If ever you wanted to learn how to be a master at public relations, there’s no better individual to learn from than Pope Francis. This guy is such a good salesman, he could sell mink coats to PETA.
So far, he’s managed to distract the press from the child sex abuse crisis that dogged Joseph Ratzinger throughout his entire administration. But that’s not all.
He’s also taught us all four simple, yet brilliant, tricks to capture the imaginations of an insanely naive and credulous media to avoid addressing embarrassing realities of the Catholic Church:
1. Get a photo-op where you’re seen washing women’s feet as a symbolic gesture that the press will fawn all over you as a feminist despite your having done nothing to change your church’s insanely misogynistic policies that don’t even allow women to become priests, let alone be considered for the position of pope.
2. Make big speeches about fighting poverty so the press will fawn all over you for caring about the poor despite the fact that, while being possibly the one person on the planet with the power to single-handedly end global poverty tomorrow, you give less to charity than Mitt Romney.
3. Say atheists can get into heaven despite their evil, despicable nature so the press will fawn all over you for being so open-minded without noticing you’re actually insulting atheists and ignoring the fact that they don’t believe in heaven to begin with.
4. And finally, Pope Francis’ latest PR move: saying it’s not your place to judge gay people despite their evil, despicable nature so the press will fawn all over you for being so open-minded without noticing you’re a bigoted asshole who’s actually insulting gay people and despite your having done nothing to change your church’s insanely homophobic policies and political views.
Bill Donohue‘s in the news again. And surprise, surprise. He’s OUTRAGED about something in the media. So what trite and meaningless target has he picked this time? It’s the new comedy film The Three Stooges, because it features a sexy nun character in a swimsuit and Larry David’s portrayal of a nun character. Whether David plays some sort of male nun or whether he’s supposed to be playing some hideous-looking female nun, I don’t know because I haven’t seen the movie due to its looking really stupid. Though now that I know Bill Donohue doesn’t like it, I might just buy a ticket after all.
So why do I bother to give this sickening pile of excrement more of that attention he desperately craves? Well, because it gives me another excuse to post my favorite audio clips of Donohue applying for the role of worst person in the world. In the following two clips, we hear Donohue on a radio show passionately defend nothing short of mass child rape.
Donohue tries every trick in the book and it all goes so horribly bad for him because he happens to be talking with someone who was themselves a victim of rape by a Catholic priest and who is incredibly well versed in the damning report of abuse in Ireland schools.
We hear Donohue deny the undeniable facts and make up a host of his own, followed by him being called out on his repulsive lies and truly despicable attempts to re-frame the whole scandal to paint the rapists as the true victims while painting the child victims of rape as greedy liars who made up their accusations. And when it’s pointed out to Donohue that even Catholic Church officials themselves have accepted more responsibility for these atrocities than Donohue is willing to allow, he actually insists that the Church is lying because they’ve been “beaten down” by some phantom media conspiracy to destroy the Catholic Church. If ever there were more proof that Donohue is a committed fanatic, that’s got to be it. To actually deny even the involvement that the Church itself has admitted to and suggesting the very people who would have the most to lose from admitting guilt are lying—that’s just bonkers!
Fox disagreed that Three Stooges diverges from the original series. “The movie, in keeping with the spirit of the original TV show and its stars, is a broad, slapstick comedy,” a Fox spokesperson said.
“As the Stooges have proved over time, laughter is a universal medicine. The nuns that Mr. Donohue alludes to, are in fact, caring, heroic characters in the movie, albeit within the framework of a very broad comedy,” the spokesperson continued. “And as far as the nun attire, I think we did the audinece a favor by letting Kate Upton wear the nun-kini rather than Larry David — it could have gone either way. We invite you to see the movie and decide for yourselves.”
So let’s be clear here. Child rape is a-ok with Bill Donohue, but dressing a nun character in a sexy swimsuit is UNACCEPTABLE! Way to prioritize, Bill.
The airwaves are full of bitter remarks supporting Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s attack on the “disgraceful” Vatican, and recommending every anti-church measure from the dissolution of the monasteries to the expulsion of the Papal Nuncio and the severing of all links with the Holy See. (The recall of the Papal Nuncio this week marks the lowest point of relations between Ireland and Rome.)
One correspondent wrote that it was his ardent hope that the Catholic Church would follow the example of the News of the World, and hold a “last Mass” before shutting down.
The Taoiseach, meanwhile, has been met with standing ovations for his salvo against the Vatican for failing to respond with sufficient concern to the clerical sex abuse scandals as described in the Cloyne report.
This is a far cry from two decades ago when Sinead O’Connor was almost universally hated for declaring the previous Pope “the real enemy” while ripping up his picture on Saturday Night Live.
1. The Catholic Church figures out who’s really to blame for their child abuse cases – A study commissioned by the completely unbiased the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out suggesting that all that child fucking the Catholic Church is so addicted to is really the fault of 1960’s hippies. It also apparently retroactively explains all that church sex abuse we know about from the 19th and early 20th centuries too. Amazing thing, that free-love 60’s movement!
2. CDC prepares for zombie apocalypse – In conjunction with Zombie Awareness Month, the CDC recommends planning ahead for a zombie invasion much as you would any other disaster. Of course, the point of this is to get people thinking about how to protect themselves from any disaster. The idea is rather brilliant. By framing it around zombies, they’ve gotten massive media attention, which they would not have if they were warning people about, you know, actual real threats people should be prepared for…which is waaaay less interesting to the media than who got kicked off Dancing with the Stars this week or what Lady Gaga is eating for breakfast. Steven Novella also discusses this story here.And don’t forget: Cardio, beware of bathrooms, seat belts, double tap.
3. 60 Minutes discusses dangerous, anti-government Sovereign Citizens cult – Wasn’t familiar with them before but even a brief Google search turns up enough evidence that these people are nuts. And what’s really sad is that many people are calling the 60 Minutes piece biased and are actually defending these crazies simply because the Sovereign Citizens exploit anti-government, libertarian rhetoric.
I’ve written before about Bill Donohue’s tireless defense of child rapists by downplaying their crimes, so this is really nothing new. Here’s what he recently said:
The refrain that child rape is a reality in the Church is twice wrong: let’s get it straight—they weren’t children and they weren’t raped. We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents, and that the most common abuse has been inappropriate touching (inexcusable though this is, it is not rape). The Boston Globe correctly said of the John Jay report that “more than three-quarters of the victims were post pubescent, meaning the abuse did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.” In other words, the issue is homosexuality, not pedophilia.
As usual, he’s wrong on all counts. Half of the sexual abuse involved female victims and just because some of the abuse happened to teenagers instead of pre-pubescents, that doesn’t make it okay. Not even close. Not only did the specific offenders rape underage (and sometimes very underage) minors but they abused their position of trust in order to do so. And worst of all, a point Donohue has no interest in acknowledging, the Church directly conspired to cover up these crimes and this cover-up reaches reaches the very top of the Church’s leadership. The US court system has even served the pope with papers over his involvement in the cover-up.
It’s just appalling that he continues to maintain this untenable position and nobody seems interested in denouncing him or making any attempt to distance themselves from him. I even saw Donohue representing the Catholic League at the recent St. Patrick’s Day Parade in NYC. As far as I can tell, nobody suggested it would be inappropriate to allow a child rape supporter to participate in what’s supposed to be a family friendly parade.
1. New BBC report shows further decline in religion – In the past few years, a number of polls have shown religion is declining as increasingly more people identify themselves as not belonging to any religion. And now yet another poll shows this trend based on the census data of nine countries.
According to this report, John Thomas, 28, of Upper Darby, a Philadelphia suburb, told police he killed Murray Seidman of nearby Lansdowne because the Bible refers to stoning homosexuals.
Rather than destroying HIV, a proposed treatment would embrace its infectious abilities, sending the virus into competition with a harmless, stripped-down version of itself.
Dubbed therapeutic interfering particles, or TIPs, these engineered viral scraps would ride with HIV as it spreads from person to person. By out-competing HIV for cellular resources, the TIPs might slow its progression and lower infection rates.
The likely source is an infant who traveled to Kenya and returned in the beginning of February. Cases have ranged in age from 4 months to 4 years. Four of the cases were too young to receive vaccine, four were of age but were not vaccinated, and one has unknown vaccine status. There have been five hospitalizations and no deaths.
On a related note, if you happen to run into Andrew Wakefield or Jenny McCarthy, please punch them in the face for me.
5. 60 Minutes turns Catholic child rape scandal into a fluff piece – This week’s 60 Minutes featured an embarrassingly piece on New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, whose making it his mission to restore the Church’s reputation after that pesky mass child rape conspiracy thing. In the piece, Dolan expressed little interest in helping to bring child rapists and their accomplices to justice or declaring specific changes to ensure it never happens again, and showed that his primary purpose is spin control. And 60 Minutes, like all the mainstream media, found that entirely satisfactory. I wonder if Scott Pelley would still be satisfied if his own child were raped by priests and committed suicide because of the psychological scars while the perpetrators were given full immunity from justice because instead of working for Starbucks, the organization they happen to work for is named the Catholic Church. Though I am happy to see that the commenters on 60 Minutes webpage are really letting them have it. And here’s a great piece on how out of touch with reality the Catholic Church is.
The woman accused of killing her 3-year-old daughter earlier this week believed God had instructed her to stick a rose in the young girl’s throat to ward off the devil, according to documents filed in Nantucket District Court.
So next time someone suggests religion is harmless, remind them of 3-year-old Nicole Garcia Pleitez.
Child-abuse activists in Ireland said the 1997 letter demonstrates that the protection of pedophile priests from criminal investigation was not only sanctioned by Vatican leaders but ordered by them.
“The letter is of huge international significance, because it shows that the Vatican’s intention is to prevent reporting of abuse to criminal authorities. And if that instruction applied here, it applied everywhere,” said Colm O’Gorman, director of the Irish chapter of human rights watchdog Amnesty International.
The truly sickening part is that none of these people responsible for this order will ever see the inside of a jail cell because not a single government has the courage to stand up to the Catholic Church.
But here’s one way to get back at them. We could steal this…
4. Watson, come here…and kick Ken Jenning’s ass! – As we continue to advance towards the goal of creating artificial intelligence, it’s hard to know what will come first, computers rising to the intelligence of humans or humans reaching the level of stupidity of computers. But one possible sign that we’re heading towards the former is Watson, a computer designed by IBM (hopefully not using Windows Vista) that will compete with Jeopardy‘s greatest champions in an epic battle to the death (presumably). After making Steve Jobs sick (presumably), Watson has also already defeated all-time Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings in a preliminary game. Unsubstantiated rumors says that when asked what it’ll do with the winning prize money, Watson replied, “initiate Judgment D–err, I mean, I’m going to Disney Land.”
5. Homeopaths retaliate against critics with accusations of ‘medical apartheid’ – A group of thirteen of Britain’s most reputable doctors have written a letter to the NHS, calling for them to stop using “unproven” complementary treatments such as homeopathy. So the homeopaths felt it appropriate to liken their level of “persecution” to the suffering of those in South Africa, accusing their critics of “medical apartheid.” Stay classy, guys!
1. Catholic Church tells hospital they should have let patient die – A pregnant woman who was almost certainly going to die came into St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. The doctors knew that in order to save the woman’s life, they’d have to abort the fetus. And it worked. But the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix didn’t like that decision and so they essentially excommunicated the hospital from any Catholic affiliation. They actually punished a hospital for putting patient life first. Though I guess it’s not really a punishment since now the hospital administration can continue to act ethically without having to give the misguided and ignorant opinions of Catholic officials another thought.
And speaking of the Catholic Church…
2. WikiLeaks uncovers another possible Vatican scandal – The Vatican originally agreed in writing to take up observer status with the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, referred to as the ITF. Then, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks, they reneged on the agreement amid controversy over the role of the war-time pope.
She added that the deal “had fallen apart completely … due to Vatican back-pedaling,” according to the cable, which was published by the newspaper.
The message says this decision “may have been taken by the Vatican’s relatively inexperienced new deputy foreign minister (Ettore Balestrero), and if so, would not be the first time he has complicated Vatican foreign relations.”
However, it added: “The Vatican may also be pulling back due to concerns about ITF pressure to declassify records from the WWII-era pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
Yup, you can always count on the Vatican…for a good scandal.
3. Gallop poll suggests America is gradually moving towards accepting evolution – When it comes to accepting evolution, America is somewhat of an embarrassment to the rest of the world. In recent years, polls have shown that up to 47% of Americans are Young Earth Creationists. But a new poll suggests that number is now only 40%. Still not anything remotely to be proud of but it suggests that maybe our efforts to take on the creationists may be yielding positive results.
4. Sanjay Gupta embarrassingly uncritical of John of God – Unfortunately, CNN hasn’t put up the video yet of this segment, but I’ve linked to their blog about it. For those who don’t know, John of God is a Brazilian con artist posing as a faith healer. He does nothing we haven’t seen other “faith healers” who have been exposed as frauds have done, and yet Sanjay Gupta and his guests still found him to be “mysterious.” In fact, given how many times they reminded the audience during this segment that the universe is mysterious and there are still things we don’t know, Gupta made it clear that journalistic and scientific integrity was not very high on his list of priorities. I intend to write to CNN to express my outrage over the segment and demand that they fire Sanjay Gupta for his anti-intellectual nonsense. I hope others will join me in this campaign.
1. The universe is larger than we thought – How much larger? At least three times larger, according to new research that shows elliptical galaxies contain five to ten times more stars than we thought. I’d imagine that this would significantly impact the Drake Equation that attempts to estimate the likely amount of extraterrestrial civilizations exist. It certainly makes the gods of human religions seem much, much smaller if they’re main concern is for one particular bipedal life form on a pale, blue dot in the middle of nowhere in the universe.
2. Anne Hathoway discusses why she left the Catholic Church – She’s not an atheist but Hathoway does go into more detail about her feelings towards the Catholic Church and her family’s decision to each independently leave the Church.
3. The End is Near…again – The Christian radio network, Family Radio Inc. is predicting that The Rapture will occur on exactly May 21, 2011 (apparently in honor of Star Wars) despite the Bible specifically stating that no one would be able to predict the time or the hour Jesus would return. But that isn’t stopping Family Radio from putting up a billboard announcing it. I think people should better them every dollar their staff owns that the world will not end on that date, to be paid in full on May 22, 2011. If they’re so certain, what do they have to lose? Right?
It seems the Vatican has done something they’ve never ever done before, made a mistake. [snicker]
But seriously though, the Catholic Church has for the second time given praise to the TV show The Simpsons, a show that at one time was pretty universally despised by religious groups. And for good reason. The show’s creator, Matt Groening, is an atheist and the writers have never shied away from mocking the absurdity of just about every religion (except the cult of $cientology, the “church” that the woman who voices Bart Simpson is part of).
But executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly on Monday he was in “shock and awe” at the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the “Presbylutheran” First Church of Springfield.
“We’ve pretty clearly shown that Homer is not Catholic,” Jean said. “I really don’t think he could go without eating meat on Fridays — for even an hour.”
If ever you wanted to learn how to be a master at public relations, there’s no better individual to learn from than Pope Francis. This guy is such a good salesman, he could sell mink coats to PETA. 
Posted by Michael Rosch 
Skepacabra 