Vatican letter on sex abuse from '97 revealed

An Irish bishop has provided the media with a letter on sex abuse from '97 confirming that the vatican ordered the Irish church not to disclose abuse to the authorities. CBC news reported that the vatican declared the Irish churchs' policy of mandatory abuse disclosure contradicted canon law.

This provides the media with the first hard evidence of the vatican's role in covering up abuse. While the contents of the letter have been spoken of, this is the first instance where a copy of the letter was made public.

For all of the catholics out there who have demonized the media for not accepting the vatican's claims of innocence, please go and sodomize yourselves with the largest, bluntest object within your reach.

In the case of Bill Donohue, chief whitewasher of the abuse crisis, that would be his head.

Vampires rejoice - Blood created from human skin!

Too late for Hallowe'en, but not a moment too soon for vampires (and their victims), a Canadian university has been able to create blood from human skin.

CBC news reports

Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton report that they converted patches of skin directly into blood. Their process doesn't involve any intermediate conversion of skin stem cells into multi-purpose stem cells that can create almost any other type of cells.
"We have shown this works using human skin. We know how it works and believe we can even improve on the process," stated Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute. "We'll now go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin, as we already have encouraging evidence."
The process was repeated several times over a two-year period and was conducted using skin cells from people of various ages.

Here's the sort of story that can capture the public's imagination about science-whether through a vampire tale, or the knowledge that a loved one requiring regular blood transfusions now has more options. It's also a step toward creating other cells-all knowledge that can be linked back to evolution and the scientific method.

(And it's a verifiable type of "transubstantiation", not like the catholic kind that can't be proven and relies on outdated aristotelian metaphysics for its definition-Science 1 catholicism -2 )

 That leaves science doing "miracles', healing people and making a better world, while religion tries to talk a good game.

Fail religion.

Swiss Catholics split over condoms

Catholics in Lucerne started handing out condoms as part of an AIDS awareness campaign, provoking mixed reactions from other catholics. According to the New Zealand Herald, the campaign is focused on raising awareness:

"We needed something to appeal to people who wouldn't dream of talking to the church about that kind of issue," said spokesman Florian Flohr.
The campaign is targeted at those as young as 14 and includes talks in schools about the devastating effect Aids is having in Africa.
"It's not about promoting promiscuous activity. We're using the condoms to prompt people to think about HIV and Aids."

As one might expect, other catholics see it differently:

Officials in the diocese of Basel, of which Lucerne is a part, didn't respond to requests for comment, but a spokesman in the neighbouring Church was quoted by Swiss TV as describing the condom campaign as a mistake.

"It sends the wrong signal," Christoph Casetti told SF1. "From a medical point of view, I also think it's wrong because we know condoms don't provide certain protection."

Vatican officials also repeated the same tired answers.

While the catholics giving out condoms still saw them as linked to promiscuity instead of mature and safe sexual activity, they have at least raised their standard of care for others to the point where causing unnecessary risk through non-use of condoms is unacceptable. It is progress, and if it provokes a debate in the church, that will also prompt more people to question and reconsider dogma.

And help save lives.

Brother Andre's greatest deed-removing his followers' hands off the kiddies

45,000 Montréalais celebrated Brother Andre for building St. Joseph's Oratory; for miracles attributed to him and for being made a saint by the catholic church. According to an article in the NY Times he should have been celebrated for showing more decency and self control than the brothers who came after him:

MONTREAL — At least 50,000 Quebecers are expected to gather Saturday for something most rarely do: attend a religious service. But the Mass at the Olympic Stadium to celebrate the elevation of Brother André, a school porter and faith healer who died 73 years ago, to sainthood is one of many contradictions surrounding religion, and Roman Catholicism in particular, in Quebec.

But amid the celebrations over Brother André’s canonization — which took place this month in Rome — another issue looms. The police have opened an investigation into accusations of widespread sexual abuse of students at the Collège Notre Dame decades after Brother André worked there. These, to a large degree, have been advanced by a former member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the order to which Brother André belonged and that controls the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

The article goes on to explain the lack of response to the accusations over a number of years and that only with the recent attention paid to Andre have investigations begun. Now if those brothers who performed the abuse get prosecuted and punished in spite of pro-catholic bias and a tendency toward cover ups in Quebec, then Brother Andre should get credit for this "miracle," his greatest and most helpful act to catholics in la belle province.

Thank Goodness we don't live in a christian society

This scary thought came to me re-reading Dan Dennett's essay "Thank Goodness". He makes the point (among others) that the medical practitioners that saved his life would be fired if they conducted themselves in the same way as the religious do. Instead they hold themselves to the highest standards of performance and take responsibility for the outcomes of their patients.

I've currently got a suspension problem that seems impervious to a mechanic's diagnosis and I thought about the sort of responses I'd receive if we had a truly christian society.

The catholic mechanic would tell me that the suffering was making me a better person, would reduce my time in purgatory if I accepted to gratefully and that like my time in purgatory that I should stop dwelling on how long it was taking to fix the car and instead focus on the end result-oh, and would I indulge him by paying one more shop charge?

The pentecostal mechanic would tell me that the whole garage had laid hands on the car and prayed in tongues for it to be delivered from that "swaying spirit" and that if it was still happening a) I needed to have more faith and b) there was unconfessed sin in my life that was keeping me from dealing with a).

The reformed mechanic would tell me that my car had been predestined to have this problem and that nothing could be done about it. The repair manuals only apply to those cars that god has chosen to fix, not mine.

Finally the unitarian universalist mechanic would tell me I needed to be more tolerant of my car's "differences" and to be less dogmatic about its performance. Then she would ask if I had considered whether I might prefer an imported car better.

Fortunately, I am served by mechanics who approach their craft from an entirely secular mindset, taking responsibility upon themselves to inspect, diagnose and repair the car properly, and who have not charged me because they've been unable to find the problem. I know they are capable from past experience and I know they will fix it-and I will thank them for it.

Blasphemy Day is gone and Thanksgiving is now approaching (we Canadians get to enjoy it in just 2 weeks) so let's move from ridiculing religious belief to expressing a hearty "Thank Goodness" that religion doesn't have more influence in people's lives. Living in a world such as the one Dennett and I have envisioned would indeed be hell.

Was Hitler a catholic?

 Everyone agrees that Hitler was baptized catholic. No debate there. Where the friction begins is when everyone starts to hot potato him later in life. Catholics don't want him, atheists don't claim him, pagans shun him, what's a fuhrer to do?

Let's see what the vatican says about people who've been baptized into the catholic church:

7. It remains clear, in any event, that the sacramental bond of belonging to the Body of Christ that is the Church,  conferred by the baptismal character, is an ontological and permanent bond which is not lost  by reason of any act or fact of defection.

From  ACTUS FORMALIS DEFECTIONIS AB ECCLESIA CATHOLICA

This document, which discusses the process by which people can formally defect from the catholic church, clearly states that the church believes that one who has been baptized is always a catholic-no matter how badly they act as a catholic.

So those catholics who have been trying to foist off poor Hitler on the atheists don't know the rules of their own church.

Sorry Benny and Bill Donohue, but he's your problem to deal with.

Good luck with that.

Should we be Sillier than Angrier?

I'm still amazed at how the Comic-Con protest totally removed attention from Fred Phelps and the WBC by reinventing the protest as something fun and silly.

Thusfar, nontheists have tried being angry during the papal visit to the UK (and I must admit that the footdragging with abuse-complicit bishops in Ireland, claiming to be shocked by abuse when he was in charge of the Vatican office tasked with cleaning up abuse for over 5 years, and the everyday sexism, discrimination, triumphalism and guilt inducement that go with catholicism has irked me as well).

Perhaps we should apply the lessons of Comic-Con to catholicism. By angrily protesting the pope and the vatican perhaps we give them a respect and status they no longer deserve-using blowdryers to de-baptize nontheists was a good first start at a different approach, but what if we parodied and created satire of the entire catholic infrastructure?

Imagine satirical "confessions" and Neapolitan wafers instead of Roman ones (loved those when I was a kid)

Imagine Jedi encyclicals and pirate encyclicals and ninja encyclicals (we'll let the vatican continue to be the only distributor of the aptly named papal bull) all providing reasonable thoughts on life-or silly flights of fancy.

The catholic church has spent billions and lied continuously to try to maintain its public image-satire and parody could erode it faster than angry screeds (that's how they are portrayed to the faithful and undecided) ever did. Even the most devout catholics chuckled a bit at the vatican rag when it came out. (and then promptly went to confession for it)



So next time the pope leaves you incredulous, consider a satirical response and see if we don't start to get more traction in the court of public opinion.

Religious Gaming Part 2

For those who suggested I was harsh in my comments about Priestville, I offer this thought-if they really wanted to tackle the abuse issue head on, they could have kids in the game and logic that those who try to abuse and/or cover up are demoted or booted from the priesthood and those who don't abuse and turn in abusers get rewarded-they could then sell the code to the vatican in the hopes that it would install the same features.

A new essay on Religion Dispatches Will God-Gaming Alter the Bible? also discusses the phenomenon of religious games from an interesting perspective: the limitations that must be placed on them to please believers.

Discussing the game The Bible Online: Heroes, Rachel Wagner points out that like fanfic, Bible games need to be games of the gaps that limit themselves to the pockets of time and events that aren't mentioned and that don't impact the canonical events. After all, we can't have a purple emu named Zeke tearing down the walls of Jericho before Joshua gets there.

Likewise Moses can't open a strip club in Midian and tell the Israelites to bugger off. In either case it's no longer a game about the Bible, because the story is then contradictory to the original. Not mentioned by Wagner, but likely nonetheless, is the fact that believers would in no way want to encourage imagining "alternate" stories that might give the weak in faith the idea that god didn't write all of these events in stone with his pinky.

There is also the problem of conforming to believer's expectations-the wicked shouldn't win by being wicked. Unlike D&D, where multiple alignments and approaches to ethics are possible, each of which fares better or worse depending on the campaign and DM in question. Or in the case of Priestville, what happens if the most holy character at the time of the next papal election is being controlled by a woman-how will catholics deal with that? Trying to implement woo in an online game only highlights just how woo-ish it is.

Finally, Wagner could have also pointed out how these game limitations also speak to the limitations in the religious ideas of "free will" and "intelligent design" two real world example of religious thought stifling and less than thorough reasoning, but lets hope lots of the faithful end up pondering them as they try to pray and play at the same time.

Priestville-More BS than Farmville?

Not content to raise crops and whack mobsters? Facebook now lets you become a catholic priest-virtually at least. Priestville is one of the latest Facebook games and it lets you try out the life of a priest, working your way up the ranks to more prominent churches and higher offices.

Like the actual catholic church in the Middle Ages you can speed your ascent through the ranks by giving money to the games creators in exchange for favors and benefits. Likewise the game is realistic enough that users had identified several problems with the functioning game until a pope was selected.

The game lacks realism as molesting children doesn't seem to be available as an activity for priests and covering-up and transferring abuser priests doesn't appear to win you influence and promotions as it does in the physical church (Cardinal Law for example).

Perhaps the fact that children under 13 aren't supposed to be on Facebook has played a role in these omissions-or it may simply be the typical catholic sanitized view of the church that they like to present.

What's sad is the game will likely reinforce the indoctrination of catholics who play it and it may actually encourage some to enter the priesthood and perpetuate the cycle of falsehood and manipulation.

Those nontheists on Facebook may find it an opportunity to raise discussions of the church and its myths or who knows FSMville may arrive and provide a fun and vibrant alternative.