If you were wondering why the Church worked so diligently to cover up the abuse of pederast priests, you can bet a big part of the motivation is money (like so much in this world). The Guardian is reporting tithing is expected to drop significantly in Italy and other countries. Ever year, the Church makes about €900m in donations, but faced with the growing reality the head of their organization was helping ...

A couple days ago, a memo circulated around the Foreign Office suggesting some "ideas" for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to England. The list included the Pope launching his own condom to opening an abortion clinic. Like any memo that begins with the words "should not be shared externally", it quickly escaped the confines of the office and has so outraged the Vatican they are threatening not to come to the coun ...

Here's a little history lesson on how long the church has been dealing with priests raping children. The scariest thing? That there's been internal discussion regarding the handling of pedophile priests for over 1500 years, and these winners still haven't managed to do anything about it. I'd say it just seems to be getting worse, but it'd probably be naive to think things weren't much, much worse back when ...

The New York Times has a profile on the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the atheist group that tackles all sorts of thorny issues related to Church / State separation in the US. This is beyond the standard front lines of atheism ... this is big ball stuff that takes on the American government at all levels. If you're reading about some religious day or custom 'under attack' from atheists, there's a good c ...

The Hitch is back with more on the Pope, this time with a well thought out article in Newsweek entitled 'Bring the Pope to Justice'. I feel like a lot of the writing out there regarding this whole scandal haven't done a great job of pinning down just how shamefully complicit the Vatican has been in all this. Well, it doesn't get more obvious or well laid out than this: In 2002, I happened to be on Hardball ...

Remember Harry Taylor, the British man who was tried and found guilty of 'religiously aggravated harassment' for leaving some flyers making fun of religion in the prayer room at an airport? He was just sentenced today and got an Anti-Social Behavior Order along with a six month suspended sentence. The ABSO - a creepy little UK legal order basically allowing courts to make legal things illegal - means Taylor ...

In case you haven't yet seen part deux of South Park's 200th episode, get ready for a pretty serious disappointment; because of veiled threats the Studio and creators received from a bunch of religious fundy douches, the episode was so bleeped out it was hard to actually know what the hell was going on. At first, I thought maybe the whole joke had been one huge meta-joke (poking fun at the fact they would g ...

One of the many victims of Fr. Lawrence Murphy (the guy who molested over 200 deaf kids) has filed a lawsuit against the Pope in the hopes to uncover how much the Vatican did know about the abuse, and how they went about covering it up. The plaintiff, whose identity has been concealed, doesn't want any money; he just wants justice for his life having been ruined by the sexual torture he had to endure. I'm c ...

If you recall the story of Job in the Bible, the Devil wagers that the wealthiest and most pious of God's servants, Job, is only loyal because of all the material comfort and success he's enjoyed. To prove the Devil wrong, God allows the Prince of Darkness to kill his entire family, destroy his livestock, burn down his house, and finally give him a bunch of disgusting boils all over his body. Job stays loya ...

Do I even need to introduce this video? These people are insane. Favorite moment: when the woman in the red shirt (6 minutes in) unknowingly supports every single stereotypical "progressive" ideas like helping the poor, and paying teachers a fair salary. Where exactly do you think that money comes from, idiot? ...