It's All Jimi's Fault

The Holy Church has decided that the ‘60s are to blame for all that sexual abuse. There was a study and everything.

If you haven't taken liberties with an altar boy, put your hand on your head.

The five-year study says the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and '70s.

At least they’ve officially laid off blaming the gays, which is a nice gesture and all, but they continue to deny that having an all-male, celibate priesthood might be a problem. And blaming the sexual revolution doesn’t go a long way toward explaining, say, Ireland, which as far as I know didn’t exactly have a Woodstock vibe going on in the orphanages that deviant Christian Brothers priests treated like a buffet, nor toward explaining the serial groper priest my dad and all his altar boy buddies knew to avoid as ten-year olds in a small town in Illinois. In 1957.

Now that we finally have the goddamn hippies to blame, bishops are being encouraged to cooperate with civil authorities in abuse cases. Not commanded, of course--let's not be hasty here--but encouraged. I’m sure these baby steps will be a great comfort to the victims. I know I’m quaking at the absolute integrity of the Magisterium.

And While We're At It

Fuck Oklahoma too.

O_o

What. The. Fuck.

Mexican educators and officials defended the country's public school sex education Friday from criticism by a Roman Catholic bishop who said such teachings make celibacy vows more difficult for priests to keep.

On Thursday, Bishop Felipe Arizmendi said that "when there is generalized sexual licentiousness, it is more common to have pederasty."

"In the midst of the invasion of so much eroticism, it is not easy to remain faithful in celibacy, or in respecting children," Arizmendi, the bishop of the San Cristobal de las Casas diocese in Chiapas state, said at a meeting of Mexican bishops.

Wow. Really? Do I really need to point out to this fine Man of God^TM that despite having gleefully sought out the invasion of eroticism since I was a teenager, I have never once felt the urge to, you know, go out and rape a child? Because that's not eroticism. That's predation. Conflating the two is to conflate singing with screaming, and for the Church to continue to insist that it really can't see the difference is beyond sick. And beyond redemption.

A Day Late

And now, on Dyngus Day, our Easter Message for 2010:

Let’s see let’s see let’s see THINK GODDAMMIT what’s a good term to use when you’re defending an actual NAZI in a Pope Hat over his role in defending and protecting Catholic priests all over the world who rape little boys? How about “anti-Semitism.” Ha ha, Jesus may have died on Good Friday but irony sure didn’t.

The full deal is over at Wonkette.

Boltgirl Hearts Al Franken

Al Franken had me way back in the late eighties the first time I saw him do his draw-the-US-map-freehand trick on SNL. He got me again today in a big way.

Rookie Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) passed an amendment to a defense bill this week that would withhold government contracts from organizations like KBR if they restrict employees from taking rape and sexual assault cases to court.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, 30--thirty--Republicans voted in favor of gang-raping contractors. Do I need to point out that my two illustrious senators are among them? Stay classy, Jon Kyl and John Fucking McCain. Happily, they lost. Suck it, Halliburton!