Two things about Pope Benedict's planned visit to Malta have me smiling a bit; (1) the mayor of a small town has asked that a statue which looks like a dick be removed at the local airport for fear of offending the pontiff, and (2) a graffiti artist stenciled a few "pedobears" on the billboard marking his arrival, and the local news people have no idea what it implies. In case you're hopelessly out of the l ...

It looks like someone is finally taking a stand against Pope Benedict XVI for his role in covering up the abuse of children, and it's none other than atheist superstar Richard Dawkins. Along with Christopher Hitchens, the pair is trying to see if they can get the UK government to arrest the pontiff when he comes to visit in September to beatify some 19th century theologian no one actually gives a shit about ...

It must be nice to not have to answer to any authority whatsoever when you've committed a series of heinous crimes. While the secular world tries to grow enough balls to bring Pope Benedict XVI to justice (I really wouldn't hold my breath, people), the pontiff is still free to try and play down the seriousness of the allegations against him and other senior officials in the Vatican. Recently, the Pope sent ...

Man, remember when Sinead O'Connor tore up the picture of Pope John Paul II saying "fight the real enemy"? Well imagine she did that same stunt today but with Raztinger's picture instead; I'm not sure she would cause as big a firestorm now. I can't imagine how much courage it took back then to take a stand against such a large institution, but we owe a lot to the bravery of folks like Sinead who chose to sp ...

Yes, I've always wanted to use a headline like this, and today seemed like the perfect time to do it. Plus it helps that it's completely true; the New York Times has supposedly come up with definitive evidence that Ratzinger was not only aware of Reverend Peter Hullerman (formerly known only as "H") had molested children and, rather than notify authorities, simply transferred him to another parish despite a ...

Pope Benedict XVI is again being implicated in another abuse scandal, this time out of the state of Wisconsin. Reverend Lawrence C. Murphy worked in a school for deaf children, and while Benny was alerted in two letters that the priest had been suspected of molesting dozens of children, he failed to do anything at all. Unsurprisingly, Murphy was transferred from the school when the heat got too high to anot ...

Imagine this hypothetical situation: you're implicated in a child molestation scandal in your powerful and influential organization, and the whole world eagerly anticipates your response to these allegations. Would your strategy be to issue an ambiguous "apology" for the suffering of the victims followed by laying blame a completely esoteric scapegoat? The only way you could ever get away with such weaksauc ...

It should come as no surprise that any large and powerful organization always "looks out for their own". The Catholic Church is no different; the whole controversy regarding child abuse is based around the fact that rather than punish their own members who were guilty of destroying the lives of innocent children, they instead kept everything quiet, transferring these offenders to different parishes where th ...

It seems as though the Vatican is unable to mind their own damn business, as they've recently opposed a piece of legislation in the UK commonly known as the "Equity Bill". The Bill itself seems to focus on trying to tackle discrimination in workplaces, for anything ranging from age, race, gender, and (more importantly for the church) sexual orientation. Now the Pope may be an evil scumbag, but he's no fool; ...

The Vatican has been considering canonizing Pope Piux XII, and this has created tensions within the Jewish community. You see, back in 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement (called the Reichskonkordat) that officially recognized the Nazi party, effectively legitimizing its anti-Semitic stance. It was the only religious institution to do so, and this fact still haunts the Catholic Church. It's seen by many a ...