fails to adequately consult his advisers."
"He's out of touch with the real world. On the condom issue, for example, there are priests and bishops in Africa who accept that condoms are a key part of the fight against Aids, and yet the pope adheres to this very conservative line that they encourage promiscuity. The Vatican is far removed from the reality on the ground."
-- Vatican source with 20 years' knowledge of the Holy See.
***
"He's got too many jobs. There's talk that he is going to go. You have people around the pope who seem to be out of their depth. There needs to be a major re-think of the operation, not the structure necessarily but the people."
-- on the pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi
***
"Until recently the Vatican was secretive and their way of controlling the message of the Church was to release information slowly and highly selectively through carefully worded documents. The problem now is that the internet and the blogosphere won't wait for the Vatican, so its message gets swamped."
-- Francis X Rocca, Vatican correspondent for Religion News Service.
"I think there's a good story to be told about this pope but it just doesn't get out because of the colossal ineptitude of the Vatican in terms of communications.
-- John Allen, a veteran Vatican analyst with National Catholic Reporter
Ineptitude isn't the half of it. Benedict and his boyz can't even keep their stories straight, and the inability to see how ridiculous it looks when, according to the article, the Vatican press office shuts down at 3PM each day and knowledge of the Internet "appears barely to have penetrated the Vatican's cloistered confines."
Now I know there are Internet-savvy priests out there -- there obviously aren't any near this Pope. It's also pointed out, a simple search using "The Google" would have pulled up all they needed to know about Holocaust-denier British bishop Richard Williamson, though I'm not convinced it would have stopped the Prada Pope from his decision to lift the excommunication.
I imagine a bunch of doddering old men pacing the room, incapable of understanding how they've lost control of the "messaging" going out to reality-based people.
For some unknown reason The Vatican was shocked by the public outrage over Prada Papa Ratzi's statement regarding condoms while he was in Africa (my post here). During a press conference with reporters on a plane to Cameroon he said the..
"tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems."
The Vatican website published an edited text of the Pope's comments the day after a question-and-answer sesion on his flight to Cameroon. It was a question from a French reporter that elicited an unqualified response about condoms.
By introducing the word "risks" the Vatican softened the message. The website at first also altered the Italian word the Pope used for condoms, from "preservativi" to "profilattici".
That didn't wash with the press, since Benedict speaks fluent Italian, and all press conferences are held in Italian.
Of course this has been the party line for the Pope, but as a human being, traveling in African countries where the epidemic has created generations of children without any parents, how can he continue to cling to this view? It's evil that goes along with enabling pedophile priests to run loose molesting and destroying the lives of children.
Benedict arrived in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital, on Tuesday afternoon, greeted by a crowd of flag-waving faithful and snapping cameras. The visit is his first pilgrimage as pontiff to Africa.
In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence - not condoms - was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.
Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of the battle against AIDS.
Wow. Just wow; that statement is breathtaking.
"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."
...About 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS. In 2007, three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide were there, as well as two-thirds of all people living with HIV. Even some priests and nuns working with those living with HIV/AIDS question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa. Ordinary Africans do as well
What?! How does it INCREASE the spread of HIV/AIDS over unprotected sex? There is nothing wrong with advocating monogamy or abstinence, but since JPII worked that solution back in the day, the situation has only gotten worse, so repeating a failed message and saying "too bad otherwise" isn't living in the real world.
This isn't going to help us in Africa at all. Thanks man, your visit has been great. But you've been in Africa long enough. Time to go home. Saying the condoms are not the answer HIV AIDS is not responsible. Condoms might not be the only solution, but they certainly could help prevent infection. Please we don't need any unhelpful advice.
Pope Benedict XVI's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, said that sexual abstinence and not condoms was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease. Yeah, that's what Sarah Palin said about pregnancy, and look what happened to her daughter, Bristol Palin! If he were serious about this, as Rebecca Hodes of the TAC says, he'd focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how best to use them.
And the rapist, no prob. This, friends, is yet another reason many Catholics have had it with the reign of Prada Papa Ratzi. When it's not a 24/7 homo hate blast coming out of the Vatican, or another story about enabling pedophile priests on the loose, it's about underscoring the second-class citizenship of women. In this case rape of a child by her stepfather is forgiveable, but abortion for medical necessity is not.
A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church's Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live. "It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," he said.
Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified." The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin foetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, pronounced excommunication for the mother for authorising the operation and doctors who carried it out for fear that the slim girl would not survive carrying the foetuses to term. "God's law is above any human law. So when a human law ... is contrary to God's law, this human law has no value," Cardoso had said.
He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the church. Although the man allegedly committed "a heinous crime ... the abortion - the elimination of an innocent life - was more serious".
The country has given Bishop Richard Williamson 10 days to haul his ass out.
An English bishop who denies the holocaust has been ordered to leave Argentina.
Bishop Richard Williamson has been give ten days to leave the country or face expulsion after global controversy over his views and the Vatican's attitudes towards them.
The Argentine Interior Ministry said Bishop Williamson's statements on the Holocaust "profoundly insult Argentine society, the Jewish community and all of humanity by denying an historic truth".
...Guillermo Oliveri, the government's secretary for religious affairs, said: "I absolutely agree with the expulsion of a man residing in our country following his statements [denying] one of the greatest human tragedies."
...Tonight the Vatican said it had no comment on the Argentine decision. Bishop Williamson is thought to still be in Argentina and it is unclear where he might go.
A pastor who created a controversy by suggesting that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because of the city's sins said Sunday he will ask the pope to rescind his promotion.
Pope Benedict XVI's recent appointment of the conservative Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, to auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria's third largest city, sparked an outcry among Catholics who warned it could prompt people to leave the church.
Wagner, among other things, also had characterized Harry Potter novels as "Satanism."
"Regarding the fierce criticism, I am in prayer and, after consulting the diocesan bishop, I have decided to ask the Holy Father in Rome to take back my promotion as auxiliary bishop," Wagner said in a statement released by Linz Diocesan Bishop Ludwig Schwarz.
BTW, has Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson has "found time" to research and recant for Benedict?
Looks like the circle of supporters of Bishop Richard Williamson will soon shrink to the neo-Nazis and extremists -- and Pope Benedict. (CNN):
The views of Bishop Richard Williamson, who has led the seminary in La Reja since 2003, do not reflect those of The Society of St. Pius X, said Christian Bouchacourt, head of its Latin American chapter.
"It's obvious that a Catholic bishop cannot talk with the ecclesiastical authority, but to things related to faith and morality," Bouchacourt said in a written statement.
Williamson, shortly before the pope lifted his excommunication, denied the Nazis had systematically murdered 6 million Jews during World War II.
In his blog Saturday, Williamson, referring to himself, posted a note, saying, "His Excellency is neither dead, dying, nor retired."
And German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn't buying the flaming pile of excuse crap being shoveled out of the Vatican. She picked up the phone and called Papa Ratzi directly, knowing she'd get nowhere.
Earlier Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned Pope Benedict about the issue, though neither side seemed to have shifted its position over Williamson.
"It was a very constructive conversation," the German government and the Vatican said in a joint statement about the call. Merkel and the pope expressed respect for each other's opinion, the release said -- diplomatic-speak for saying neither side budged.
These games are tiring. As Papa Ratzi tries to undo the heinous international PR disaster resulting from the lifting of the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson by requesting that Williamson reject his Holocaust denial fantasy, the bishop thumbs his nose at Benedict.
Richard Williamson is one of four bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X whose excommunication was lifted by the Vatican last month. The decision sparked outrage because Williamson had said in a television interview he did not believe any Jews were gassed during the Holocaust.
On Wednesday, the Vatican demanded that Williamson recant his denial before he can be admitted as a bishop into the Roman Catholic Church.
Williamson made clear he does not plan to comply immediately, and rejected a suggestion that he might visit the Auschwitz death camp, the weekly Der Spiegel reported.
...The magazine suggested that he could make a personal visit to Auschwitz, set up by the Nazis in occupied Poland, which stands as the most powerful symbol of the Holocaust. More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, died there.
Williamson replied: "I will not go to Auschwitz," Der Spiegel said.
If you surf over to Der Spiegel, the publication reveals other incredible bigotry bleating from his boyz that won't help the Prada-loving former Hitler Youth Pope win friends or soothe the already-angry people around the globe.
Take Father Franz Schmidberger, a member of SSPX [Society of Saint Pius X] headquarters in Germany. He went on German radio on Thursday to censure German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her critical comments about the pope's handling of the scandal and about the need to clearly condemn Holocaust denial. "She doesn't understand, after all, she's not Catholic," he said. Then he turned his attention to the Prophet Muhammad. He had "sexual contact with an eight or nine year old girl," Schmidberger said according to a statement released in advance of the interview's broadcast. "In today's terminology, we would certainly call that child molestation. But I don't want to belabor the point, I haven't specifically studied the issue."
His position on the Prophet's biography is one that is highly controversial -- and one that certainly isn't new. One year ago, a right-wing populist politician in Austria got in trouble for giving voice to the same viewpoint. And it certainly isn't the kind of stance that will further dialogue among religions. That, though, is clearly not a concern of Schmidberger's. Indeed, he also made his feelings about Judaism clear. "Christ explicitly sent his apostles into the world to convert all peoples, including the Jews, to him," he says.
Schmidberger also said that Holocaust deniers are welcome in the Catholic fold and that the removal of the excommunication was "absolutely necessary" because "faith has become extremely diluted and we are living in a neo-heathenish society." How about that? And more:
On Saturday Rome announced that Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner would be auxiliary bishop in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, a decision that has angered many within the Austrian church and beyond. The priest has a knack for inappropriate comments, writing back in 2005 in a parish newsletter that Hurricane Katrina was an act of "divine retribution" for New Orleans' permissive ways. "This was not the sinking of any city but that of a people's dream city with the 'best brothels and prettiest prostitutes,'" he wrote.
The same man warned children in 2001 against reading J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books because the tales of a boy wizard were "spreading Satanism." Then in 2004 Wagner said that it was no coincidence that the Tsunami disaster had occurred at Christmas, inferring that it was punishment for "rich Western tourists" who had fled to "poor Thailand."
As you can imagine, all this BS isn't going over well. The blistering, lengthy "A German Pope Disgraces the Catholic Church" also illuminates the many blunders and affronts to other religions under Benedict.
Many others in the religious community began to vent their anger on the Internet early last week. The religious forums on Web sites like "myKath.de" have been inundated with comments. "As of last Saturday, who even takes excommunication seriously anymore?" asks one contributor to the forum. Another outraged Catholic writes: "Williamson is committing a crime in Germany (denial of the Holocaust), while his flock looks the other way and the pope rewards him by making him a bishop in the Catholic Church. What happens if Williamson sets off a bomb in a synagogue? Will the pope appoint him as a cardinal then?"
...Benedict decided to issue the decree lifting the excommunications without consulting with the relevant offices of the Curia. Vatican sources say that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was not consulted. "It was the pope's decision," German Cardinal Walter Kasper, the chairman of the council, explained. Kasper, a former companion of the pope now somewhat saddened by his friend, has since submitted his letter of resignation.
And the obvious:
The pope, says one member of the Curia, has surrounded himself with a team of yes-men, devoid of any critical voices. The team even shields the 81-year-old pontiff from unfavorable reports in the media. "As a rule," says the official, "he is only presented with excerpts from the international press. And in many cases, his staff members say: No, no, we cannot show him that article."
The latest attempt to bring the Catholic Church into the modern age (after admitting the earth revolves around the sun) is the big debut of Pope Benedict on YouTube -- his own online Vatican propaganda channel to reach out to the peeps. However, the ultimate reason for this is image control -- and the Vatican admits it.
Pope Benedict XVI joined U.S. President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II on Friday by launching his own YouTube channel, the latest Vatican effort to reach out to the digital generation.
...Benedict also warned that virtual socializing had its risks, saying "obsessive" online networking could isolate people from real social interaction and broaden the digital divide by further marginalizing people.
And in his message for the World Day of Communications, he urged producers of new media to ensure that the content respected human dignity and the "goodness and intimacy of human sexuality."
...Celli said the Vatican was launching the channel in part to have some control over the pontiff's image, which he said already was being used on sites respectful of the papacy and not.
"It's undeniable that certain images are already circulating," Celli said. While there is little the Vatican can do legally to shut down blasphemous or pornographic sites that use the papal or other Church images, he said it can at least control the content of what it puts up on its own channel.
Watch the thrilling introduction (embedding was disabled -- so much for making the Papal activities go viral). I put together a couple of screen shots.
Oh this is rich. The deluge of MSM and blogosphere coverage of Pope Benedict's ludicrous recent statements comparing the saving of the rainforest to saving humanity from homosexuality and "transsexual behavior" clearly has the old man shaken and his PR machine in high gear. He's trotted out one of his boyz, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales to try to clean up the mess.
During an interview on this morning on Radio 4's Today programme, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said that the pope "wasn't condeming anyone or any person" with his comments.
The cardinal went on to say that the pope was only trying to emphasise the importance of the family, and the responsibility on humans to procreate.
OMFG. I'm dying laughing even as I read this. OK. Here's more...
He also said that Pope Benedict's comments were "quite difficult to interpret" and as a result of this that he had been "very much" misrepresented in the media.
The Pope said behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations is "a destruction of God's work."
He also said man must be protected "from the destruction of himself" and urged respect for the "nature of the human being as man and woman."
"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."
Do you see anything to misinterpret there? Nobody's buying it.
The UK based gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust has described the Pope's statement as clear evidence of paranoia.
"This must be the most ourtrageous and bizarre claim yet made by the Pope who has already got a well-deserved reputation as one the most viciously homophobic world leaders on a par with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe," said PTT secretary and trustee George Broadhead.
Not content to make the lives of people on this planet miserable, the Vatican has a newfound interest in extraterrestrial life. According to a story in today's AP News in Brief:
The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican's representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is "more correct," said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.
Tomasi also responded to criticisms, saying that while the Catholic Church has been "busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it." According to information from various sources, the problem of sexual abuse of minors in religious organizations is widespread among Protestant churches and Jewish communities. 
What are the chances that he's been "rehabilitated"? Um...I'll put a bet down on...zero. (
Wow. Does this man sit around all day, with his assistants at his beck and call, thinking up ways to shuttle blame for the state of the world on every group and institution except his own domain of child-raping, faithful-family ruining priests and cover-up cardinals? It's mind-blowing that he can so effortlessly bleat out these statements when his own house isn't in any kind of moral order. 
As 
