Reading Time: 3 minutes I am tired of people advocating for the rights of the “unborn” at the expense of the living, especially when those affected are predominantly women, those socialized as women, and people with uteruses. Statistic after statistic of the real implications and harms of anti-choice restrictions continues to be ignored, not to mention the disproportionate effect […]
Catholic Church
Posted inCulture
The Catholic Church cannot credibly claim a ‘pro-life’ stance
Reading Time: 2 minutes Given its nearly 2000-year history of violence, can the Roman Catholic Church now presume to lecture anyone about a pro-life stance? Here is a shorthand historical list of twelve targets of Roman Catholic pro-death violence: 1. Pagans: a pejorative name given by Catholics to devout followers of pre-Christian Mediterranean religions, religions that were outlawed on penalty of […]
Posted inLaw
Three men have sued the Catholic Church in Maine for child sex abuse
Reading Time: 2 minutes Now that a new law in Maine has gone into effect, giving sexual abuse victims a chance to seek justice even if the statute of limitations had previously kept them out of courts, three men have filed lawsuits against the Catholic Church. The Maine law now allows victims of childhood sexual abuse to file a […]
Posted inReproductive rights
Archbishop bars Pelosi from communion over abortion stance. This will backfire.
Reading Time: 3 minutes In what I can only assume is meant as a threat, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone just announced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ineligible for communion because she supports abortion rights. He explained in a letter that her actions (defending women’s right to control their own bodies) amounted to a “grave evil” and […]
Posted inReligion
Joseph Ratzinger, God’s own monster: An obituary before the fact
Reading Time: 13 minutes When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, boarded the plane at Ciampino Airport, Rome, he wondered if he would be greeted by stern-faced German policemen when he landed in Munich. Since giving up his job as God’s representative on Earth, he had ensconced himself within the safety of the Vatican, protected from the […]
Posted inReligious News
UK Catholic priest: teachers are ‘devils’ teaching an ‘abomination’
Reading Time: 12 minutes Controversy has visited a town in the south of England over this last week with a taste of American-style preaching very rare in the chapels, cloisters, and vestibules of traditional English holy buildings. Gosport is a town in Hampshire on the south coast of England that enjoys very little news fame. This week has seen […]
Posted inReproductive rights
The Catholic condom conundrum
Reading Time: 5 minutes Conundrum: (noun) A confusing and difficult problem or question. You’re in love. You get married. But you don’t want kids…at least not for awhile. Maybe later. Or maybe not at all. But you definitely do not want kids now. You and your spouse are devout Catholics, so you are anti-abortion. You might also be anti-contraception, […]
Posted inReligious News
On Catholicism, magic words, and double standards
Reading Time: 6 minutes For the religious, baptisms are important. They are, for most Christians, the door to church membership and entering into a covenant with Christ, an invocation of unity, and a symbolic cleansing. In fact, Catholics believe it cleanses the subject of original sin. Get in there early, or sin could take hold. And to focus on […]
Posted inLaw
Russian priest who adopted 70 kids convicted of sexual abuse of minors
Reading Time: 2 minutes You’ll never believe what happened when a conservative religious leader adopted 70 children. I’m just kidding. You know exactly how this plays out and you’re horrified without even reading another sentence. But I’ll tell you the horrific details anyway. Nikolai Stremsky was a rector at the Holy Trinity Convent of Mercy in Saraktash—part of the Urals in Russia. […]
Posted inReligion
Catholics in Illinois can’t handle a satanic “Baby Baphomet” display
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Baby Baphomet is the result of a rule promoting religious freedom.