2012
Got a Catholic Block/Guess I’m Outta Luck
“I’m sorry but I find the protectors of child rapists preaching to women about contraception to be a moral obscenity. When all the implicated bishops and the Pope resign, ther replacements will have standing to preach.”
2011
Fire Paterno, Fire the Pope
I regard the current actual Pope as an accessory to child-rape, as I do Paterno. But their paternal authority within religious institutions allowed them to carry on
I’m glad that at least two of the people I respect have made this connection. Seemed kind of obvious to me.
2011
Deep Thoughts
You know I couldn’t just walk past this and not take a picture. What does it mean? Mass has been canceled? Church in foreclosure? A comment on the debt deal, from the Democrats point of view? Or maybe…religion isn’t working anymore?
2010
Sunday Morning Mass
The Booze Cabinet No Bullshit Service, Easy-In, Easy-Out:
The bishop is wrong:
“The state doesn’t serve a church or a religious doctrine. It serves its citizens who deserve equal justice under the law.”
Sarah Palin is wrong:
“To demand that citizens display their religious beliefs attacks the very foundation of our nation and undermines the precise reason that America is exceptional.”
I don’t even need to link to John McCain being so very wrong.
(By the way, did you know that Bill Kristol is always wrong, wrong, wrong? Of course you did.)
And Christopher Hitchens is right on:
“Is it good for the world to consider women as an inferior form, as all religions do?
Roger Ebert, sermon please.
Everyone, drink. Aaaaaaaand…Go in peace, The End.
2010
Exodus
Interesting article on the huge exodus from the Catholic Church in the NY Times. The stuff about the pope and the condoms made me giggle, but this is more substantial, and revealing, when you realize that:
The bishops opposed the final version of the healthcare bill, convinced it allowed federal financing of abortion. The bishops ought to be “great cheerleaders” for the expansion of health care coverage, says Archbishop Dolan in the article, and he is correct, but…they are not. Yet, the bishops will not stop speaking out (archaically) on political issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration.
Who is it that listens to these people anyway?
Well, the article also tells us that “one-third of Americans born and baptized Catholic have left the church, only half of young Catholics marry in the church and weekly Mass attendance has dropped to about 35 percent of Catholics from a peak of 78 percent in the 1960s.”
So, I guess there you have it.
2010
What I Came Away With
When I woke up Sunday morn and happened upon local Fox News’ airing of the Fox News Sunday program (tv was left on that channel from the Bears game the night before?) I saw a portion of the interview with Glenn Beck. Poor Mike Wallace’s son Chris was interviewing him, and I say “poor Mike Wallace” because look at what he hath spawned…but anyway, Mike’s son asked questions and Beck gave answers that spun around into little balls of nonsensical twine and then shot out again, like when he asked him whether he was losing his eyesight:
Beck goes into some long, incomprehensible word goulash recitation where he says, he realized “I’m not seeing something because I have eyes.” Essentially, at some point a doctor told him he might at some point go blind, and he laughed and said, “My mom told me that when I ran with a stick.”
Um, no, Glenn. Your mom said that if you masturbated too much you would go blind. Get it right. But really, the only thing that really struck me from the “interview” was when Beck said he was one of those guys who boozed it up heavy way back when and then at some point he stopped and replaced that addicts’ thirst the way that so many do, with some kind of extreme religious conversion. Just like our favorite ex-president, perhaps?
It used to be “never trust anyone over 30,” until that stopped being useful, so now my new motto is “never trust an ex-boozehound who filled that void with excessive Jesus.” Seriously!
2010
NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Look, I don’t like churches any more than the next guy, but that doesn’t mean I’m against anyone building them, even when I know the b.s that’s going on inside of them. I just choose not to go in them. It’s real easy. This whole mosque-that-is-not-even-that-close-to-Ground Zero-business is ridiculous. Only really really stupid people could get worked up about–what? Huh?
“There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.”
Newt Gingrich. Ah. Yeah, that guy. Whadda dick. What’s with these right-wing nuts thinking they know what New Yorkers want? Ground Zero is not Republican-owned territory, despite what George Bush tried to do with the megaphone act. It’s a place where people from all different countries, backgrounds, religions and beliefs died. End of story.
I like what Joe Klein wrote about Newt yesterday:
Newt Gingrich is clearly running for President. How do I know? He gets dumb and angry when running for office.
Possibly. Or maybe he’s always that way and we’re just not paying attention to him all the time. It’s a good idea, though, to ignore goofs like him. Build the damn mosque, who gives a shit? Jesus Christ!
Map via Matt Yglesias’ blog.
2010
Hooray for Us and Our Peace-Lovin’ Religions
Bill Maher does it again. It’s true, what he says. The pope has never threatened my ass for all the shit I give him. All of those silly religions I have ridiculed–”cults” if you will–I haven’t heard a peep from them. Maybe I need a bigger forum? Have they heard what I’ve said? Well, whatever, I approve of Maher’s message.
2010
Fight the Real Enemy
As Ireland withstands Rome’s offensive apology while an Irish bishop resigns, I ask Americans to understand why an Irish Catholic woman who survived child abuse would want to rip up the pope’s picture.
I have long wanted Sinead O’Connor to say something more about all that, and maybe she has and I missed it. But this op-ed in the Washington Post answers a lot. At the time, when she ripped up the picture of the pope on SNL, I thought: “awesome.” But not really sure why, just a powerful sign of rebellion. As is usually the case, the more you know… My distaste for Catholicism just grows with knowledge, and so these new revelations are for me no more than another nail in the coffin–what else can there be now? How many nails to seal it?
But it’s not just Catholicism, it’s religion, the man-made concept. So flawed, so very very flawed. And it seems as if the worst men for the job hold the highest positions (ha, women in religion? subservient at best!). Follow the money, follow the power, and you will find them. I watch all of this with interest, but surprisingly little emotion. You’d like to see some justice but then, I don’t really expect it to happen. I don’t really think most people care that much. And I don’t know many people who are/were religious anyway.
To Irish Catholics, Benedict’s implication — Irish sexual abuse is an Irish problem — is both arrogant and blasphemous. The Vatican is acting as though it doesn’t believe in a God who watches. The very people who say they are the keepers of the Holy Spirit are stamping all over everything the Holy Spirit truly is.
Here’s the Hitchens-Maher version (UPDATE: embedding working.) I like this version very much.
2010
Pope in the Pizza
How do I really feel about the Catholic scandal in which “church leaders chose to protect the church instead of the children” (and when they say “church leaders” I think we all know who they’re talking about)?
Oh, you don’t want to know.
2010
Exorcise This
At home drinking a glass of red on St. Patty’s Day, watching the Blackhawks late on the west coast and reading about the pope. What else is there? Christopher Hitchens really kicks it in this one (title: “The Great Catholic Cover-Up”; sub-header: “The pope’s entire career has a stench of evil about it”). So you can see where this one’s going.
To put in context:
Ratzinger himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil—a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel. What is needed is not medieval incantation but the application of justice—and speedily at that.
The comments are as entertaining as the article, both the supporters and the dissenters.
2010
Dickishness in the New Year
“The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith,” Hume said. “He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”
What a glorious start to the new year! Brit Hume of Fox News, offering his unique brand of unsolicited dickish ignorance and advice. I offer wonder whether these folks are for real but this guy, with his grim humorless monotone–he’s a true believer. A true, dickish, arrogant believer. Happy New Year, everybody!
2009
Secular Musings
I guess I’m just confused.
It is difficult to over-estimate the degree to which last night’s vote in the House, passing a comprehensive health care reform bill, was a huge victory for the Catholic Church … The belief that heath care is a right, not a privilege, took a giant step towards legislative enactment last night.
Pro-lifers think health care is a right, not a privilege? But the Catholic Church is for universal healthcare? Or what? You know what, I don’t even wanna know.
2009
Gay Marriaging the Shit Out of Maine
That’s not gonna happen, at least for now. In Maine they voted to repeal the law allowing same-sex marriage, and naturally the religious forces played a big role in this. Why? Because contrary to everything it stands for, religion serves to divide instead of unify.
The Catholic Church was a leading supporter of the repeal campaign, even asking parishes to pass a second collection plate at Sunday Mass to help the cause.
It is times like these that I am extra-super-especially glad I didn’t allow the Catholic Church to be involved in my own marriage (normally I’m just extra-glad). An institution such as that has no business presiding over a unification ceremony–what can it possibly know of such a thing? What insight can it provide?
The Catholic Church, along with less powerful cult organizations, serves as a barrier for love, a dividing line for reason, and a blindfold for its own crimes against humanity. It is an ancient, irrelevant male-dominated clubhouse that ignores its own gayness–overcompensates for its own gayness–by actively campaigning against civil rights. A religion that considers some more equal than others.
And yet, I am going way too easy on them.
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