The Pope May Not Want Donohue's Defenses

Posted by Clif, Sadly, No! at 4:59 AM on April 16, 2008.

Well, the pope and his little pope-mobile are coming here to DC and, good gay abortionists that we are, we would be doing our reputation a disservice if we didn’t post something about the pope in honor of the historic visit. And, thankfully, Billy Donohue, the head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights for Straight White Geriatric Male Catholics and Blastocysts, has been happy to oblige us with some material. Bill Maher said some naughty things about the pope and Donohue hasn’t gotten so worked about anything since some sculptor did an anatomically correct Jesus with dark, rather than white, chocolate. And the best thing about a Billy tantrum is that he totally unmoors himself from truth and reality, says pretty much whatever pops into his medieval brain, declares that the truth and then accuses the other side of lying.

So, of course, Bill Donohue titles his reply piece “Maher Lies About the Pope.” Let’s see who’s lying, shall we?

Maher’s obsession with the Catholic Church continues, only this time there isn’t enough material for him to use as a club, so he literally makes things up. His lies include the following statement: ‘When the—when the current pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul’s Dick Cheney—he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the statute of limitations ran out.’

A similar lie was floated by an angry ex-Catholic bigot, Rosie O’Donnell.

Boy, this must be serious if Donahue pulls out the Defense League’s super powerful death-ray gun — “Rosie said it! It has to be false!!”

The fact is that before he was named pope, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had absolutely nothing to do with policing allegations of sexual abuse until 2002, after the scandal erupted that January. And he certainly never counseled bishops to keep sexual abuse secret—this is a bald face lie.

“The fact is”? Have we discovered the true identity of Gary Ruppert? And you know when something starts with “the fact is” it usually isn’t, and Donahue here is telling a teeny little fib. Well, actually it’s a basilica-sized whopper. Before saying Ratzi never counseled bishops to keep sexual abuse secret, Donahue should have made sure that there were no inconvenient letters floating around. Like, say, this one:

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had ‘obstructed justice’ after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.

The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

It asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II’s successor last week. …

It orders that ‘preliminary investigations’ into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger’s office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the ‘functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests’.

‘Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,’ Ratzinger’s letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.

Oops.

Indeed, a week before Pope John Paul II died, [Cardinal Ratzinger] addressed the scandal by saying, ‘How much filth there is in the church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely’ to God.

At which point all pedophile priests were immediately turned over to the authorities, the Catholic Church made amends to every single altar boy ever dandled by a priest, and the whole scandal instantly vanished, which never would have happened if Ratzinger hadn’t made that comment.

Tagged as: bill maher, catholic league, bill donohue, pope

Clif is a blogger for Sadly No!