New Krusty Katlick Kunt

[psychodiva]

Fromm the NSS bulletin

Vatican heaps insult on injury for Irish abuse victims
The Vatican has scored another PR disaster by again failing to acknowledge that there was a cover up of Catholic child abuse in Ireland. After publication of two reports that showed that the sexual and physical abuse of children had been endemic for decades in Irish institutions run by the Catholic Church, the Vatican summoned all 24 Irish bishops to a conference last week. It rapidly became clear that the conference was more about saving the Church's face than making reparation, or even an apology, to the thousands of victims of Catholic priests.
Victim support organisations condemned the whole exercise as a "charade" and "window dressing". One group said the Pope had "washed his hands" of the scandal.
The Ryan Report found the Catholic Church and Irish government covered up almost four decades of sexual abuse and beatings by priests and nuns on thousands of children in State care. And the Murphy Report unveiled a catalogue of cover-ups by the Catholic hierarchy in Dublin to protect the Church. But in a Vatican statement, the Pope specifically failed to acknowledge the cover-up or formally apologise for the abuse. The Pope also failed to sack under-fire Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan – or even formally accept the resignations of other bishops, who were criticised in the Murphy Report for their mishandling of cases of sexual abuse. We understand no bishop or higher-ranking Catholic prelate has ever been laicised (sacked) for active or administrative misconduct over child abuse.
Ratzinger also ignored the failure of the Papal Nuncio to co-operate with the Murphy Commission's investigation into abuse in Dublin.
In a statement, the Vatican said the Pope had told the bishops the sexual abuse of children and young people was not only a heinous crime, but also a "grave sin that offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image".
The Vatican created another storm by announcing that the Pope had also told bishops that the "weakening of faith" was a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors.
Maeve Lewis, of support group One in Four, said the Pope's response was inadequate. "It is deeply insulting to survivors to suggest they were abused due to failures of faith, rather than because sex offending priests were moved from parish to parish, and those in authority looked away while further children were sexually abused," she said.
Campaigner Andrew Madden, who was abused by Dublin priest Father Ivan Payne, said the meeting showed "self-preservation" was the Church's priority. He said Ratzinger and the bishops placed this over the concerns of people who had been abused for decades.
"That hardly represents change," Mr Madden said last week. "I can only conclude the Catholic Church remains a disgraced, discredited organisation that seems to be entirely incapable of responding in any intelligent, meaningful way to the findings of the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy reports."

[psychodiva]

More

The Government has reneged on its commitment to ensuring all children will receive broad, balanced and objective sex and relationship education (SRE).
Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, this week tabled an amendment to the Government’s Children, Schools and Families Bill which in effect will provide an opt-out for religious schools when Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, which includes SRE, becomes compulsory in schools from September 2011. The Government originally intended all governing bodies and head teachers to have regard to a set of "principles" which include statements about how PSHE should be taught. Such principles stated that PSHE should be taught in a way that endeavours to promote equality and encourages acceptance of diversity. However, the Government has now laid an amendment to this Bill which many fear would curtail the implementation of SRE and PSHE in religious schools. The new amendment states that the principles “are not to be read as preventing the governing body or head teacher of a school within subsection (7B) from causing or allowing PSHE to be taught in a way that reflects the school’s religious character.”
The Catholic Education Service (CES) was quick to claim the credit for the Government’s apparent U-turn. A statement on its website claimed the amendment was tabled following a period of extensive lobbying by the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales.

[psychodiva]

and more

Figures published on the Royal College of Nursing website concerning the NHS ‘Agenda for Change’ pay-scales clearly show that chaplains are valued more than the people whose work is absolutely essential for patient well-being.
The minimum starting salary for nurses is £20,710 pa and for chaplains it is £25,829, plus they also get extra for being called out, plus an additional amount as a national recruitment and retention payment of nearly £4,000. In all, a new-starter chaplain will probably earn around £32k pa.
Additionally, all chaplains received an average pay-rise last April of 6.1%. Nice work if you can get it – which you can't, of course, unless you are an ordained priest. The NHS employs around 1,000 full and part-time chaplains (mostly CofE) but only a bare handful of humanist practitioners.
Some of the most important people employed in hospitals, the porters and cleaners, start on the NHS's minimum wage of £6.77 per hour. The pay of a new starter chaplain is roughly 2½ times as much.
Our research into the cost of chaplains in the NHS revealed that most people mistakenly believe that hospital chaplains are there on a voluntary basis and get paid by their religious group. They are paid for by the tax-payer and they place a £42 million p.a. burden on the NHS.
Another myth to demolish is the claim by some in the CofE that the church pays for the training of healthcare chaplains. It does not! It might pay for them to be trained as priests but the NHS picks up the tab for their healthcare 'training'. They start on Band 5, the mid-point of which is £23,345 – nice training if you can get it. (You can't!)

[Smellyoldgit]

From our National Secular Society;

The Pope should be challenged, not given uncontested slot on Thought for the Day

The National Secular Society today responded to reports that the BBC have invited to the Pope to take part in Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.

NSS President Terry Sanderson said: “The Pope will have a three minute slot to lecture us about morality, but no-one will be able to challenge anything he says. Why won’t he be invited to take the 8.10 interview slot on the Today programme with John Humphrys – and let’s have a bit of finger-wagging the other way.

“Perhaps the BBC could ask listeners to send in the questions they’d like the Pope to answer – about the Vatican’s shameful cover up of child abuse by its priests and its cruel ban on condoms in the fight against AIDS, for instance. There are a lot of questions to be answered, but all we’re going to get from the BBC is propaganda.

“The Pope’s views on abortion are only shared by a quarter of British Catholics, and a seventh of the population at large. (see YouGov survey for Catholics for Choice). His views on homosexuality and especially contraception are even more out of step. A significant proportion of the population believe that many of his views, in which dogma always triumphs over compassion, to be at best irrelevant. Sometimes they are inhumane, for example obstructing abortions for women raped by enemy soldiers.”

I could offer a very different thought for the day that the Poop may not find very agreeable - I wonder what my chances are of an invite?

[inkadu]

Bill Maher said it best, "If the Pope was the head of an international child care business that had been caught protecting child molesters instead of the head of a church, he'd be in jail instead of meeting the President at the airport."

People just can't conceive of a church being this evil. It's inconceivable. The only way we, as atheists, could ever change their minds is to unite all atheist internet forums.

[Smellyoldgit]

inkadu wrote

The only way we, as atheists, could ever change their minds is to unite all atheist internet forums.

[inkadu]

And I have to mention any time this comes up: Sinead O'connor was right.

[psychodiva]

inkadu wrote

Bill Maher said it best, "If the Pope was the head of an international child care business that had been caught protecting child molesters instead of the head of a church, he'd be in jail instead of meeting the President at the airport."

People just can't conceive of a church being this evil. It's inconceivable. The only way we, as atheists, could ever change their minds is to unite all atheist internet forums.

but not with jobee at the head- where he obviously wants to be

[inkadu]

I don't know... "Pope Cunt-Guard, Defender of the Faithless" has a certain charm to it.

[Eva]

cunt-guard....sounds like a football position...

[Choobus]

or a panty liner

[Philboid Studge]

[Sternwallow]

Philboid Studge wrote

Ah, yes, he won the famous "Grand Off-Plumb" medal for sustained standing at a fifteen degree tilt to port for ten hours "straight".

[Smellyoldgit]

I really find Nichols to be a top grade slimeball.
As expected, he's got his tongue so far up Joey Ratz's colon, he'll soon tickle his tonsils.

The leader of Catholics in England and Wales has staunchly defended the Pope over his handling of the case of a US priest suspected of abusing children.

[Smellyoldgit]

Wow - resistance in the ranks?

Asked by BBC WM how Catholic teaching could continue to discourage contraception in poorer parts of the world where the birth rate was rapidly rising, Archbishop Nichols said: "I think when it comes to Third World poverty and the great pressure under which many women are put by men, I can see the arguments, why, in the short term, [the] means that give women protection are attractive."