Four lessons in brilliant PR from the new Pope

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.

How effective was this last tactic? He’s got the press declaring him a friend to gay people just three weeks after condemning gay marriage. Now that takes serious balls. 

News From Around The Blogosphere 11.9.10

1. Large Hadron Collider causes mini big bang –

“The Large Hadron Collider has successfully created a “mini-Big Bang” by smashing together lead ions instead of protons.”

2. Spain’s LGBT community prepare to welcome Pope with kiss-in – Organisers are using Facebook to grow a  ‘queer kissing flashmob’ intended to congregate in front of Barcelona’s cathedral on Sunday:

“No placards, no flags, no shouting and no slogans. Only kissing allowed,” the Facebook page reads.

3. Liberty Counsel announces its 8^th annual “Naughty & Nice list” – This is the Christian group that tries to discourage people from shopping at those evil stores that have the audacity to use “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” in their advertising. Here’s the official list. I plan on shopping only at the “naughty” stores and passing on the “nice” ones.

4. Skeptics in India launch their own paranormal challenge – Inspired by the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, skeptics in India are offering 50 Lakh rupees (about $112,000) to anyone who can definitively prove under proper scientific conditions that ghosts exist.

5. American Atheists puts up their first billboard and it’s going to be in NYC – The billboard is going up near the Lincoln Tunnel on the NYC side on November 23^rd and will remain there for one month. I’m not all that crazy about it as I’d rather we dropped the whole holiday season schtick and addressed something of more substance, but I don’t hate it either. Here’s what it will look like:

 

Richard Dawkins condemns the Pope

The other day, I wrote on Examiner.com a scathing criticism of Joseph Ratzinger‘s attempt to distract the media by equating atheists with Nazis as well as his role in conspiring to cover up decades of Catholic child sexual abuse. Only a few days later, Richard Dawkins gave a speech at a UK rally against Ratzinger where he basically said the same things I did, albeit, probably more eloquently than I did. You be the judge:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Richard Dawkins on The Pope (bligbi.com)
• Richard Dawkins at Protest the Pope Rally (milkandcookies.com)
• Richard Dawkins at Protest the Pope Rally (friendlyatheist.com)
• Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity – Richard Dawkins – RD.net (richarddawkins.net)

Religion news lightning round

I’m really behind on my religion news, so here’s a quick list of some of the major reliigions stories of the last few days:

1. Pope more outraged over Belgian raids of Catholic Church than child abuse – Belgium officials seized nearly 500 files and a computer from the offices of a Church commission investigating allegations of sex abuse. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said the Belgian bishops were left all day without food or drink even though that was a lie. The Catholic Church in Belgium has apologised for its silence on abuse cases in the past, and for some reason they seem to think that is sufficient justice.

Jeffrey Newell contemplates how many boys he can rape today

2. Sex abuse victim charges Catholic Church with fraud – Sixteen years after being molested by a priest for several years, the victim discovered his rapist, Rev. Jeffrey Newell, is still operating as a priest and his MySpace page lists a half-dozen teenage boys as friends.

That discovery led to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Los Angeles archdiocese alleging that church leaders engaged in fraud and negligence by allowing Newell to continue serving as a priest long after his alleged crimes were reported.

3. ‘One Nation Indivisible’ billboard vandalized only days after going up – Several days ago, I wrote about the billboard that the North Carolina Secular Association put up above the Billy Graham Parkway. Well, apparently this incredibly benign sign pissed someone off so much that they felt it essential that they break the law to further demonstrate why religion is evil.

4. But another one is going up in Florida –

5. Fundies further crusade against the Friendly Atheist – Last year, I wrote several pieces about Laurie Higgins and her Illinois Family Institute’s crazy attacks on Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist. Well, she’s back with some more wild accusations about Mehta, who responds to her latest attacks himself here and here.

6. Scholar suggest Jesus didn’t die on the cross – I’d agree on the grounds that Jesus never existed but historians but theologian Gunnar Samuelsson just says the text has been misinterpreted:

He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references the use of nails or to crucifixion – only that Jesus bore a “staurus” towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a “pole”.

Mr Samuelsson, who has written a 400-page thesis after studying the original texts, said: “The problem is descriptions of crucifixions are remarkably absent in the antique literature.

“The sources where you would expect to find support for the established understanding of the event really don’t say anything.”

7. Detroit Catholics fighting for the right of rapists to go unpunished –

Victims of abuse by Catholic clergy are expressing dismay at the strong lobbying the church is doing in Lansing to halt an effort to remove Michigan’s statute of limitations on sex abuse cases. In Michigan, victims must file criminal or civil complaints by the time they turn 19 — what some say is an unrealistic limit on kids who often are traumatized for years by the abuse.

The church maintains that removing the statute of limitations could open the floodgates to abuse cases that are a half-century old and could take money away from programs that benefit the poor.

Yeah, everyone knows that crimes cease being bad if you sweep them under the rug for long enough .

8. YouTube censors music video critical of the Pope –

The alternative rock band Fuji Minx recently released a music video for their song, “The Music Made Me Do It.” The video was uploaded to YouTube and then taken down by YouTube without explanation after six days.

The video is dedicated to “Recovering Catholics Everywhere” and features the burning of a photo of the Pope with the word “Confess” written on it in red. There is also a photo of musician Sinead O’Connor in the video which is placed on a dresser covering a picture of Jesus. O’Connor made headlines a number of years ago by ripping up a photo of the previous Pope live on TV.

And you can find an embedded copy of that video in the link above. And the lead singer of the band, Greta Valenti, discusses the controversy in an interview here.

News From Around The Blogosphere 5.18.10

1. Daughter of $cientology’s Australian president speaks out – Yet another child of a major player in $cientology is an outspoken critic of the cult, Scarlett Hanna, the only child of Vicki Dunstan, president of the Church of Scientology in Australia, and Mark Hanna, a former Asian/Pacific director of public affairs for the church. She grew up in the former Cadet Org, which allegedly was preparing children for eventual recruitment in the Sea Org.

“The best way I can describe it is cattle,” Ms Hanna said of their treatment. We were property of the organisation.”

. . .

She claims children of Sea Org members rarely had contact with their parents, lived in separate homes and were granted only 20 minutes each night with their parents.

2. Gay couple convicted of ‘unnatural acts’ – Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, have been in jail since December in the Southern African country of Malawi. Ever since the day after their engagement party. Their only crime is being gay.

Religion's latest victim

3. 15-year-old Jehovah’s Witness dies after refusing blood transfusion – Yup, just another day for religion. So next time someone tells you about all the good done in the name of religion, remind them about Joshua McAuley, one of countless victims of religious ignorance.

4. Thousands flock to Vatican to back pope over abuse – Yay child rape!! If this story doesn’t demonstrate the evil of religion, then nothing ever will. Here are thousands of people who are quite literally showing their support for child rapists and those who protect them from prosecution because they refuse to accept the fact that their church is responsible for unspeakable human atrocities. This really is the ultimate Milgram authority experiment. If they can justify at least half a million child rapes, what else are these people capable of justifying?

5. Dark Horse releases atheist superhero comic – Move over, S.H.I.E.L.D. There’s a new acronym saving the day in comic books, S.H.O.O.T. That stands for the Secular Humanist Occult Obliteration Taskforce. I must admit that I don’t really get the concept. It’s an atheist team who fight demons and ghosts, etc. that they don’t believe in, but appear to exist anyway. If they’re fighting them, why wouldn’t they believe in them? Are the monsters they face supposed to be physical manifestations of someone’s imagination or something?

News From Around The Blogosphere 5.17.10

I'm Miss USA now. Suck on that, bitches!

1. A Muslim and liberal declared Miss USA – This is a nice step up from Carrie Prejean. Of course the right-wing loonies who last year defended Carrie Prejean as having a right to her idiotic opinions have now come out swinging against the new Miss USA Rima Fakih. Fakih is an Arab-American (are we still doing the hyphen thing?) of Lebanese decent. Of course the right-wing pundits are all claiming liberal bias again because Miss Oklahoma Morgan Elizabeth Woolard lost after saying she was “perfectly fine” with the new Arizona immigration policy.

Of course once again, their over the top outrage seems to coincidentally be against someone who just happens to not be white. So what did my personal favorite insane righter-winger Debbie Schlussel and other pundits say about this trivial little pageant decisions?

– Conservative radio host Debbie Schlussel blamed Fakih’s win on a supposed “politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate” in America and labeled her a “Lebanese Muslim Hezbollah supporter with relatives who are top terrorists.” [5/16/10]

– Right wing pundit and Fox contributor Michelle Malkin ranted that “Fakih’s cheerleaders are too busy tooting the identity politics horn to care what comes out of her mouth” and that “the Miss USA pageant didn’t want to risk the wrath of the open-borders mob.” [5/16/10]

– Conservative author Daniel Pipes, who was briefly appointed by former President George W. Bush to the U.S. Institute of Peace, opined that “this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.” [5/16/10]

– Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson complained that Woolard’s “informed opinion” may have cost her the crown, and said that Fakih may have won because we live in a “PC society.” [5/17/10]

I’m taking bets on how long it takes for them to call into question her nation of origin and start demanding to see her birth certificate.

2. Vatican’s latest legal strategy – I’m not sure if blaming others and denying any responsibility technically qualifies as a “new” strategy though. Now they’re denying priests at American dioceses are employees  of the Catholic Church and denying what their own “crimes of solicitation” document says in plain Latin, that they are under no obligation to report sexual abuse among their ranks to the proper authorities. This is the equivalent of, say, Toyota denying the defective vehicles were theirs.

3. Another great article on Texas School Board’s war against education –

Cynthia Dunbar does not have a high regard for her local schools. She has called them unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion. The conservative Texas lawyer has even likened sending children to her state’s schools to “throwing them in to the enemy’s flames”. Her hostility runs so deep that she educated her own offspring at home and at private Christian establishments.

And that’s just the first paragraph!

News From Around The Blogosphere 5.11.10

1. Psychic scams Oregon man out of $150,000 – In order to remove a demon, a man gave a “psychic” boat loads of cash and a Hummer totaling $150k and now he’s bankrupt. Let that be a lesson for you. Sometimes having a demon around isn’t that bad after all.

2. Mojave cross from Salazar v. Buono Supreme Court decision was stolen – And while I think it’s outrageous that the thing was allowed to remain there in the first place, I have to condemn the actions of whoever was responsible. If it was an atheist or atheists responsible, I apologize for them. I always criticize the religious for not condemning the bullshit actions of their fanatics, so it’d be hypocritical for me to not do the same when it’s possible fanatical atheists were involved.

3.TV stations everywhere fall for fake Yo-Yo trick champ – In one of the best executed pranks in recent memory, some dude fooled a whole bunch of TV stations to give him air time to demonstrate his amazing Yo-Yo skills…which look remarkably like the worst Yo-Yo-ing in human history. But all we really know about “K-Strass,” aka Kenny Strasser aka Karl Strassburg is that he’s gotten on TV at least six times in the past month.

4. Constance McMillen’s Second Chance Prom a huge success – After her high school held a prom without her because she was gay, the American Humanist Association and philanthropist Todd Stiefe donated money to give her and her classmates another prom, an inclusive one. Even the band Green Day donated money  Lance Bass made a personal appearance. Suck it, small-minded assholes running her school!

5. Pope blames church’s own sins for sex scandal – So does that mean then that all the other Catholics like Bill Donohue and Church leaders were lying when they claimed that it was demons, gays, and the media who were to blame?

6. Woman claims 3-D porn got her pregnant…seriously:

News From Around The Blogosphere 4.13.10

1. Malta’s mayor afraid to show Pope city’s giant phallus – C’mon, the Pope wasn’t embarrassed by half a million children raped by his employees. So why would this bother him?

2. Inkjet-like device ‘prints’ skin cells over burns – Once again, as Carl Sagan said, “science delivers the goods.”

Inspired by a standard office inkjet printer, U.S. researchers have rigged up a device that can spray skin cells directly onto burn victims, quickly protecting and healing their wounds as an alternative to skin grafts.

How cool is that?

3. Constance McMillen named Grand Marshal of NYC 2010 Gay Pride Parade – The Gay Pride Parade is by far my favorite NYC parade. Many prefer the Halloween parade but I have more fun just wandering The Village as NYC treats Halloween like everyone else treats Christmas. But it’s just great being a part of a parade thats very existence is an affront to those whom despise. Congrats Constance. Hope to see you there.

4. Moscow, Idaho gets an American Humanist Assocation billboard –

Does the Catholic Church know they have a right to remain silent?

In the past few weeks it seems like the Catholic Church has gained a new enemy, one that is will stop at nothing to destroy their reputation. That enemy, it turns out, is themselves. Instead of learning from the sex scandals of those who have come before and dropping below the radar, the Church has decided to go another way, digging themselves deeper and deeper every single day with a brand new excuse and scapegoat.

First, a leading Catholic exorcist used the ever popular “devil made them do it” defense. Then the Church and leading Catholic figures started responding by playing down the significance of their crimes with the always popular “everyone else is doing” defense. Then came the even more popular “blame the parents” defense. Then came the “blame the gays” defense.

Then the Church turned its focus away from excusing their crimes to announcing reasons why the Pope should be immune from prosecution. The first is that the Pope, as head of state, is immune from prosecution (aka Joey Ratz does whatever Joey Ratz wants and if you get in the way, he’ll whack you or have your children horribly raped). The second excuse is that the American priests were not Vatican employees  (This should go over really well with the American Catholics). And the third excuse is that they’ve declared by fiat that the smoking gun evidence that has been confirmed by high ranking church officials is really not smoking gun evidence at all (I call this the Jedi Mind Trick defense – these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Now move along).

Then another leading Catholic exorcist led the offensive against the media for having the audacity to report the undeniable facts about the greatest sex scandal in human history by using the “devil is making the media do it” defense. Bill Donohue just accused the New York Times of being biased against Catholicism. Then more Church leaders ran with the media accusations approach and declared the media were akin to anti-Semites, which was particularly amusing given the Catholic Church’s long history of promoting anti-Semitism. This was obviously a smart move because when you’re in such hot water already, why not piss off the Jews too while you’re at it? Of cource El Papa himself wasn’t going to restrict his grand media conspiracy theories to any one group. No, the Pope went for a more generic “they’re all out to get us” defense:

“I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign … to discredit the church.”

Then as they continued to deny the smoking gun evidence of the Pope’s and the Church’s involvement in these crimes, even more smoking gun evidence surfaced that directly implicated the Pope

Then in the last few days, it got REALLY interesting. In addition to continuing to use the “blame the gays” defense, they decided to condemn a Connecticut bill that would remove the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases for some unknown reasons because the Catholic Church has been denying guilt for child abuse cases and, if you remember, specifically distanced themselves from American Catholic officials. That was the same day a Bishop used the super popular “blame the Jews” defense:

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism, considering how “powerful and refined” the criticism is.

The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.

Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: “They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.”

Oh, how adorable that last statement would have been had it not been used the greatest fascist dictator in history to justify the systematic extermination of six million Jews in the greatest act of genocide ever recorded…and you know, it didn’t directly contradict the Catholic Church’s official position:

On its website, the American Jewish Group Committee quoted bishop Vincenzo Paglia, an official at the Italian Bishops’ Conference, as saying Babini’s remarks were “entirely contrary to the official line and mainstream thought of the Catholic church”.

Whoever is doing their PR is doing a spectacular job of making things worse. I couldn’t make the Church look any worse if you paid me millions of dollars to do so. By tomorrow they’ll probably be blaming black people and the decline of slavery for their inability to restrain themselves from raping children.

Why not? They’ve got nothing to lose as those responsible for these crimes and for the crimes of covering it up and allowing it to continue will NEVER EVER BE PUNISHED FOR THEIR ACTIONS. Even the most outraged media personalities won’t go any further than insisting that the Pope resign…cause after all, that’s the strictest punishment we have for aiding child rapists, right? And if the Pope resigns, the Catholic Church will never ever rape any other children or cover up the rapes of children ever again, right?

None of these people will be appropriate punished because they work for the Catholic Church. Bill Maher said it best:

That’s right. The Pope is coming to America this week, and, ladies, he’s single! Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Bill, you can’t be saying that the Catholic Church is no better than this creepy Texas cult! For one thing, altar boys can’t even get pregnant.”

But, really, what tripped up the “little cult on the prairie” was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands all over the world. Cults get raided. Religions get parades. How does the Catholic Church get away with all of their buggery? VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME!

If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you “Pope.”

It’s like if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat, but if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re Bear Stearns, and we bail you out. And that’s who the Catholic Church is, the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia. Too big to fail.

The Catholic Church is just “too big to fail” or too big and influential for authorities to stand up to them. What politician would demand these monsters be prosecuted under the law? So they’re going to get away with it and we should either stop kidding ourselves into thinking otherwise or prepare to take extreme action to force politicians into action.

More smoking gun evidence that Pope hid pedophile priests

Bill Donohue has been pop insisting over and over again that there’s no evidence the Pope did anything wrong and at this point nothing will convince him otherwise, NO MATTER HOW MUCH EVIDENCE IS PRESENTED TO THE CONTRARY!!!!