Catholic Bishops Put Sex Obsession Ahead of Mission to the Sick and the Poor

The Roman Church is losing one after another of the traditional believers at an alarming rate in their incomprehensible insistance on irrelevant and rigid dogma. They have beautiful cathedrals but that is all. The ugliness of the history of the Roman Church is enough to make one wonder why people still give it any credence. The Inquisition in the 13th Century was an appalling episode, but it did show once and for all time how Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. Later, in the 16th Century there were the Borgia Popes; Cesare Borgia living openly with his mistress and their murderous and thieving progeny. In Italy, as one visits art museums and old Palazzos, it becomes obvious that Cardinalship and the Papacy were the only way to wealth. Even today, the most powerful families of Italy are those with Cardinals and Popes in the family history.

In the meantime there was the Reformation, Luther reacting in disgust at the out and out corruption and still, basically, the Church felt that it was beyond reproach.

The deals that Pope Pius 11th made with Hitler make one ill to contemplate. And even in this era, we have the pedophile priests molesting boys.

If the bishops had any sense at all they'd keep their mouths shut tight and concentrate on doing good works--- such as care for the poor.

I remember when I was a kid. The movie, The Moon Is Blue, a sophisticated comedy, one of the first after the Hollywood Movie Code went away. How the Monsignor in our church howled his disapproval in the pulpit and forbid his congregation, under pain of Mortal Sin, for which one would burn eternally, in Hell, from seeing the film. The same Monsignor, however, stole more than a million dollars in donations he had been quietly stashing in his own bank account. He withdrew every penny when he retired to Ireland.

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This episode with the Catholic Church should be a wake up jolt to everyone in this country as to why the Founders insisted on the seperation of church and state. There is ample evidence throughout history, recent and long-term, that mixing the two is a potent cocktail that leads to human suffering and dispair.

I applaud the Washington DC City Council for sticking to their ideals. It is wrong to continue discrimination against GLBT people, period. If the Catholic Church, or any other religious organization won't follow the law, and chooses to no longer accept our tax dollars to serve the community, then fuck 'em.

The reality is they should never have been getting the money to begin with. The government shouldn't be handing out our tax dollars to any religious organization, but even more so to one that feels it shouldn't be forced to follow the laws of the United States.

No good will ever come out of allowing religion and government to mix. The Founders knew this and their admonition on the matter was a warning to the future-it's too bad we aren't listening any more.

Bryan Galt dot US

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This is the same church that allowed 1000's of it priests to get away with among the worst of mortal sins of same gender and hetrosexual sexual crimes, including rape, of minors. This is the same church that gives help to people here illegally in the USA but denies to long time citizens and faithful because they are not active in the church. This is the same church that is against Abortion but generally accepts the use of the Death Penalty. The Bishops never condemmed the use of torture on Islamic alleged terror suspects, but they howl loudly at any slightest tasteless comment of the church and it's symbols in the media.
And they wonder why they are losing followers.

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Curbing pleasure by calling it sin has always been the top agenda of the Catholic church. They are supported by most corporate executives who need a docile work force. It is one in which employees are comfortable taking orders from a higher authority. The rebellion against traditional marriage by homosexuals is seen by the church as an infringement of its authority. They fear it will lead to a wave of enlightened Catholics experiencing the pleasures of what they call sin.

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and why the hell do they have any say at all in my goddam legislature!!!???

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Again we see another blog that highlights the Religious sectors obsession with sex & it's ongoing nasty inbuilt culture & the government administration's willingness to support policies that enhance the power of sexual discrimination. Tonight, on ABC TV's Lateline program 16/11/09, Obama called for other countries to support the gender discrimination policy that abuses children & Western culture calls family law but play's it up as domestic violence against women. The revelations that stopping all domestic violence is equal to the claim by Prime minister Bob Hawk, "No Child in Poverty" because like the gay community, the real crutch of the issue is diverted to another form of reason & played as something not mentioned & in their case it's now being played as a legality that will support incests, paedophiles, or other forms of sexual deviance.

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With the virtual collapse of Obama's presidential authority, the repeated violation of his campaign promises, the defeat of his major political endeavors, the sell out to the banks, the insurance companies, the endless insubordination of the military and of the Democratic Party, the increasing impoverishment of the working and middle classes, and the endless imperial wars, etc., Adele Stan attacks the Catholic hierarchy? And not for the first time either.This reminds me of nothing so much as the traditional American scapegoating of Jews. Come on Alternet, you pay Stan to do this? Progressives can do much better.

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That Humanity has had it's head bashed with for 2 millenia.
Next to killing someone with your own bare hands, bashing their head in with a Rock must come in about second in the oldest form of force.
The ROMAN Catholic Church has been bashing heads since their inception. In fact they began when they were merely called Romans.
We may have misinterpreted the meaning behind Christs nickname for Ol Peter. Instead of referring to stability and resolve. He was referring to Peters tendency to use force and intimadation.Reviewing the Vaticans History that is at least how they have defined it. these are not the Christians slaughtered by the Romans, it's the Romans who slaughter the true Christians.
The Evangelicals have the same Schtick, and aspriations for 'Glory'.Only the slighest of variations is that Theirs is a delusion of the future, not the Romans dreams of resurrecting the past.
Here lies within the real division in Christianity (and probabaly many others faiths), Are Religious hierarchies required for communion with God and thus salvation? Christ Thought Not.
So Peters Church is built not on a rock, but a fault line (Lie). Peter Built his Own 'Temple' under a Roman name.Hades/Pluto Stood at the 'Gates' as well. Installed all the same trappings of both the Jewish Heirarchy and 'Pagan' ritualism that was outright rejected by Jesus.Bread and wine as stand ins for Blood and flesh. Yes We Sacrificed Christ the 'lamb of God' so we could reap the "benefits".Through this sacrific humanity was washed of it's sins? Are you fucking kidding, His sacrific was OUR sin! It not something to be revered, but shamed.

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Tax the fuckers who, for 2000 years, have been running the biggest scam the world has ever seen. Tax them or start looking at them with a criminalist's eye.

Either way, they'd start having to toe the line.

Who do they think they are... God?

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big time. Its got flushed through Newark 9/11am before they pulled down all 3 bldgs.

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The media still occasionally talk about the pedophile priests. Now that same sex marriage is the issue, I would like to see a report in the media about all the Catholic priests who died of AIDS in the 80s. There were a lot of them, including bishops and above. And obviously they were sexually active homosexuals. Perhaps that would quiet the hierarchy's opposition to gays today.

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Unless the current conservative leadership at the Vatican is toppled we will witness the collapse of a huge worldwide religion.

Out of the ashes a new Catholicism will be born.

It will be painful but necessary to witness.

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

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GOD OF THE WORLD

The Roman Catholic Church has always cared more about their God, money and power, than about the suffering of mankind. Their teachings have created it through fear and guilt. Their brutal and bloody history, you'd think, would be enough. It is about control of the masses. It has always been about politics, not about love. It is God in man's image and it is deadly as is evident wherever we look.

I am an artist and writer. I've written extensively about this travesty we call religion on my website: www.saintlysinnersloft.com under the "Manifesto" link.

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There is a reason that the founders have a separation of Church & State clause, because they knew the abuse and havoc that that would create for the average American! It's really a shame that that is something today's Americans forget to our own peril!

Of course the hypocrisy is astounding on many levels; this is the same church that allowed their sadistic priests to molest children and then covered it up for years, this is the same church that is supposed to be "the final" authority for "morality" and they effectively would blackmail the District's sick and poor because they recognize LBGT people?!?!? WTH! Is that really what they think Jesus would do?

No! The Catholic Church in reality they hate women, period! It's ok with them if women are dirt poor having babies that they can't take care of, but they have a problem with LBGT folk, puhlease!! I think the real problem is that these "men" have never known the love of a woman or a man and are sooo confused and full of "backlog" that they have started hating themselves! How about they allow themselves to get married, at least a spouse would relieve their lonely nights!!

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This article illustrates some of the problems that come about when employers are expected to pay for their workers' health insurance.

In this instance, Catholic Charities resents being dictated to in ways it can't accept- or afford.

What they can spend on services for those they help, like recent immigrants or paying more workers goes down if they have to pay for a package for that worker's family, or to create a family for the worker using expensive IVF procedures and surrogates, etc.

I don't think the Catholic Church should dictate to Congess about abortion, but I am not sure that the Church should have to let the DC Council force them to act against their beliefs either.

I am surprised that they don't seem to discriminate in hiring overall- good for them.
But reader comments made me realize that they are also receiving grants from government, as opposed to simply using the bequests of parishioners for theri social aims. I wish I knew the ratio of what comes from their congregants vs what they compete for in grant money.

Single payer would also help products made in the US compete better with imports, which don't have to add the costs of health insurance as directly to their products.

Making even more employers pay to insure their workers and their families, or pay penalities as both the House and Senate bill would do, is out of synch with the need to create new jobs for our distressed unemployed.

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Why the Gay Marriage Message Is Misfiring: Part 1

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like the U.S. gov't has been???

What happened of the mission to care for the sick & poor? Why does the Vatican hoard the wealth that could feed the planet???

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do we let pedophiles dictate policy to the rest of us?

(Quoted from a comment on a previous string - just in case that person doesn't get to it.)

And what makes the Bishops think we've forgotten?

And yes, it's absolutely relevant: it reveals how ruthless and amoral they really are.

The scum also rises.

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What would Christ do?

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The Catholic Church will no longer be administering social services in D.C., giving them power over the poor there.

The less power they have over people's lives, the better.

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the 'church's should lose their tax exemptions - with that money going to the services they now provide [with limitations based on their 'conscience']. this would leave them with one less tool with which to blackmail society.

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It is a very simple concept and apparently the one that has a hard time taking root. The basic premises that the church and the state must be separated. Period. At the same time it is often forgotten that the secular state guarantees the freedom of practicing one's religion freely or not practicing at all.

That is when the idea usually breaks down and the whole train of anti Catholicism etc comes out. Scroll the responses even in this forum if you will, very few will denounce all organized religions and fewer still will demand separation of church and state combined with a freedom of worship.

There is an old saying that anti Catholicism is antisemitism for the liberals and thus acceptable. Catholic church, as any other religious group, should have no say in the government whatsoever. Period.

However the moment you start with the reasoning of religion A is worse than religion B and thus religion A should be banned, you are forcing people to take sides.

In a nutshell all religions and creeds should be separated from the state, no exceptions and no special cases. So long as the aim is set at one group (Catholics, Evangelicals, Muslims) the game is lost before it even started.

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Anyone can see that the "catholic" church is devoid of moral authority. The mere existence of fancy vestments, gold ornamentation and pricey artworks, all trappings of wealth and power, not to mention sexual abuse and right-wing politics, all speak of a distinctly temporal orientation, not a spiritual one. The church hierarchy amply demonstrate what they stand for. Can you picture Jesus dressed up like the pope? Doesn't that say something?

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With the Catholic church and all other churchs obviously lobbying its time to revisit your tax free status

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Without sounding paternalistic, it is truly gratifying to see more Americans turn their critical attention on the role of the Catholic Church in every aspect of their governmental institutions. The RCC has a controlling interest in most of those countries in which it allows its Jesuits free reign. These states are all 'Papal States' in the old sense of that word.

Ireland, Poland, the Phillipines are all Papal States,and in each of them the entire secular project of production is adumbrated. Not only do these countries try to survive on the most medieval notions, but they surrender their entire intellectual motor force to a pathetics cabal of ignorant celibates, most die-hard Jesuits who exhibit a spurious sense of secular knowledge and learning. These celibates subvert the machinery of government and , as has been evidenced so often in hisory, are prepared to die rather than share Papal power.

Mexico, Spain, Austria, Italy and Germany are linked together in the production of WW1 and WW2. American only comes into its own with these wars and the infiltration of American politics by Catholic 'universities'. Since WW11, India, America and South America have been closely brought into alignment by a concerted universal church, which really does not mind war, if only they can direct the where, the when and the why of it. Its secret missions, hidden invariably behind 'charitable projects', is becoming farcical.

Secular authorities , in my opinion, have no real idea of the dedication of these celibates to acquiring world domination. Government after government gives way, at first to charitable projects, then legislative and educaitonal programmes. Thereafter, piecemeal party-systems are afraid of the homogeneous strength and international terror of the Roman Church.

The current rumble concerning the emphasis on fertility and sexual control by the RCC in preference to helping the poor and the infirm is only one rumble among thousands of other such conflicts that reveal the real nature of the Roman church around the world -- all of which conflicts are led and instigated by the smallest of states, the Vatican, controlled by one man, a Pharaoh and Vicar to the memory of Titus Caesar, a little Italian tyrant.

Can secular America -- even to the memory of Vietnam and such places -- do nothing to stem the tide of this universally unhealthy subversive...???


Seamus Breathnach

www.irish-criminology.com

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As a recovering Catholic, that proved to me that they were in bed with the GOP. They'd rather oppress women than do something about poverty and needless war, in spite of Pope John Paul II's protestations.
The American Catholic Church is pointless.

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America and Alternet is populated with One-Eyed Jacks. You can all kiss my ass.

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I am a Catholic from India. The behavior of American bishops shocks me. They are right-wing Americans. They are Catholic only in name. They have supported racism; they have actively supported the imperialist policies of the Bush administration; even though Pope John Paul II said: "a war in Iraq would be a defeat for humanity".
It seems to me that American Bishops are not satisfied with allowing their priests to bugger boys and get away with it. Now they want to do the same thing to the entire country.
I am an American citizen now. The greatest thing about this country's foundation is the separation of Church and State.
NO AMERICAN should tolerate political interfearance by clergy - of any religion.
The founding fathers setup a wall of separation between church and state because they wanted to protect the church. History shows that whenever clergy have political power, it corrupts the church. This has happened to all religions not just Christianity.

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Readers of this piece and its commentators would find interesting the new book "The Purple Culture", by Stephen Boehrer (2009). Boehrer, a former priest and diocesan chancellor, neatly describes in this short, readable novel the "purple culture" and "malignant narcissism" of all too many top Catholic Church leaders now and over the centuries. Unfortunately, too many non-Catholic politicians and pundits have a higher regard for, or fear of, the church hierarchy than the average Catholic. As several comments have noted, our country really needs to take the constitutional principle of separation of church and state seriously. We should note that two thirds of Catholic Democrats in the House voted against the anti-choice Stupak/Pitts amendment, as did 16 out of 18 Catholic women members of the House. -- Edd Doerr, Pres., Americans for Religious Liberty, www.arlinc.org

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all religious institutions in this country have too much power/authority AND to top it off we all have to subsidize them via their tax-exempt status.

The only way for religions to freely vent their spleen is to be NON tax supported.

Send a nice fat tax bill to the Catholic/Baptist/christian/Mormon/Jewish/Islamic/ad nauseam places of worship and the rest of us can get on with our lives with decent health care and who cares who marries who(M?)

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then cut them off. That would teach any one who forgets that their money is provided by Americans who don't share their political, religious, or social point of view. And then take their tax exemption from them too.

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The Catholic Bishops' hypocrisy knows no bounds. The coverup of sexual crimes is absolutely disgusting and criminal. Consequently, I for one, feel the Catholic Church left me, rather than the other way around.

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LOL, is anyone surprised by this? If it involves little boys and/or sex, rest assured its a priority with them. I am not sure which is the biggest cult, the Catholics or the Scientologists.

Hess
Online Privacy when it Counts

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On the order of 100,000 children and adults in the U.S. will die each year that we don't have national health care. I can't imagine anyone holding this program for ransom.

People will die if they aren't fed. I can't imagine anyone holding this program for ransom.

I have a sense that "Christianity" isn't primarily about wielding raw, naked political power in a high stakes poker game. Blessed are those with ice in their veins? Which Jesus of Nazareth is that?

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they stop fu*king altar boys or aiding and abetting the pedophile priests they have no credibility.

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OK, so the Roman Catholic Church is no longer a faith-based organization but a PAC - strip them of their tax exempt status on income and property taxes.

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...is the most evil, genocidal religion to ever exist.

Just take one particular time in history.

J. M. Robertson has estimated that from the first crusade launched by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the fall of Acre in 1291, nine million lives were lost.

This may be an overestimation, but the number is certainly in the millions and represents only the beginning of the carnage which places the Catholic Church in the same league with the Third Reich and the purges of Stalin or Mao.

Before the crusades against the 'heathens' were concluded, the popes began an internal crusade against heretics within Christendom. The resulting Inquisition lasted officially almost 600 years and resulted in the loss of additional millions of lives.

As a recovering Catholic, there is little doubt in my mind that if given the chance, the present Nazi pope would repeat this event.

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Catholic Priests and their protectors have been putting sex ahead of their own salvation for years.
So its no surprise they are putting sex ahead of the needs of the poor.

They need to stop making judgments on society and teach us and themselves to simply ask, "What would Christ do?"

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As a lifelong Catholic and one time Altar-boy, I'm saddened and ashamed that the Catholic Church continues to care only about the unborn at the cost of all other critical issues that effect those that have already been brought into this world. They supported Bush over Kerry (remember their refusal to serve Kerry communion at the height of his campaign)despite Bush's neanderthal positions on the poor, torture, war, labor union's, civil rights etc., then repeated with McCain. Thank God the Catholic faithful didn't listen and voted for Obama. Now they're willing to throw away health care for millions and millions of Americans due to their obsession with the unborn. They continue to maintain their zealot position and to hell with the consequences. We must all recognize and respect the right to maintain our own beliefs on the abortion issue but let's not destroy the fabric of our society and punish those who don't follow the churches dogma.

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