Holy Crap

(Again, apologies to the people I stole the title from, the nice guys over at crooksandliars.com.)

Every time I think I’ve heard the most awful thing done by religious people…

In the same day, I’ve heard two stories coming from the Catholic Church. Yes, I know, the guys who did the whole “inquisition” thing. But they’ve been keeping their noses clean since at least the 1950s, so I’ll start this off by pointing out that I don’t have any beef with the modern day Catholic Church. They don’t come knocking on my door like other pointless suit-festooned fuckers or pray for me to go to hell, so we’re on pretty good terms.

But now I get to hear about a twelve time child molester priest, who, despite violating at least twelve children, is still a damn priest, is finally asked by *police* to come in to face charges. What the hell is wrong with the Church on this one? Isn’t shielding a child molester simply fueling accusations that all priests are kiddie-fuckers? I mean, come on, you’re seriously screwing up in the P.R. department on this one. If the guy were a school teacher and was caught with his jimmy in a fifth grader, I would think that he would never work again, and more than likely would have *awful* things happen to him in prison. This guy has been doing this stuff for *years* and just gets moved around. Must be nice to be in J.C.’s posse.

The second point is the whitewashing of Pope Pius XII of any sort of culpability in the holocaust. He didn’t exactly hold open the doors of the gas chamber, but by most accounts he did absolutely nothing. Now, I’m not sure exactly how far the criteria for becoming a Saint has fallen, but I’m sure letting people die isn’t exactly one of the prerequisites for it. I mean, Mother Teresa has had a long road to it, after having spent many years tending to sick people. Pius let a total of between 10 and 26 million people die during the Nazi’s reign — and he gets to be a Saint?

I know Ratzinger was in the Official Hitler Fan Club, but isn’t this a little much? His excuse for not having shot anyone as a Nazi Youth was an “infected finger.” Not that he didn’t want to, not that he objected, that he had a bad finger. At least the last guy actually improved things when he was pope, and in fact issued an apology for the exact thing that Ratzinger is trying to promote the sainthood for: doing jack squat during the holocaust… and maybe a little money laundering. Who let this particular joker be pope, anyways?

I think the Vatican kinda needs to get its act together. I’d rather go back to laughing and pointing at stupid sex scandals and child molestation in much lower hanging fruit than having to see a 2000 year old institution made a laughing stock by poor leadership. Well, Ratzinger, ball’s in your court. Don’t make the Jewish guy on the cross cry any more than you have to.