The Swamp

Jerloma wrote:I guess I'm just having a hard time understanding why anyone would be surprised that the Pope would support her. Surely they're aware that they share the same views on marriage equality. Is it because they thought the Pope would support church/state separation? On what grounds? He runs the most theocratic state in the world.

Jerloma wrote:I guess I'm just having a hard time understanding why anyone would be surprised that the Pope would support her. Surely they're aware that they share the same views on marriage equality. Is it because they thought the Pope would support church/state separation? On what grounds? He runs the most theocratic state in the world.

Giff wrote:The "Pope has a huge cock" joke was a highlight of the first TDSWTN.

The Sybian wrote:

Giff wrote:The "Pope has a huge cock" joke was a highlight of the first TDSWTN.

I gotta say, Trevor did a really nice job. It felt like he had been rehearsing half of the jokes for 3 months, but they were well written, and I feel like the show is more in his voice than Jon's. It took Jon a long time to move away from doing Kilborn's show and making it his own. Just realized, there wasn't a moment of zen, was there?

Jerloma wrote:I think he's a fucking idiot.

BSF21 wrote:

Jerloma wrote:I think he's a fucking idiot.

I'm going to regret this, but based on what?

The man is a real player within the institutional church. He first came to prominence as a whistleblower during one of the several investigations of the Vatican Bank, which may be what got him exiled to this godless Republic in the first place. Despite that fact, Vigano is well-known to be a Ratzinger loyalist and he always has been a cultural conservative, particularly on the issue of marriage equality. In April, in a move that was unprecedented, Vigano got involved with an anti-marriage equality march in Washington sponsored by the National Association For Marriage. (And, mirabile dictu, as we say around Castel Gandolfo at happy hour, one of the speakers at this rally was Mat Staver, who happens now to be Kim Davis's lawyer.) In short, Vigano, a Ratzinger loyalist, who has been conspicuous and publicly involved in the same cause as Kim Davis and her legal team, arranges a meeting with Davis that the legal team uses to its great public advantage. Once again paraphrasing New Orleans lawyer Lamar Parmentel from The Big Easy, the Vatican is a marvelous environment for coincidence.

BSF21 wrote:

Jerloma wrote:I think he's a fucking idiot.

I'm going to regret this, but based on what?

DaveInSeattle wrote:Charles Pierce with an "interesting" theory about the Pope-Kim Davis confab...

Was Pope Francis Actually Swindled into Meeting Kim Davis?

The key player is Archbishop Carlo Vigano....

The man is a real player within the institutional church. He first came to prominence as a whistleblower during one of the several investigations of the Vatican Bank, which may be what got him exiled to this godless Republic in the first place. Despite that fact, Vigano is well-known to be a Ratzinger loyalist and he always has been a cultural conservative, particularly on the issue of marriage equality. In April, in a move that was unprecedented, Vigano got involved with an anti-marriage equality march in Washington sponsored by the National Association For Marriage. (And, mirabile dictu, as we say around Castel Gandolfo at happy hour, one of the speakers at this rally was Mat Staver, who happens now to be Kim Davis's lawyer.) In short, Vigano, a Ratzinger loyalist, who has been conspicuous and publicly involved in the same cause as Kim Davis and her legal team, arranges a meeting with Davis that the legal team uses to its great public advantage. Once again paraphrasing New Orleans lawyer Lamar Parmentel from The Big Easy, the Vatican is a marvelous environment for coincidence.

Lombardi said the Vatican wanted to “clarify” what happened “in order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.”
“Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who had been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family,” he said.

Jerloma wrote:

BSF21 wrote:

Jerloma wrote:I think he's a fucking idiot.

I'm going to regret this, but based on what?

He went on a Twitter rampage on the day that Hitchens died saying a bunch of ignorant, childish shit, talking shots at him and atheists in general, under the hashtag "everyoneneedsagod". Not like offensive or anything; just asinine. This is all fine of course. Hitchens would welcome that discourse and the opportunity to crush some intellectual midget. It's just that when you wait until right after the guy dies to start taking your shots, it's not only idiotic; it's kind of cowardly.

DaveInSeattle wrote: The key player is Archbishop Carlo Vigano....

…In short, Vigano, a Ratzinger loyalist…

Jerloma wrote:The PR machine that is the Vatican doesn't say a word for two days then all of a sudden comes out with "The Pope's kindness and availability was taken advantage of." Holy fuck, Dave. I think you've reached the limits of your gullibility.

Jerloma wrote:Well, he doesn't have to meet with her to support her. We already know his views on marriage equality and he also said that a government worker has a right to skirt their duties due to conscientious objection.

Imagine for a second that Obama secretly met with some dude that wouldn't sell guns to Christians and it leaked out. The White House says nothing for a few days then comes out with some story about how he was tricked into this meeting and it only happened because he's so kind and accessible. Nobody in their right mind would buy it.

brian wrote:

Jerloma wrote:Well, he doesn't have to meet with her to support her. We already know his views on marriage equality and he also said that a government worker has a right to skirt their duties due to conscientious objection.

Imagine for a second that Obama secretly met with some dude that wouldn't sell guns to Christians and it leaked out. The White House says nothing for a few days then comes out with some story about how he was tricked into this meeting and it only happened because he's so kind and accessible. Nobody in their right mind would buy it.

You're not comparing apples to apples. If Obama met with a group of like 40 or 50 people at an event setup by John Kerry (to pick a random person) and it turns out one of them is some kind of left-wing loon, then maybe you're in the ballpark.

SANTIAGO, Chile — Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse.

“The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

“Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said.

The Vatican has told new Catholic bishops that they have no obligation to report clerical child abuse, according to reports.

During a presentation for newly appointed bishops, French Monsignor Tony Anatrella said they don’t have a duty to report abuse because it should be the responsibility of victims and their families to go to the police. The comments were first reported by John L. Allen at the Catholic news site Cruxnow.com earlier this week.

Johnnie wrote:That guy was as popular as Menino in Boston while I was growing up.

It still kinda bothers me that I took communion from him once.

When I heard the news that Cardinal Bernard Law was dead, a torrent of memories immediately washed over me: of that morning in January 2002 when my colleagues and I on the Globe Spotlight Team revealed that Law had covered up decades of child sexual abuse; of that day a year later when he resigned as archbishop of Boston and fled to the Vatican; and of the sumptuous rewards he received upon arriving in Rome, where he served as a prominent archpriest, even as he became a living symbol of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

But mostly, I thought about the victims of the abusive priests Law had shuffled from parish to parish, as he hid their crimes and placed protecting the church high above his responsibility to safeguard children who had trusted their priests as caring father figures and representatives of God.

Tragically, several of those victims are no longer with us. One is Patrick McSorley, who was molested when he was only 12 years old by one of the most notorious abusers in the Boston Archdiocese, the Rev. John J. Geoghan.

In the summer of 2001, McSorley was one of the first victims who agreed to speak with me, and I will never forget him. After meeting with me in attorney Mitchell Garabedian’s office, in a scene portrayed in the movie “Spotlight,” McSorley told me a story that shook me to my core.

Shortly after his father’s suicide, McSorley said, Geoghan appeared at his apartment in a Hyde Park public housing project to express his sympathies to his mother and offered to take young Patrick out for an ice cream cone.

On the way home, McSorley continued, Geoghan patted his upper leg as he consoled him over his father’s death. But then the priest slid his hand into Patrick’s crotch and grabbed him there.

“I froze up,” McSorley told me. “I was petrified,” especially when Geoghan began masturbating.

Then, when Geoghan dropped McSorley off at his mother’s apartment, he offered some telling advice, gently suggesting that they keep what had happened in Geoghan’s care just between them.

“He said, ‘We’re very good at keeping secrets,’ ” McSorley recalled.

The courage Patrick showed by speaking with me, and allowing me to quote him by name, inspired many other victims to reveal the secrets about abusive priests they had kept for too long. But less than two years after meeting with me, McSorley was dead, the victim of a drug overdose and his inability to shake the memory of a priest who had violated his body and his soul and robbed him of the chance to live his own life.

brian wrote:I’m starting to think Jerloma has a beef with the Catholic Church.

Johnnie wrote:That guy was as popular as Menino in Boston while I was growing up.

"Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas," the Pope's message said.