Vatican comes up with a new list of Seven Sins - Boing Boing:
"In the sixth century, Pope Gregory handed down a list of "seven cardinal vices." Now the Vatican has issued an additional seven "social sins.""You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos," said [Bishop Gianfranco] Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions.
The seven social sins are:
1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control 2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research 3. Drug abuse 4. Polluting the environment 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor 6. Excessive wealth 7. Creating poverty
The original deadly sins: 1. Pride 2. Envy 3. Gluttony 4. Lust 5. Anger 6. Greed 7. Sloth"
The sheer irony of one of the world's wealthiest organizations decrying "excessive wealth" is almost too much to take. Especially as they continue to tell the poor people of the world that God said they should be tithing 10% of their income for the church. So that would be #s 5, 6 and 7.
You know, this would all be more humorous if I didn't spend part of the day reading [today is High School Entrance Exam day, there's a paucity of classes] excerpts from the Report of the Philadelphia Grand Jury on sexual abuse in that diocese of the Catholic Church.
It's in the recent anthology I picked up Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion. You can find a lot of the same info online here and here, via BishopAccountability.org and The Memory Hole.
Including depressingly sobering, sickening and infuriating highlights as:
"• A girl, 11 years old, was raped by her priest and became pregnant. The Father took her in for an abortion.
• A 5th-grader was molested by her priest inside the confessional booth.
• A teenage girl was groped by her priest while she lay immobilized in traction in a hospital bed. The priest stopped only when the girl was able to ring for a nurse.
• The Archdiocese official in charge of abuse investigations described one abusive priest as “one of the sickest people I ever knew.” Yet Cardinal Bevilacqua allowed him to continue in ministry, with full access to children – until the priest scandal broke in 2002.
• On at least one occasion Cardinal Bevilacqua agreed to harbor a known abuser from another diocese, giving him a cover story and a neighborhood parish here because the priest’s arrest for child abuse had aroused too much controversy there. Officials referred to this sort of practice as “bishops helping bishops.”
• A nun who complained about a priest who was still ministering to children – even after he was convicted of receiving child pornography – was fired from her position as director of religious education.
• When the Archdiocese did purport to seek psychological evaluation of a priest, the primary tool for diagnosis was “self reporting” – in other words, whether the abuser was willing to admit that he was a pedophile. Absent such a “diagnosis,” the Archdiocese declined to treat any priest as a pedophile, no matter how compelling the evidence.
• Even when admitted, the abuse was excused: an Archdiocese official comforted one sexually abusive priest by suggesting that the priest had been “seduced” by his 11-year-old victim.
• When one priest showed signs of seeking penance from his victims, the church-run “treatment” facility urged Archdiocese officials to move him to another assignment away from the victims – in other words, transfer him before he apologizes again."
And in one case, in the aftermath of boy reporting being raped by a priest at his school, one of his teachers - a nun - began referring to him by a girl's name in front of all the other students.
When he asked her to stop, he was given demerits.
They are, as an organization, fucking evil.
Period.
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