Catholic Church in UK faces Child Sexual Abuse Investigation

Westminster Cathedral, London

The Roman Catholic Church is already facing a sex abuse investigation in Australia.  Now, the Church is facing  a similar investigation in the United Kingdom.  One an only hope that the development goes world wide, including in the United States because frankly, short of a national government investigation, the Church hierarchy will never taker responsibility for the thousands and thousands of sex crimes against children and youth much less purge its ranks of those who have aided and abetted child rapists.  Yes, it is a sad conclusion but the only one possible given the Church's worldwide failure to date to hold bishops, cardinals, and yes, Popes accountable for their roles in protecting predator priests and all too often the silencing of victims of sexual abuse.  An article in The Mirror  looks at developments in the UK.  Here are highlights:

Cops are probing an alleged widespread child abuse cover-up in the Catholic Church in the UK, the Sunday People reports .

A bishop is believed to be under investigation by officers from Operation Fernbridge – set up by the Metropolitan Police to look into historical cases of paedophilia.

The detectives are examining claims that the prelate protected priests who were sexually abusing youngsters, investigative website Exaro and the Sunday People can reveal today.
Officers are also thought to be probing other areas of the Catholic church that may have been involved in a large-scale cover-up of paedophilia.

The dramatic new move comes after the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal triggered massive Met investigations into allegations of offences by celebrities and politicians.
The Vatican has been rocked by major inquiries into claims of abuse in Ireland, the US, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.

But this is the first time the Catholic church in the UK, which has its HQ at Westminster Cathedral, has faced such a probe – although there have been isolated cases at individual churches or schools.

The scandal sparked Scotland Yard’s Operation Yewtree, which is investigating the late BBC presenter and DJ and other showbiz figures.  Operation Fernbridge is also looking into allegations boys in care in Richmond, south-west London, were sexually abused between 1977 and 1983 – initially at Grafton Close children’s home and then at Elm Guest House in nearby Barnes.
The first charges from this operation are expected within weeks.

An inquiry into 60 Catholic residential schools in Ireland found children were treated as prisoners and often raped and beaten. In the US there have been hundreds of prosecutions of priests and others.

Here in the USA a similar investigation of the Church and clerics like Cardinal Timothy Dolan among others needs to be launched.  I suspect that if the public and members of the Catholic laity were forced to face the truth about the Roman Catholic Church, membership numbers would be decimated.  Evil and moral bankruptcy in the Church desperately needs to be exposed.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Feel the Love: Your Friendly GOP State Senator and a Pastor Advocating Death to Gays

The hate and utter vileness of the "godly Christian" folk is at times frightening.  During the last week this blog looked at the anti-gay bullying induced suicide of a 14 year old Iowa boy.  Just days later Republican Iowa State Senator Dennis Guth went on an anti-gay tirade on the opening day of the Iowa legislature as a Queerty article reports in part here:

“The media, for the most part, has bamboozled us into thinking that having a relationship outside of the boundaries of monogamous, heterosexual marriage is positive, happy and fulfilling,” Guth said. “Movies, television shows, articles and magazines abound with this theme, giving partial information to vulnerable audience: our children.”

“There are health risks that my family incurs because of the increase of sexually transmitted infections that this [gay] lifestyle invites. For example, there are more and more medical tests required before giving blood or giving birth.”  .   .   .   .  “It saves lives to have honest communication not only about the sexually transmitted diseases that shorten lifespans, but also about the deep loneliness that accompanies a life based on youth, beauty and sex.”

Where does this hate, venom and flat out untruths come from?  The church pulpits, of course.  And dishonest "family values" organizations that are increasingly nothing short of hate groups.  But back to the poison spread from the church pulpits.  The Advocate has an article from last year that captures the viciousness well.  The particular case highlighted involves Pastor Charles Worley (pictured above) of, Providence Road Baptist Church, in Maiden, North Carolina, but the toxic message is repeated from pulpits all across America.  Here are highlights from The Advocate piece that look at Worley's call for gays and lesbians to be place in concentration camp and left to die:

Pastor Charles Worley of Maiden, N.C.'s Providence Road Baptist Church recently told his congregation that lesbians and "queers" should be rounded up, placed in camps with electrified fencing, and left to die.

Worley believes that placing gays in camps will ensure homosexuality dies out since gays "don't reproduce." Worley isn't apologizing for his sermon, saying,"We offer NO apologies in believing the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. If you live in this area or are ever passing through, I invite you to come visit with us at Providence Road Baptist Church."

If anyone publicly and proudly advocated for the murder of blacks, Jews, and others, decent people would walk away.  But not your Christofascists.  They congratulate themselves on their piety and "godliness" as they call for the death of other citizens.    There is a reason why I call these folks the Christian Taliban.  They are evil and decent people need to ostracize them and have nothing to do with them.

   

How The NRA Impeded The Boston Bomber Investigation

As this blog has noted, despite it's portrayal of itself as the representative of you typical everyday hunter ans sportsman, the NRA is in reality a front organization for gun manufacturers and opposes any and all restrictions on guns.   And as the recent bombings in Boston have helped to expose, even opposes including compounds in explosives which would enable law enforcement officials to trace the origins of gun powder and explosives.  While this policy did not ultimately block the identification of the bombing suspects, in other situations the lack of such tracing capabilities could be critical.  Does the NRA care about safety and identifying terrorists?  Of course not.  It's all about maximizing money for the gun cartel.   An article in National Memo looks at this dangerous policy of the NRA and its political prostitutes in Congress.  Here are excerpts:

The intense hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers illustrates another way that the National Rifle Association helps mass murderers — by delaying how quickly they can be identified.

The inability to quickly track the gunpowders in the Boston bombs is due to government policy designed and promoted by the NRA, which has found a way to transform every massacre associated with weapons into an opportunity for the munitions companies that sustain it to sell more guns, gunpowder and bullets.

But for the NRA-backed policy of not putting identifiers known as taggants in gunpowder, law enforcement could have quickly identified the explosives used to make the bombs, tracking them from manufacture to retail sale. That could well have saved the life of Sean Collier, the 26-year-old MIT police officer who was gunned down Thursday night by the fleeing bomb suspects.

Had the suspects in the Boston bombings killed by slipping poison into bottled water or canned food at a factory, or lacing spinach in a field with a deadly chemical, it would have taken only minutes to a few hours to identify exactly where that food was manufactured and how it moved through the food chain.  That would have quickly narrowed the search for suspects.

Had the Boston bombers used a plastic explosive, it would have included identifiers that would have allowed a quick trace. Those taggants exist because the NRA does not oppose them.  Why is that? Why this breach in the NRA’s Maginot Line of defense against reasonable regulation of guns and ammunition?  The answer appears to lie in who makes plastic explosives like Semtx, which was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The world’s main supplier was not a company that finances the NRA, but Libya under Moammar Khadafy.

That this one breach in NRA policy traces directly to the economic interests of the American munitions industry provides powerful evidence of what motivates the NRA – profits.  That the gun makers have managed to turn each massacre into a spike in sales of both expensive rapid-fire weapons and ammunition adds to the evidence that the NRA should be viewed as the mass-murder lobby.

Bombs have long been used in America for personal, criminal and political purposes. The frequency of bombings may surprise many people given the intense focus on the Boston bombs.  Roughly 5,000 bombings and attempted bombings are reported in the U.S. each year, according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reports.

Hobbling law enforcement, and attacking it, has long been an NRA strategy.

Read the whole piece, but the quoted language makes it clear that the NRA's agenda makes Americans less safe on a daily basis.  Again, the NRA's sole agenda is to maximize gun and ammunition sales for its financial backers.

GOP Leaders Admit Boston Bombing Suspect Cannot Be Tried In Military Tribunal

A prior post noted how the ever disgusting Palmetto Queen, Senator Lindsey Graham wanted suspected Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tried as an enemy combatant and tried before a military tribunal.   Never mind that doing so would violate federal law which prohibits American citizens from being tried by military tribunals.  Graham's principal concern in proposing a violation of federal law was most likely to pander to the knuckle dragging GOP base (see image above) in his home state where he will be up for reelection in 2014.  Sadly, such behavior is all too typical of the supposed leaders of today's GOP.  When in doubt, engage in demagoguery.  The law?  Well it just doesn't matter if ignoring it excites the foulest elements of the GOP base.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the GOP admission that it cannot do what would gain points with the white supremacists and immigrant haters of the party base.  Here are highlights:

On Friday, while the manhunt for suspected Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev continued, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) published a series of tweets suggesting that he wanted to revive the George W. Bush-era debates about whether terrorism suspects can be denied many constitutional rights and tried by a military tribunal. In a statement Graham released yesterday with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Rep. Pete King (R-NY), however, the four conservatives acknowledge that shunting Tsarnaev into a military commission is not a lawful opinion. Tsarnaev is an American, and federal law does not permit U.S. citizens to be tried under the military commissions system.

On CNN this morning, Graham articulated what now appears to be the conservative position on how Tsarnaev should be treated:

GRAHAM: This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist that he has knowledge of, and that evidence cannot be used against him in trial. That evidence is used to protect us as a nation. Any time we question him about his guilt or innocence, he’s entitled to his Miranda rights and a lawyer, but we have the right under our law — I’ve been a military lawyer for 30 years — to gather intelligence from enemy combatants. And a citizen can be an enemy combatant.

He is not eligible for military commission trial. I wrote the military commission in 2009. He cannot go to military commission.

Graham’s repeated insistence that Tsarnaev be treated as an “enemy combatant” remains concerning. In his statement with McCain, Ayotte and King, Graham claims that people like Tsarnaev can be “held as enemy combatants” — a view which suggests they could be held indefinitely even if they are not convicted by a court of law. Ultimately, however, the question of what would happen if Tsarnaev were not lawfully convicted by a civilian court is likely to be moot, as the evidence against him is very strong.

[T]here is a price if law enforcement or intelligence agents subject Tsarnaev to further interrogation without reading him his rights or permitting him to invoke his rights to remain silent or to have an attorney present. No information obtained in violation of Miranda can be used against Tsarnaev at his trial. Nevertheless, because the evidence against Tsarnaev is already so strong, even before he is questioned, it is likely that the FBI and CIA will be willing to pay this price in order to question this suspect without an attorney present.

I suspect that Graham accomplished his goal of satiating the extremists in the South Carolina GOP base.   Meanwhile, since I find Graham so whining and nasty in general, I could not resist this image I happened upon via MAD Magazine:

Yuck!!!

Sunday Morning Male Beauty

Brazil - Rio de Janeiro State Legalizes Gay Marriage

Despite the violence of the Christofascists in France - which is fueled by hate groups like the National Organization for Marriage and its likely financier, the Catholic Church - gay marriage advances continue around the world, particularly in South America.   Last week Uruguay approved full gay marriage and in Columbia, if the legislature fails to act by June 20, 2013, the Supreme Court will usher in gay marriage.  Now, Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil became the 11th state in that nation to grant full gay marriage.  And, unlike in the USA thanks to the bigotry enshrined in DOMA, in Brazil gay marriages performed in any state that allows them are recognized nationwide.  Gay Star News looks at this development.  Here are highlights:

The General Magistrate of Justice of Rio de Janeiro state, Judge Valmir de Oliveira Silva, published a legal ruling authorizing gay marriage in the state

Rio de Janeiro has become today (April 19) the 11th state of Brazil to institute marriage equality.  The other states being: São Paulo, Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul, Espírito Santo, Bahia, Alagoas, Sergipe, Piauí, Ceará and the Federal District of Brazilia.

The ruling, published in the state’s official notification a few hours ago today, stated that it found the existing legal provisions [i.e. no marriage equality] unconstitutional and in breach of the Federal Supreme Court’s previous ruling on gay marriage.

The ruling recognizes ‘the stable union between persons the same sex as a family unit, assigning to homosexual cohabitants the same rights and duties arising … as … heterosexual, with immediate … [and] binding effect’.

Will the U. S. Supreme Court have the courage and honesty to rule that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional or will America lag further and further behind in terms of nations that recognize and support equality and liberty.

Sexual Abuse in Catholic Church was Widespread, Journalist Asserts

While the Roman Catholic Church continues it anti-gay jihad, it is important that details of the utterly foul cover up conspiracy of the Church hierarchy continues to be broad cast far and wide.  In truth, given the scope and duration of the sex abuse scandal - which in reality likely extends back for centuries - no Pope or prelate deserves even a shred of credibility much less respect or deference.  Many of these men belong behind bars.  A new book,  Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal, by Michael D’Antonio, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will help expose the disgusting moral rot at the Vatican and bishoprics around the world.   A review in Trinity College Review looks at the book and some of the horrid details revealed.  Here are excerpts:

Michael D’Antonio’s book, Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal, has only recently been published, but it’s already won rave reviews from the likes of Publisher’s Weekly, which called it “the definitive history of the Catholic Church’s ‘most severe crisis since the Reformation’: the revelations of endemic sexual abuse of minors by priests in the United States and Europe.”

In Mortal Sins, D’Antonio is harshly critical of the church hierarchy’s handling of the sexual abuse crisis, dating to 1983-84, when the initial claims of abuse began surfacing. Although many people believe that the crisis began in Boston in 2002, D’Antonio called that “a myth” that has been widely accepted as fact. To the contrary, the sexual abuse cases have been much more widespread and damaging to the Catholic Church than is commonly believed.

Over the course of the scandal, D’Antonio said, more than 6,100 priests were “deemed by the Church itself to be ‘not implausibly’ or ‘credibly’ accused of sexual crimes against more than 16,000 underage victims in the United States alone.”

In his book, D’Antonio points out that more than 500 American priests have been arrested and prosecuted. And of those, more than 400 were convicted and imprisoned. As of 2012, the worldwide Church had paid about $3 billion to settle civil lawsuits, but there are still claims that are waiting to be settled.

Alluding to the Church’s leaders, D’Antonio said many of them ignored the allegations and others simply hoped the claims would go away. For example, in Los Angeles in 2005, the Church’s hierarchy paid $650 million to the victims in the hopes that the issue would face from public view. Other Church elders refused to believe the victims’ stories.

D’Antonio said it wasn’t until the crisis struck that people realized how “profoundly flawed” many priests were. And he criticized Church leaders for failing to discipline any of the bishops who conspired “to cover this stuff up. People are very aggrieved that no bishop has been held accountable,” he said, adding that many bishops evaded responsibility and averted punishment by fleeing to other countries.

D’Antonio ends his book on a relatively pessimistic note, writing, “the Church in America will inevitably face new civil claims based on fraud, which will drain it of resources and credibility.”

Again I ask, why does anyone listen to anything the Catholic bishop have to say on anything?  Many of these men are monsters. 

 

Mental Health Groups Condemn Church "Ex-Gay" Programs

Any frequent reader of this blog knows that I have open contempt for so-called "ex-gay" ministries and the charlatans who run them for several reasons.  The first is that these programs are totally fraudulent and, in my view, are supported by anti-gay forces solely for the reason that they help perpetuate the myth that sexual orientation is a choice and/or that it is changeable.  The second reason is that these programs damage the lives of gays forced into them and can and do lead to suicides.  Every legitimate medical and mental health association in America condemns them.  Yet the Christianists continue to market their anti-gay lies.  And these programs are not limited to America.  American Christofascists have exported them overseas, especially to other English speaking countries.  In Australia, mental health groups are speaking out to condemn the programs and the church affiliated organizations that continue to disseminate the lies that are the stock in trade of these organizations.  A piece in The Age looks at the evils of these programs:

Beyondblue and other mental health groups say Australia's Christian leaders should be doing more to reduce high rates of suicide and self-harm among gay and lesbian parishioners, and criticised attempts to ''cure'' homosexuals.

The national depression agency's chief executive, Kate Carnell, wants churches to take responsibility for the damage caused when gay members are rejected or encouraged to undergo ''conversion'' programs.

It comes after Fairfax Media last week reported on growing concern about ''gay religious suicide'' following the death of Damien Christie, a homosexual man who was rejected by his Pentecostal church and took his life.

Friends say the 43-year-old never recovered from being told his sexuality was a ''sickness'' that could be cured during ''gay conversion'' therapy at a Melbourne Christian ministry.

''The evidence is solid that you're not going to be able to make people something they're not and if they're gay that's who they are,'' Ms Carnell said. ''Clearly, aversion therapies are not scientific, they don't work.''

Chris Tanti, head of youth mental health foundation headspace, said the main fear young people face when coming out is not being accepted.  ''If their background is one of support they're generally fine and they realise their full potential, but if their family context is hostile and they have the religious overlay on top of that and they're isolated, it's a recipe for disaster,'' Mr Tanti said.

''I'd like to see the churches take the position that psychiatrists took many, many years ago and that is it's not an illness, it is quite natural for some people to be same-sex-attracted.  ''They need to take a contemporary position on sexuality.''

Not surprisingly, both Catholic and Baptist church officials referenced in the article talked out of both sides of their mouths as they claimed to want to reduce gay suicides, yet refused to renounce their anti-gay agenda and message of hate and bigotry. 

Christianist Violence Increases in France as Passage of Gay Marriage Bill Approaches

I have long argued that the Christofascists in America pose a clear and present danger to the rule of law and constitutional government.  For those who think this judgment is too extreme, I would point to the Christofascist led violence in France where increasingly anti-gay leaders and Catholic Church leaders are urging followers to break the law and where instances of undisguised homophobia are soaring.    As in this country, the French Christofascists are incensed that they are losing the ability to inflict their religious beliefs on the rest of society.   Here in America we have already seen signatories of the so-called Manhattan Declaration threaten to ignore the laws if gay rights advances and gay marriage come to fruition.  Personally, I hope these people are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law possible.  It is far past time that it made made crystal clear that the Christofascists are not above the law - and that includes clerics who encourage violence.  Here are highlights from The Guardian on the problems in France:

A large American wartime poster proclaiming "We can do it" hangs behind the bar at Les Souffleurs, a fashionable bar in the Marais, the traditionally Jewish, but now gay, quarter of Paris.

The barman admits business is a little quiet for a Friday evening: the drinkers sitting on stools and chatting say they are concerned about the increasingly vocal and violent rise in homophobia in France, provoked by the bitter debate over same-sex marriage.

On Sunday the issue that has divided France will reach a potentially explosive peak as opponents of gay marriage take to the streets in a last-ditch attempt to stop the so-called "marriage for all" bill, which is expected to be approved by parliament finally on Tuesday. A demonstration by supporters of the right for homosexuals to marry and adopt children has also been planned.

Less than two weeks ago, in a spate of violence against gays, Dutch-born Wilfred de Bruijn was beaten up while walking arm in arm with his partner in Paris. De Bruijn posted a picture of his bruised and bloody face on Facebook, stating "it's the face of homophobia".

As an often ill-tempered debate in the national assembly came to an end last week, the violence was clearly escalating, with arrests at protests in the capital and other cities, and reports of attacks on gay bars.

The figurehead of the anti-gay marriage movement, the comedian Virginie Tellenne, who calls herself Frigide Barjot and who has described herself as "press attaché for Jesus", had earlier said: "If Hollande wants blood, he'll get it." She later retracted her comment, saying she had "gone too far".

Back in Les Souffleurs, Dorothée Jenny, a 26-year-old bisexual working in human resources, said she had been incensed at the homophobia at a recent anti-gay marriage march. "I do think about it at the moment, but I don't want to change my habits. Hopefully, when the law is passed, things will calm down," she said. Her twin brother Hyppolite, a webmaster, agreed. "I wouldn't kiss my boyfriend in the street these days," he said. The pair thought those opposed to gay marriage were also using the demonstrations to rail against Hollande. "I'm surprised at the popularity of the anti-gay campaign. These are young people we could be talking with."

The twins' friend, Estelle Luporsi, 24, a bank worker, spoke of a climate of fear. "There are certainly areas in Paris where you have to pay attention," she said.
 
Jean Soubeyre, a 43-year-old who works in marketing, said the legitimacy given to homophobia in the current climate was horrible. "The law will pass, but it's crystallising all sorts of other problems, such as the financial crisis."

Rol agreed that the law will pass. "Hollande knows he doesn't have a choice. If he renounces it, he will lose all credibility," he said. "For me, the [anti-gay marriage] protests just confirm that France is a rightwing country at heart."

It is far past time that Americans recognize the simple truth that conservative Christianists are not nice people and they have an open contempt for the civil rights of others and ultimately the U. S. Constitution itself.   These people are selfish, self-centered and motivated first and foremost by hate and bigotry.  They make a mockery of the true Gospel message.   That's one reason I no longer call them "Christian."  They are anything but Christian.