What did the Pope’s Nose and when did he nose it?

Whenever a coverup starts getting uncovered, the big question that always arises is about the boy at the top. OK Girl at the top too, corruption is an equal opportunity employer. The question is, “What did they know and when did they know it?” In other words, were they involved in the coverup, or were they just clueless schmucks. Warren G. Harding was a clueless schmuck. He let his people organize Teapot Dome AND let them talk him into appointing just the right people to look the other way without any idea that these guys were not just great guys to have a poker game with. Richard Nixon, on the other hand, knew a lot about the Watergate break-in from the moment the “plumbers” were arrested and they were arrested doing a job that he’d authorized in principle.

So we come to the Church and its seemingly endless abuse scandal. Seemingly endless because although the cases of abuse are all relatively recent, there’s no way of knowing just how far back this abuse had been part of the Church under-culture. Certainly Catholic schools always had the reputation of “beating kids into shape,” but before the 20th C, it was generally accepted as a given that some kids needed “molding” in that manner and that all kids stood to need a whuppin’ now and then just to remind them of their place. But we’ve pretty much abandoned that in Western society for some time now. And the abuse we’re talking about is not just physical punishment, but sexual abuse as well.

Anyway, for the last few years it seems that every time you turn around, another country has uncovered physical and sexual abuse carried out by priests, nuns, brothers, teachers, etc.. And finally it has hit Germany, where the Pope Benedict was a bishop and later cardinal and where his brother Georg Raztinger directed a choir for a good 20 years, and guess what? Allegations of abuse has rizz! Not about Georg, who seems to have done nothing untoward except slap the boys around a bit, but who, of course, had no idea that any sexual abuse was going on by his subordinates.

And naturally, brother Joseph, now Pope B, had no idea of it either, nor of abuse going on in his diocese, even though he’d issued a directive to treat these cases with “confidentiality.” I guess confidentiality includes not telling your boss something smells under the woodwork. Right now, Irish bookmakers have sliced the odds against his early retirement.

Now, the rather conservative Cardinal Schönborn has suggested that in light of these scandals, perhaps it’s time to examine the celibacy rule. The Vatican says no, nothing to do with it. While I normally hate to agree with the Vatican, it’s undoubtedly true that priests aren’t abusing children because they can’t get any in a normal fashion. A molester is a predator who tries to get into a position of trust and power IN ORDER to abuse it. There are probably as many abusers outside the Church as in–it’s the hypocrisy of the ones inside of it that makes this such a scandal.

However, the Cardinal is right in a more roundabout way. Right now, no one with normal sexual urges wants to become a priest. That cuts out a big swath of your non-insane employment pool. The eastern churches have married priests, the Roman church only adopted celibacy as a requirement in their holier-than-thou Middle Ages. And they knocked that requirement off for eastern and Anglican churches that re-established communion with Rome.

But if it does happen, it ain’t gonna happen soon. And I don’t think that Joe Ratzinger will resign either–if he weathered the Hitler Youth problem, the scandal has gotta get closer to home than a bunch of maybes.

Haitians Protest: We’re already past the seventh generation, Pat

You can depend on Pat Robertson–he ALWAYS gives Christianity a bad name. Every time there’s a terrible catastrophe somewhere in the world, he can find a reason to blame it on somebody else’s sinfulness. And gloats over his own good fortune and religious superiority. Now take this earthquake in Haiti. Terrible tragedy, death and destruction everywhere, at least 100,000 dead. You’d think a catastrophe of this magnitude would call for a little Christian kindness. Not from Pat! He hauls out this story–which as far as I know, he made up–about some Haitian selling his soul to the devil for independence–and that’s why they’ve suffered poverty and famine and unstable governments and now this devastation. Well, Pat, the guy you’re thinking about had a name, Toussaint L’Ouverture. He led a rebellion for Haitian independence and managed to defeat every army sent at him. He was also black.
Now, I don’t want to accuse Pat of racism, I think he’s more of a religious bigot. You see, Haiti is the homeplace of Vodou, or as we more commonly spell it, Voodoo. Pat has this Hollywood idea of Voodoo consisting of zombies, dolls with pins in them, devil worshipping and worst of all, dancing. If Toussaint L’Ouverture had not sold his soul to the devil, there’d be none of that deviltry going on! Haitians would all go to church on Sunday, sing hymns, listen to some preacher for about 4 hours and become prosperous and Protestant. As it is, most Haitians are Catholic–they’re also devotees of Vodou and don’t see a contradiction in this. After all, they both worship , don’t they? It’s just that Catholicism has been syncretized with African beliefs, customs and rituals.
Well, Pat will have none of it–that African stuff is all devil worship to him and to hell with ya. Cursed forever for Toussaint L’Ouverture’s effrontery of being a black general who defeated white European armies, which he obviously could never have done if he hadn’t sold his soul to the devil. Why else would Haiti be so poor when the other half of the island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic, is so prosperous and stable–we’ll never mind the century or so of political upheavals the Dominican Republic suffered before the present calm. It’s obviously the fault of all that Voodoo–and dancing–which makes their misfortunes their own fault. God is merely punishing them like a father a naughty child, because a father loves his children, even when giving them the buckle end of the belt. After all, as St. John said, God is love. And in Pat Robertson’s view, God just loved those Haitians to death!
I’m so glad Pat Robertson isn’t God…

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And Another Thing–Why Are All These Books About Jews Anyway?

IRONY ALERT! (I better say that before anyone starts accusing me of advocating any book burning, let alone Bible burning)

Conservapedia–the online encyclopedia that shows you the RIGHT way to think about things!–has come up with a new project: the translation of a CONSERVATIVE Holy Bible! Even though conservative preachers have been going great guns with that old perennial, the King James translation, Conservapedia has decided that it is much too liberal. After all, those Jacobeans who hung severed heads of criminals on prison gates were just too bleeding heart (bleeding heads don’t count). Convinced that not only have certain passages been mistranslated, but that the original texts contained politically correct interpolations, they have asked readers to help in retranslating the Bible to illustrate conservative principles. After all, it shouldn’t take too long–there’s only about 8000 verses, that could take one person only a year–think how fast it could be done with lots of people. They will also be editing the text to weed out suspicious passages, like “Father, forgive them…” Forget about–give away all your goods and follow me–obviously a later interpolation. The New Testament will probably get cut to about a page and a half but you can be sure we’re gonna get that old story about the “Eye of the Needle” gate to show that rich people really CAN get into heaven.
Now granted some recent translations have taken pains to introduce PC language–but nobody likes these translations anyway–up until the late 20th century, translators took pains to produce translations of greater and greater literal accuracy. Words change over a couple of thousand years–some Biblical vocabulary has shifted meaning and there are other words that nobody knows WTF they meant in the first place! So every translation and retranslation was intent on correcting errors made by the LAST translators because nobody speaks ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew anymore. There are entire SCHOOLS devoted to Biblical criticism–that’s right, I mean YOU, Tübingen! So where TF do these guys come off thinking they can figure out what the Bible really means and WTF is really in it? One of their justifications is “Well, Thomas Jefferson did the same thing and everyone knows what kind of bleeding heart liberal HE was.” Oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo! Got me THERE! Well, Thomas Jefferson only did that with the Gospels and he wasn’t attempting to thrust it down anyone’s throats, but was just doing it for his own intellectual curiosity, not a political screed. But I forgot–the editors of Conservapedia have opinions, not intellectual curiosity.
NONETHELESS, in a spirit of co-operation, We have decided to lend Conservapedia a hand and deliver our own conservative version of a short passage. Conservapedia is free to include this passage (as long as they footnote an attribution to Greg Uchrin, Intravenous Caffeine LOL):

The Eight Beatitudes

And Jesus said:
“Blessed are the poor in mental capacity, for they shall cast votes…
“Blessed are the mean, for they shall possess everything…
“Blessed are they who mourn, for the inheritance tax shall be abolished…
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for theirs is the hand on the switch…
“Blessed are the merciless interrogators, for they shall be called patriots and let off scot free…
“Blessed are the pure of blood, for they shall be called white folks…
“Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall shoot six…
“Blessed are those who reap incredible profits from astute political contributions, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”

(For additional info, see Conservatizing the Bible. And check out TheColbertReport for instructions on how YOU can help add Stephen Colbert to the Conservative Bible )

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