Dirty Fucking Hippies

douthat

Shorter Msgr. Ross Xavier Pius Douthat, S.J., O.P., O.F.M., S.S.J., Th.D+, The New York Fucking Times Pope-Ed Page
A Time for Contrition

  • Roman Catholic priests like to schtup altar boys because liberals in the 70s* promoted free love.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


*Douthat was born in 1979 and apparently gained his deep expertise on the zeitgeist of the 70s entirely from reading a single bad review of the recent revival of Hair on Broadway.

 

Comments: 99

 
 
 

is this a frist? Why yes it is. Why is Ross Douthat so blind to history? Geography? Religion? More importantly, how does one get a gig like that?

 
 

Dirty Fucking Hippies

Now that’s a misleading headline. I came here for the promise of wild monkey sex with a woman sporting unshaved pits and unwashed feet. What did I get? A sexually repressed Catholic. THOSE ARE A DIME A DOZEN, PEOPLE.

 
biff diggerence
 

Uh, no. That’s not it at all.

Post-war American Roman Catholics were urged to copulate at will and produce millions of new Catholics.

The demand for parish priests flooded seminaries with all manner of pederasts-in-the-making.

No time for proper vetting.

The Roman Catholic boy buggery problem is organic.

 
 

I came here for the promise of wild monkey sex with a woman sporting unshaved pits and unwashed feet.

Yes, this newsletter is not what I subscribed to!

 
 

You know, I think the motto “Free love = rape” has a lot of legs on the right.

 
 

Did we ever establish the limit on schnitzengrüben?

 
 

You know, I think the motto “Free love = rape” has a lot of legs on the right.

Unless it involves dragging your hot wife to a sex club and expecting her to perform. Then it’s just “wifely duty”.

 
 

Ross and William Donohue should really get together. They seem like a couple guys who have a lot in common.

 
Ted the Slacker
 

There’s fresh Douth-poop on this same topic. Really would not recommend the mangoes, but here’s the shorter:

The biggest problem with the child abuse scandal is now us Catholics can’t look down on everyone else.

I shit you not.

 
 

Same shit from Douthat, week in and week out. Bring back Bill Kristol.

 
 

The Roman Catholic boy buggery problem is organic.

O no! It’s all these damn hippie health food stores what caused it!

 
 

I BLAME LIBERAL PENISIVENESS.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Woah woah woah woah wait wait wait. Douthat is my age???? Either I think I look a lot younger than I do, or he has some sort of picture of Dorian Gray-type deal with one of those middle aged boy wonder-looking cons.

 
 

What did I get? A sexually repressed Catholic. THOSE ARE A DIME A DOZEN, PEOPLE.

Whew. I swore I was only one who thought this, and I’ve been keeping this to myself out of respect for my Catholic friends. Which is in of itself slightly ironic.

 
teh Universal Schlong
 

Every child molested by a priest gets into heaven for free so really these children should be grateful.

Right Russ?

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

You know, I think the motto “Free love = rape” has a lot of legs on the right.

Well, yeah. I mean, ladies *hate* fucking unless it’s to make sweet, cooing babies, so what else would it be?

 
 

I think we all remember the scenes of Catholic bishops wallowing in free love at Woodstock.

 
 

J— said,

March 30, 2010 at 14:44

Same shit from Douthat, week in and week out. Bring back Bill Kristol.

Douchehat must wake up every day and say to himself, “How can I be a bigger d-bag than Bill Kristol?”:

Of course, that’s a tall order and most days he doesn’t succeed.
~

 
 

So he thinks all hippies are Chunky Reese Witherspoons?

 
 

He’s also calling on the Catholic Church do to now what any non-evil organization would have done back then.

 
Ted the Slacker
 

So he thinks all hippies are Chunky Reese Witherspoons?

Think he’s saying because of Woodstock some bishops thought all altar boys were chunky reese witherspoons.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

So he thinks all hippies are Chunky Reese Witherspoons?

Does this sound like a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor to anyone else? (I’m sure someone else has pointed this out, but really).

 
 

I think we all remember the scenes of Catholic bishops wallowing in free love at Woodstock.

In fairness to the priests, the calls of “Bring out the Dead” were confusing.

 
 

The biggest problem with the child abuse scandal is now us Catholics can’t look down on everyone else.

Cuz supporting criminal regimes in Europe and South America were so enlightened.

 
 

Yeah, I love how it’s all about the eeeevil secularlists trying to take down the Catholic church. Never mind all those little deaf boys who were terrorized, or all the wards of that slimebag Marciel in Mexico who diddled boys, knocked up young girls, and snorted coke. Actually, his coke snorting is the most admirable of his qualities.

This is a cult steeped in corruption. It’s not all that different from the Republican party which has had more than its fair share of child molestation/pederast scandals covered up. See the Franklin Trust scandal, don’t forget about Jeff Gannon, see the website dedicated to Republican sex scandals, many which involve children.

This is the same kind of animal – they see women & children as objects, they have no regret or conscience about harming anyone (they only regret getting caught), and they will not apologize or change.

So, I guess like anything else, you simply don’t support them. You don’t support Republicans with money or votes and you don’t support the Church. The Catholic Church is hemorrhaging parishoners.

 
 

Does this sound like a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor to anyone else?

First thing I thought, too.

But what would the recipe be?

 
 

But what would the recipe be?

Spread Reese Witherspoon out on a bed.

Smear ice cream.

Eat.

 
 

I mean, ladies *hate* fucking

Certainly all the ones Actor knows.

 
 

Certainly all the ones Actor knows.

True. I’ve had to rehab them from you.

I wonder why they keep wiggling their pinky fingers, tho…

 
Spengler Dampniche
 

I been thinkin’ on this here, and all what my BRANES can come up with is the NYT, CNN, et al think they have to hire not just right-wing cranks, but an example of each kind of right-wing crank (the words “each kind” to be imagined in italics) because everybody is going after the same segment of easily-gulled, spend-happy semi-retired assholes for their advertisers.

Nothing else makes sense.

 
The Goddamn Batman Deals With His Childhood Trauma By Reserving Some Very Special Treatment For Those Who Try To Handwave Away Child Abuse
 

Douchehat also blames John Paul II, who is conveniently dead. Notably absent from his little one-man orgy of finger pointing is any notion that maybe priests should have less of a monopoly on the sacraments of the church, which might give them less power to abuse. Shoot, you go down that road, next thing you know you’re ordaining homos. I mean, openly gay ones.

 
 

I personally wouldn’t mind CNN and NYT hiring these loons if they would have a real balance to them. You know, like “Point-CounterPoint.” In my dream world, there would be Erick blithering on about who-the-fuck cares, followed by, say, The Rude Pundit saying “Erick, you ignorant slut…”

 
 

There has never been a sweeter confluence of guitar, voice, and meaningful lyrics than when Joni sang “Raping Deaf Kids Is Cool”.

 
 

Jesus, Douthat is two years younger than me? And he’s managed to bullshit his way into the New York Motherfucking Times while I’ve been working for a living?

I think I need to lie down.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Jesus, Douthat is two years younger than me? And he’s managed to bullshit his way into the New York Motherfucking Times while I’ve been working for a living?

Ugh. I know, right?

 
address my envelope, lips!
 

Douchehat worships the DeathCult, and thinks the lead zombie Hitler-sympathizer is setting a good example by attempting to banish Vatican II, and what’s the big deal with a little slap and tickle? It’s not like they were committing the ultimate horror of consorting with grown women – unlike the filthy, filthy adult female sex, little children are pure and wholesome, so it must be okay, right?

It’s only the nasty lesbian communist feminazis who want to talk about how it’s wrong to ABUSE CHILDREN OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS ASSHAT STILL WRITING FOR MONEY WHEN HE’S CLEARLY MORALLY BANKRUPT AND A WOMAN-HATER OF THE HIGHEST ORDER *cough*cough*cough*

Sorry, got a little truth mixed up in my sarcasm, there.

Just… oh, I can’t even wish death on this asshole. Being Ross Douchehat seems punishment enough. But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t dance a happy little jig if he lost his job.

 
 

It’s not like they were committing the ultimate horror of consorting with grown women

They took “suffer the little children to come unto me” a bit too literally.

 
Monkey Child of the Dragon King
 

Speaking of undeserved gigs, Palin makes Douchehat look like an amateur.

Face it. There is no justice.

 
 

So personal responsibility is out for Catholic priests. That’s his argument?

 
 

Father Fellatio will now recite the novena.

Please open your Tales of the Leather Nun to page XLVII.

 
 

Douthat:

Popes do not resign.

Pontian did. One version of his biography says he then got sent to work in the mines of Sardinia.

 
 

Just that ONCE.

Traditionally they were poisoned.

 
 

Traditionally they were poisoned.

I thought that was a job requirement. You know, celebrate mass, begin beatifications, die of poisoning…

 
Lurking Canadian
 

So personal responsibility is out for Catholic priests. That’s his argument?

His argument is more like, “But they’re really, really sorry! Now…you know, that they’ve been caught, I mean. But they’re really, really sorry! That’s enough for me. Why isn’t it enough for you? You must hate Catholics!”

When I was a lad, in Catholic primary school, learning about the sacrament of reconciliation and the seal of the confessional, my classmates, being kids, always asked, “But what if you confess something really bad? Like, say, you killed somebody, or stole something? Wouldn’t Father tell the cops?”

And the answer was always “No, Father still won’t tell the cops. He’ll tell you to go tell the cops you did it, then he’ll come visit you in prison and grant you absolution after your conviction but not before.” It was always part of The Rules that you don’t get absolution unless you are really contrite, and contrition (in cases when the sin was also a crime) was best demonstrated by yielding yourself to the secular authority for trial.

Apparently, there was a silent footnote that day, “Unless you are a priest. In which case you can break whatever laws you want, including one of the most terrible crimes a person can commit, and if you just tell the bishop you’re sorry, he’ll move to somewhere else where you can do it again.”

 
 

Because of Benedict’s recent efforts, and the efforts of clerics and laypeople dating back to the first wave of revelations in the 1980s, Catholics can reasonably hope that the crisis of abuse is a thing of the past.

IOW, “We’re not fucking little boys anymore. Now we’re just covering for the ones who did.”

 
 

I thought that was a job requirement. You know, celebrate mass, begin beatifications, die of poisoning…

And molest the altar boys. You forgot ‘molest the altar boys.’

 
 

This never happened until the seventies, what with the hippies and the free love and the birth control and the books with drawings of people screwing in all kinds of different positions, and in which the woman looks like she’s got Buckwheat in a scissor hold. Except, of course, that it did, and it’s well-documented that it did.

There’s a Catholic group called Servants of the Paraclete that’s dedicated to helping priests who have problems. It was founded by a priest with the amusing name Gerald Fitzgerald, by all accounts a decent and compassionate man, who saw a need for treating priests (although he was not really a fan of psychology and avoided its methods, the order sort of went in that direction). Anyway, they were originally mostly dealing with alcoholics but then were referred a lot of pedophiles, and actually tried to implement a policy where they would not try to treat such men, based on the idea that it was never going to be safe to return them to duty as parish priests. This was in 1948. For the next twenty or so years he was writing letters asking bishops to laicize (the term “defrock” having an unfortunate ambiguity) such priests, against their will if needed, or at least to put them on some kind of desk duty where they wouldn’t be, you know, unsupervised in small locked rooms with kids.

“We are amazed to find how often a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted with the cura animarum.”

(“cure of souls”)
I mean, kind of a no-brainer, I would think, but there was an idea in psychology that this was a behavioral problem that could be corrected (and maybe it is, but I don’t think there was a consensus like “we can correct this reliably, and we know how”) which gave cover to an attitude in the church hierarchy that you could treat these guys, declare them cured, and then send them right back to congregations.

The point is not simply that “The Seventies” obviously didn’t cause priests to abuse their power, but that there’s plenty of documentation that this was a problem known to the church well before that. Also that some people who were right were ignored, but that’s always the case.

 
 

“The lesson of the American experience, now exhaustively documented, is that almost everyone was complicit in the scandal.”

Wherein he goes on to explain that the entire church and its structure are corrupt to the core and enable such behavior. So he admits that the Catholic church is the wellspring for such activity.

And ends with saying the Pope must be weeping.

You know, it kind of seems weird to me that they bleat on and on about how life is sacred, but have no problem sacrificing the lives of children to continue their giant corporate conglomerate/superstition club.

 
 

His argument is more like, “But they’re really, really sorry! Now…you know, that they’ve been caught, I mean. But they’re really, really sorry! That’s enough for me. Why isn’t it enough for you? You must hate Catholics!”

… which, pathetic an argument as it is, still fails, ’cause they’re not. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be trying to shunt the blame onto everyone except themselves – including police, secular authorities and now DFH’s in the ’70’s. It’s also a bit laughable that Douthat expects a completely-unaccountable ecclesiastic power structure to suddenly start holding themselves accountable to the laity.

Honestly, the RCC ought to let women and open homosexuals be priests, and let priests marry. You get a lot fewer weirdos in seminary that way.

 
 

Remember when Dirty Harry saved that bus full of kids from Scorpio and then sodomized them one by one?

 
 

My favorites of the excuses Mr. D employs:
1) The Starwars Defense: This happened a long time ago and far away.

2) Blame the Shrinks: The Church relied on psychiatrists to tell them what to do with pedophile priests.
3) The Near-Godwin: The German Archbishop, former Hitler Youth member, is guilty of a “bunker mentality.”

So much win.

 
 

Remember when Dirty Harry saved that bus full of kids from Scorpio and then sodomized them one by one?

Now, I know what you’re thinking – ‘did he fire six shots or only five’? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself…

Okay, I’ll stop there. When it comes to PENIS references, punks aren’t lucky.

 
 

Now, I know what you’re thinking – ‘did he fire six shots or only five’?

Let us not forget one of the peaks of 70s culture: Deaf Wish.

 
 

The chief qualification for becomin a priest is not wanting a healthy adult sex live.

 
 

Let us not forget one of the peaks of 70s culture: Deaf Wish.

That one was a long running series.

Making movies on location.

 
 

Maybe they only started molesting kids AFTER Leo XIII, the “Cocaine Pope”– the guy who overturned the very Roe v. Wade-like acceptance of abortion of “infallible” Popes going back to St. Augustine (circa 1200 AD) until the “quickening” in the third trimester to the “Cult of Life” Catholics are stuck with now. Leo XIII, however, overruled Augustine in 1886.

http://www.cocaine.org/popecoke.htm

Oh, and Leo XIII also penned this lovely sentiment: “[Liberals] follow in the footsteps of Lucifer”

What a guy.

 
 

I have to say, re-reading Douthat’s piece, that his main analysis is actually pretty valid, although he insists on screwing it up with a lot of stupid (oh, so much stupid). Contra the shorter, he names as the main factors “the insistence on institutional loyalty, obedience and the absolute authority of clerics”, which he terms “conservative instincts”. Certainly the idea that covering up the crimes of the clergy would be the best response is predicated on the notion that the reputation of the church is more important than its responsibility.
The “permissive sexual culture” deserves a share of the blame, he says, which I think is kind of (extremely) ridiculous — I mean, these priests weren’t picking up women at the disco or going to key parties; they were molesting children. Even in the seventies that wasn’t considered “groovy”. Ask Roman Polanski.

The “overemphasis on therapy” part, maybe there’s something to that. I don’t really buy that bishops were keen on returning child-molesting priests to parishes because they thought “oh, well, modern psychology tells us that it’s possible to cure all kinds of behaviors, so why not?” I’m not an expert in psychology or therapy or how they were in the seventies, but I would bet five dollars that the prevailing attitude among therapists was that it was a good idea to treat someone for pedophilia and then make him a middle-school swim team coach any more than they would tell a recovering alcoholic it was fine to get a job as a whiskey taster.

Also, that doesn’t really explain why bishops would send these guys to new congregations when there are actually plenty of roles for priests that don’t involve being around children at all. Not having enough priests was floated as an explanation for that (but really, an incredibly callous one), and the whole celibacy thing is often cited as a reason fewer young men want to become priests, but is this the same as saying “celibacy causes child molesting”? I mean, if you’re a priest but realize “hey, I would really like to have sex like a normal person” wouldn’t you, you know, have sex like a normal person, i.e. with a consenting adult?

And I would not say that “Liberal Catholics” and the “secular press” have been saying the whole problem is because of celibacy. This is because I read the press, rather than write op-eds, and what I have read is that the majority of the problem is that the church has had an institutional policy of covering up sexual abuse of minors by priests. Which is what Douthat says. It’s as if he realized “oh noes the Libruls and seculars iz rite — I better claim their thesis as my own and attribute some other view to them because it’s not enough to be right but my opponents must be wrong” or something.

Let’s see, what else … ah, the “scandal implicates left and right alike”. I can haz morel equivalents? Is there really such a need to make this into a left/right thing? And what is the “left” part here? The “seventies” idea that what goes on between two or more consenting adults on coke in a hot tub is their business? Nothing to do with it, actually. The idea that therapy/psychology/analysis is useful? Again, this makes me envision a balding, bearded liberal therapist from Central Casting, with a tweed sportcoat and big seventies sideburns, explaining to a bunch of cardinals and bishops about therapy, and they’re all like “well, I guess we should trust the expert!”. And for some reason this all appears as a New Yorker cartoon, maybe by Harry Bliss, and it makes me think “that’s funny” but doesn’t make me laugh, which I think is how New Yorker cartoons are supposed to be, but I like them anyway.

Finally, the Pope deserves credit for finally allowing circumstances to force him to sort of accept reality and show something closely resembling accountability to the casual observer, and this makes up for the decades of denial, secrecy, smearing critics, and oh yes shuffling around the child-molesting priests, which is like hey, let’s give Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize for not bombing Cambodia anymore. There’s something to that, actually, like what Terry Pratchett wrote about the Thieves’ Guild, in that for the good guys to make the world a better place, they have to work even harder, but for the bad guys to do it they just need to slack off a bit.

 
 

the guy who overturned the very Roe v. Wade-like acceptance of abortion of “infallible” Popes going back to St. Augustine (circa 1200 AD)

This implies that Augustine was pope. He wasn’t.

 
 

This implies that Augustine was pope. He wasn’t.

He only impregnated chicks like he was.

 
 

The fuckin pope, probably in on the abuse himself in his younger days, blamed secularism and moral relativism for the rampant child rape.

Shorter fuckin pope: It was secularism, there was nothing we could do. There still isn’t. I’m infallible so shutup that’s why.

Who in the fuck still takes their children to these subhuman predators?

 
 

Did we ever establish the limit on schnitzengrüben?

Please! I am not from Havana!

 
 

You know whose fault it is? The sexy, sexy children in their sexy, sexy altar robes. They were asking for it!!

PLEASE! Won’t someone think of the child molesters?!

 
 

Popes do not resign.</i

Celestine V abdicated five months after his election in July 1294.
(no Googling required, just a copy of the Divine Comedy).

 
 

Is there really such a need to make this into a left/right thing?

Of course there is. It’s only to honor the victims, who care very much who wins the finger-pointing battle.

 
 

Ross could have taken that hot shot of ass from the movie star almost-look-a-like. Would have changed his world! Seems as though he is just smart enough to breathe autonomously. Dammit.

 
 

“Everyone was complicit in the scandal.” Including us. We failed to hear the whimper of deaf children in Wisconsin, as if we were deaf ourselves. It’s time to search our own souls. Who are we, anyway, to cast the first stones at pedophiles, het up by a do-your-own-thing, free-love, wild crazy crash pad ethos (if you can call it an ethos.) I hearby apologize for my part in fomenting Papal child abuse.

 
 

“Popes do not resign” –

To which I say 1) “Be the first! Start a trend!”

and 2) While Popes generally do not resign- several have met their maker much earlier than expected.

 
 

the Pope must be weeping.

Meanwhile in the real world, Ratzinger is promising that he will “not be intimidated” by the “gossip”, and generally carrying on like Dick Cheney. He reckons that there must be a vast liberal / demonic “conspiracy” to explain why so many child-abuse cases are tumbling out of the closet (rather than blame it on the final collapse of his own attempts to barricade the closet door), in the hope that people will see it as an Us / Them battle and rally to the defense of the church against this faceless conspiratorial enemy.

In other words, (1) Douthat is following a lead from above when he tries “to make this into a left/right thing”; and

(2) Ratzinger doesn’t look particularly contrite or tearful to me.

 
 

The Wackyweedia page on papal resignations is worth a look.
“Benedict” seems to be a propitious name, rich with precedents:

In 1045, Pope Benedict IX agreed, for financial advantage, to resign the papacy. Pope Gregory VI, who to rid the Church of the scandalous Benedict IX had persuaded him to resign and became his successor, himself resigned in 1046 because the arrangement he had entered into was considered simoniacal; that is, to have been paid for. His successor, Pope Clement II, died in 1047 and Benedict IX became Pope again.

To recap — “the scandalous” Benedict IX takes money to resign; then pulls strings to have his successor forced to resign (for paying him to resign); then the next successor dies mysteriously after a year; then Benedict IX gets his old job back, while keeping his golden handshake.

Good times, good times.

 
Lurking Canadian
 

Revolving door, Vatican style!

 
 

Just discovered from the Wackyweedia that the Vatican, though not officially a member of the Eurozone, is nevertheless licensed to issue its own Vatican-City-themed Euro coins. No mention of whether it has its own mint on the premises or whether it outsources the process to some mint elsewhere. Either option would provide the story-line for a great heist movie.

During the interregnum after the death or resignation of a Pope, the Vatican switches to an alternative coat-of-arms; its postal administration “prepares and issues special postage stamps for use during this particular period, known as ‘sede vacante stamps'”; and it mints commemorative Euro coins marked with the arms of the Cardinal Camerlengo.

I for one am looking forward to collecting some.

 
 

No mention of whether it has its own mint on the premises or whether it outsources the process to some mint elsewhere.

Holy See Press Office says the Italian mint (IPZS) makes the coins.

 
 

Substance McGravitas is off the Pope’s blogroll!

 
 

But the pope can’t resign! They’d have to decide on a new one, and while they were deciding there would be no-one to be infallible. (I know this happens every time the pope in charge dies, but a dead pope *is* still a good pope, not having had his honour impugned in any way.)
We’d have to make up our own minds! We’d have to THINK and that HURTS!!!!

 
 

Cuz supporting criminal regimes in Europe and South America were so enlightened.

Good thing the American government has the good sense to not do such a stupid thing. Oh well. Luckily, supporting tyrannical thug dictators never comes back to bite you in the ass later, does it?

 
 

To recap — “the scandalous” Benedict IX takes money to resign; then pulls strings to have his successor forced to resign (for paying him to resign); then the next successor dies mysteriously after a year; then Benedict IX gets his old job back, while keeping his golden handshake.

Good times, good times.

All of this pales in comparison to the hilarity of The Schism.

Will the REAL fuckin pope please stand up?

 
 

Unbelievable, that’s what he actually said. And he has to break reality to do it.

 
 

“This implies that Augustine was pope. He wasn’t.”

Nope. Augustine wasn’t pope. But what was essentially a Roe v. Wade doctrine goes back to that point and that Saint, Mr. Nitpicky.

But, if we’re going to go all Papal Jeopardy, the answer is: quick like a bunny, He was the Pope when St. Augustine died.

Without looking it up, do you know?

(And state your answer in the form of a question.)

OK — now that you’ve cheated, do you think anybody gives a damn?

 
 

I was struck by the pathetic anecdote at the beginning of the column.

“During a frustrating argument with a Roman Catholic cardinal, Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly burst out: ‘Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?’ The cardinal, the anecdote goes, responded ruefully: ‘Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.'”

Uh, yep. That’s why Ratzinger demanded the utmost secrecy in handling accusations of pederasty against Catholic priests. He knew the Roman Catholic Church was bullet-proof, Yet he spazzed out about secrecy. Why did he do this, if he could rely on God to carry the Roman Catholic Church through scandal and he didn’t have to worry about its reputation? I mean, if GOD has your back, is it even polite to try to equivocate, make excuses, or call in the hippies to take the heat?

Just one more example of the dissonance embedded in the psyches of believers. They trust in God but . . . sometimes they have to call in the lawyers to stonewall accusations (damn, sometimes they have to call in gravediggers to bury the bodies) that would mess up the Church’s reputation. They can’t rely on God to ensure their cash flow.

But believe that they do rely on God. Can’t you believe six impossible things before breakfast?

 
 

Well, it’s like Napoleon said, God is on the side with the better lawyers or whatever, fuck it.

 
 

Everybody remembers the “Abuse Authority” bumper stickers. Right?

 
 

@Doctorb

Thanks for getting out of the boat so I didn’t have to. Actually, there was a good deal of institutional arrogance in psychology during the mid-century, which led in some cases to some really awful patient abuse and led in other cases, for example in the criminal system, to sociopaths being released to reoffend. Fortunately, those days are long over.

However, the above does not exonerate the church as the court cases have repeatedly brought to light where the church’s own specialists warned in internal documents that Fr. So-and-so was not safe to return to the parish environment, but the bishops brushed it off.

 
 

And I would not say that “Liberal Catholics” and the “secular press” have been saying the whole problem is because of celibacy. This is because I read the press, rather than write op-eds, and what I have read is that the majority of the problem is that the church has had an institutional policy of covering up sexual abuse of minors by priests.

It’s as if Douthat has confused liberal Catholics with “those Protestant kids from grade school”.

 
 

FYWP!

Doctorb, I was going to say something about mid-century psychology and the Church’s own documented missteps, but your post pretty much makes the same point anyway (using different data). (My post got etted.)

 
address my envelope, lips!
 

This never happened until the seventies, what with the hippies and the free love and the birth control and the books with drawings of people screwing in all kinds of different positions, and in which the woman looks like she’s got Buckwheat in a scissor hold.

Appropos of nothing, but this made me cry laughing.

Which is better than just crying. But I think now is a good time to unilaterally declare myself Pope, Chuck Norris-style.

 
 

the books with drawings of people screwing in all kinds of different positions

What a novel idea! A book describing sexual positions and giving illustrations…I wonder why no one *koffkoffKAMASUTRAkoffkoff* thought of this before? No wonder it waited until the dirty fucking hippies came around. No one could have foreseen that would happen.

 
address my envelope, lips!
 

@actor: No! Such a thing was never even thought of before the 1970s, and if it was, and entire cultures were built based on a non-Catholic system of actually thinking bodies were maybe okay and stuff, it isn’t relevant because Douchehat says so, and his prima faciae evidence is that women are icky.

 
 

If only Alex Comfort were still alive, to hear how badly The Joy of Sex has damaged religion!
Of course he hated state tyranny as well and would have preferred to bring down a government or two.

 
 

Such a thing was never even thought of before the 1970s, and if it was, and entire cultures were built based on a non-Catholic system of actually thinking bodies were maybe okay and stuff, it isn’t relevant because Douchehat says so, and his prima faciae evidence is that women are icky.

Kinsey is the Jew of sexual studies.

 
 

notagator, you’re definitely right about the internal documents warning of the obvious consequences, but you have to remember that priests have to do what the bishops tell them1. The bishops, however, are not the employers of the priests, nor is the Vatican, or really anyone as far as we can tell, so nobody in authority is in a position of accountability. It’s one of the Great Mysteries of the Church.

1 cf Pius XII’s 1945 encyclical Mandatum mandatum est (Befehl ist Befehl).

 
 

the books with drawings of people screwing in all kinds of different positions

What a novel idea! A book describing sexual positions and giving illustrations…I wonder why no one *koffkoffKAMASUTRAkoffkoff* thought of this before? No wonder it waited until the dirty fucking hippies came around. No one could have foreseen that would happen.

Hey, read the Song of Songs sometime. The Bible can be hot. I saw an illustrated version in a bookstore once. Thought about buying it for my pastor, then decided that the poor guy’s heart couldn’t take it.

 
 

Not now, not now!! You get 72 virgins AFTER you die, not before.

 
 

Did they have an illustration for “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him”? And did it demonstrate that Rule 34 applies, yea, even unto the bible?

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Santorum was on this tack a few years back, when he blamed the Boston archdiocesan sex scandal on liberals.

Can’t be arsed looking for the link, but googling “santorum” may help.

 
 

googling “santorum”

OHno! I ain’t *that* drunk!

 
 

The psychiatrist that the priest in Germany saw said that he was an unrepentant alcoholic and pedophile with no intention of changing.

 
 

Doctorb, I’m pretty sure it’s “belly” rather than “bowels” in more reputable translations. But if you really do want some illustrations for that version, look in the “/b/-tards on Huttaree forums” thread.

 
 

The psychiatrist that the priest in Germany saw said that he was an unrepentant alcoholic and pedophile with no intention of changing.

Given the church’s willingness to cover for him, why bother?

 
 

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