I wrote this article for a friends blog back in March when the Roman Catholc Church vs US Women war on sanity and compassion was at its peak. In light of the recent article in Daly Kos about Archbshop Dolan, pedophile facilitator in chief of the US RCC and likely (on cannonisation) the next Patron Saint of Pederasts, I thought it worthwhile revivifying it and posting it here.
J'ACCUSE!
“The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of Bishops” – St. John Chrysostom
J’accuse” (“I accuse”) was an open letter published on January 13, 1898, in the newspaper L’Aurore by the influential French writer Émile Zola. In the letter, Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure, and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer sentenced to penal servitude for life for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper, and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted and found guilty of libel on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment he fled to England.[1]
I write this piece of Bullshit Bashing in humble tribute to that great and noble act, and hopefully in the same tradition. I’m already in self-imposed exile from my home country so I feel some kinship with Émile. I may not be as eloquent or well expressed, but damn it I am just as outraged at hypocrisy and lies, and will so I will also point the finger and cry J’ACCUSE! And my target? The US Roman Catholic Church hierarchy from the local priest in the pulpit to the Cardinal on his throne, and beyond them to The Rat In The Hat himself – the Pope.
In January 2012 the Obama administration announced that the Affordable Care Act will require health insurers to cover contraception without co-pays, and whilst Churches and Ministries would be exempt from that provision on grounds of religious exemption, organizations that merely wear religion as a mask such as so-called “Catholic” hospitals, Universities and charity groups are not. The reason for that seems common sense – employees of a Catholic church are all Catholics, whereas employees of a Catholic hospital or charity are of all denominations and none at all. One is a strictly religious organization, the other is not. Let’s try an analogy here. Oysters and snails[2] are both disgusting slimy creatures that some choose to eat but I do not. However, even though I don’t eat either, I can tell an oyster is not a snail and vice versa. It seems wearing a mitre and a robe means you believe that oysters and snails are exactly the same.
And now for the real fun facts:- The provision is actually already law in many states, and has been on the statute books since it was put there in 2001 during the shabby reign of Gee Didya. There are a significant number of Catholic organizations who already offer the provision. Furthermore, previous legal challenges brought by Catholic organizations against the provisions in place have been thrown out of court or lost outright.
The Rat In The Hat could not let this lie and so, panties terminally twisted in a Holy Roman See wedgie from hell, he jumped on a plane to run a locker room strategy meeting with his US senior clergy. At that meeting of mitred goons he decried the Obama administration’s attempt to “deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices” as a “grave threat” to “religious freedom” and repeated this very publicly so all the media would report his views, which they did. Next he got all the mitred goons to write angry diatribes against the policy decision, and to make sure the dog collared underlings in pulpits across the US read these out during Sunday masses. And the media kindly reported that as well, just in case the lazy half-hearted Catholics who spent Sundays on the couch missed out. What the media failed to report were the laws already on the books and the court challenges the Church has already lost.
And then, of course, those two GOP cardboard cut out Catholic warriors for Rome, Messrs Santorum and Gingritch, jumped on the bandwagon. Cheered on by Faux Nooz and the right-wing echo chamber media they start screaming and gnashing their teeth about some imagined Obama administration “war on religion” and how the poor Catholic Church and Catholics are being persecuted by the evil Kenyan Secularist Marxist and his blackshirted Department of Health thought police. Not wishing to feel left out Moneybags Mormon jumped on board, followed shortly thereafter by Sniveller Boehner all the rest of the theocratic goon squad in the GOP and right-wing Axis of Hate. It’s Anti-American, It’s Anti-Constitutional, It’s Anti-Religious…. Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!!!!![3]
Meanwhile, back in the REAL world public polling shows that the policy proposal is actually wildly popular with the US general public, and even more so with Catholic members of the public. Moreover, it seems that 98% of Catholic women have been ignoring Papa Nazi’s Dark Ages dictates anyway and have been regularly using those intrinsically evil birth control measures for years. Ooooops!
Meanwhile, back in the REAL world, Cardinal Edward Egan withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which he once had read from the pulpits in all New York parishes. Retracting his apology he described the Church’s handling of the clerical child abuse crisis as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.” “I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he stated smugly. He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities[4].
LIAR! J’ACCUSE!!!!
According to an article in The Hartford Courant dated March 17th 2002[5], “court documents reveal that New York Cardinal Edward Egan, while serving as bishop of the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocese, allowed several priests facing multiple accusations of sexual abuse to continue working for years. Egan failed to investigate aggressively some abuse allegations, did not refer complaints to criminal authorities and, during closed testimony in 1999, suggested that a dozen people who made complaints of rape, molestation and beatings against the same priest may all have been lying.” Furthermore, despite what the good Cardinal claims, The Church is required to report abuse to secular authorities according to Roman Catholic canon laws in place since the 1970s, laws the good Cardinal chose to ignore. And while the deluded Cardinal states he never had any sex abuse cases, his diocese had to settle the cases detailed in the Hartford Courant and awarded victims some $12-15 million in damages.
So apparently the Rat In The Hat and his bemitred goon squad think that allowing staff in Catholic hospitals and other organizations access to contraception under health care insurance is an intrinsic evil, BUT a senior cleric who covers up the crimes of pedophiles and perjures himself in a court of law, then later lies through his teeth about the whole affair to the press isn’t in any way wrong or evil. It appears that covering up for kiddy fiddlers and perjuring yourself in court gets you promoted in the Catholic Church.
As we all know from media reporting over the last years, this problem of clerical child abuse is not isolated to the Cardinal’s cabbage patch, or even the US. If any evil is endemic it is that of pedophile priests. The problem is a global one. One moreover that has, until recently, been conveniently swept under the rug by Mother Church and the Pope himself when he acted as the Church’s chief investigator[6], the offenders protected from secular justice and in some cases their crimes further facilitated by such protection and repeatedly covered up.
Consider, for example, the hideous crimes of Father James McGreal, who cost his archdiocese nearly $8 million to settle claims of child molestation. “From 1948 to 1988, McGreal served in 10 parishes in Seattle and other parts of Washington State. He was permanently barred from the ministry in 1988 after the archdiocese made a stunning confession that it had assigned McGreal to a Federal Way parish, even though he had been removed from two parishes and a Catholic hospital after being accused of sexually molesting boys. Court documents claimed that archdiocese officials began receiving complaints about McGreal in the late 1960s and that McGreal had disclosed to a counselor that he had molested hundreds of victims.”
So, apparently, The Rat In The Hat and his bemitred goon squad think it IS an intrinsic evil to allow staff at a Catholic hospital access to contraception under their health care plans, but DON’T think a priest working at a Catholic hospital buggering children in his care is intrinsically evil enough to hand a self-confessed serial child molester over to the police. They also don’t appear to think covering up those crimes and perverting the course of secular justice is intrinsically evil either.
HYPOCRITICAL IMMORAL CRIMINAL SCUM! J’ACCUSE!!!!!!
But while I can easily accuse the US Catholic Church of being immoral, lying, hypocritical pedophilia facilitating scum, (and I do!), I can’t say they don’t have a sense of humor….or irony. To protest the contraception provisions they intend organizing a “massive march on Washington, using people and school kids bused in from all over to protest the law.” They could perhaps call it The “No Childs Behind Left March”. And far be it from me to point out the apparent perfect policy symmetry between making sure lots of new kids are born and thus guaranteeing a constantly renewed supply of young backsides to bugger.
And what about the US Catholic Church’s apparent new best friends the GOP? Well, as I have pointed out in my critiques of Messrs Santorum and Gingrich, which you can read on this site, the political positions maintained by the GOP seem strangely at odds, diametrically opposed one might say, to established Roman Catholic Church doctrine. Still, if you can turn a blind eye to pedophilia what’s a little doctrinal difference or two between friends?
On the matters of fair wealth distribution across society; social welfare safety nets; healthcare policy; market regulation; workers rights and unions; climate change science; the use of torture; the use of imprisonment and detention without charge; capital punishment; immigration policy; and, war and conflict the Roman Catholic Church holds diametrically opposed views to the GOP. In fact the only common positions that the two share are a loathing for and fight against LGBT equalities, and fighting any form of abortion and contraception access for women.
But of course, in the madcap world of US politics, where honesty and integrity always take a backseat, this simple fact, that the Roman Catholic Church make very uneasy bed fellows with the GOP, seems totally lost on the public. Instead, dishonest hypocritical cardboard Catholic rats like Santorum and Gingrich chummy up with fat headed self-important holier than thou loudmouths like Bill Donaghue. A Pavlovian trained electorate vote as their priests and pastors tell them rather than for a candidate who is really a moral person. Stick a convicted rapist with lush hair and a piano smile in a nice suit with a True Blue rosette on a stump, add a few dog collared and Bible waving cheerleaders and B list celebs, bankroll with cash from Duke Brothers[7] like oligarchs and gambling magnates, and the US public would rather vote for him than a candidate with integrity and honesty who is an open atheist.
And why does this shabby shell game, this mental cack fest, this tissue thin veil of lies and hypocrisy go on unchallenged? Why the hell does this continue? Why does US society and policy seem so susceptible to interference by a tiny minority of misogynistic bigots in stupid costumes dictating policy based on Bronze Age ignorance under the leadership of men who cover up the crimes of pedophiles?
ARE YOU ALL ASLEEP? WAKE THE F UP!!!!
The alarm bell is ringing my friends! Its time to wake up from that rosy specs American Dream, smell the damn coffee and get busy taking your country back. Time to wield the Bullshit Bats! Time to dust off that soap box! Time to fire up those keyboards!
Write to the Whitehouse and tell Obama and his staff that you won’t vote for the Democrats if they cave in to the GOP or religious bigots any more. Do the same to your local Democrat representatives as well. Write to your local paper and sound off. Get on board with the 23 “religious” organizations who have already told the Whitehouse to stop pandering to extremism[8] and add some secular voices to that cry. Go in your wallet, find a few spare bucks if you have them, and send it to Planned Parenthood[9]. Get busy, get active, get organized and make 2012 YOUR year.
And whenever the costumed clowns of the Catholic Church raise their heads and scream for attention, raise that arm, point that finger, and scream as one….
HYPOCRITES….LIARS……CRIMIINALS…….BIGOTS…….. J’ACCUSE!!!!
ABHOR THE WHORE……BASH THE BULLSHIT…..TEAR DOWN THAT BIG TENT
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/...
[2] Spot the film geek reference?
[3] That’s the second film geek reference….pass me the Cheetos!
[4] See further http://www.connecticutmag.com/...
[5] http://snaparch.com/...
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/...
[7] Wow….three film geek references in one article!
[8] http://thehill.com/...
[9] And if you are a Komen contributor stop sending them any more money…ever again.