Just as cool merchandise is to blame for the crime of shoplifting, so too are children to blame for the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Catholic clergy for decades. At least, if you ask one influential Catholic archbishop.
Pope Francis, the hippest, most bro'd down Pope since Pope Brad the Chill (not a real pope), just did a long interview with an Italian newspaper — and it was the stuff of right wing nightmares. During the interview, the head of the Church stopped just short of chiding modern church leaders who are "obsessed" with…
Here's an increasingly familiar story: a group of business-owning grown ups who believe things about birth control that are scientifically wrong has lost a lawsuit against the federal government. Related: How much time and money are anti-birth control zealots wasting filing lawsuits they keep losing? I'd be pretty…
Catholics who click on to the pope's Twitter feed on Catholic World Youth Day — a week-long event* that starts on July 22 — will gets an "indulgence", which is basically a get out of purgatory free card. The more you get, the faster you get the heck out of that hell-ish hole and straight up to the big dog's ice cream…
In a move that should surprise only those being cryogenically unfrozen after decades in suspended animation, the Catholic Church is officially okay with gay dudes marrying women and leading frustrating, unfulfilling lives of unpleasant sex. Their reasoning? When a penis and vagina — sorry, man and woman — get…
Nobody seems quite certain of how many saints there actually are, but the Catholic Exchange estimates it at about 810, not counting those currently being considered for sainthood or only got halfway there.
There's a ton of amazing talent in David Bowie's music video for "The Next Day": Bowie, for one, but also Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard, reunited after The Dark Knight Rises. But the video itself is a dismally on-the-nose, been-there-done-that critique of organized religion. NSFWish for breasts and blood.
About 80% of nuns in the United States are members of an umbrella organization called Leadership Conference of Women Religious. This organization devotes the bulk of its efforts to helping the poor and less fortunate, probably like Jesus would have wanted. The last pope did not like the Leadership Conference and the…
Earlier this week, we reported on "Alexis," the 10th grader who was asked to withdraw from Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax, Virginia for texting a topless photo as "a dare" to two male friends on the lacrosse team she managed. According to Alexis and her mother, the boys who shared her sext with the entire…
A 16-year-old student says she was forced to withdraw from her prestigious Catholic prep school after texting a topless photo to two of the school's star athletes, who shared it with the entire lacrosse team but received no punishment. Instead of using the incident as a teachable moment for both male and female…
Pope Francis called women "fundamental" to the Catholic Church today, angering Catholics who believe women should stay away from holy matters because Jesus preferred bros to hos. Is the pope a feminist?!? Let's break it down.
The Vatican collapsed in a puff of smoke and funny hats this morning following Pope Francis's sacrilegious decision to wash and kiss the feet of two young women at a juvenile detention center in Rome on Holy Thursday. Well, not yet, but the gesture angered conservatives and liturgical purists who believe Francis set a…
The world is paying a whole lot of attention to the Catholic Church this week, and I totally get it—the pageantry, the hats, the smoke monster jokes, the Old World charm, Tom Hanks's wig, all the hits. It's irresistible. Yes! Smash the abdicator's magic ring with your silver cudgel of justice, Brother Domenico!…
As part of an ongoing campaign to convince everyone to quit being Catholic, an Italian priest used his annual Christmas message to expound on a very Christmasy topic he'd spent many years studying in Priest JuCo — domestic violence. And like most instances when a celibate male Catholic official comments on what women…
Everyone is expressing their excitement over 12/12/12 in different ways, whether it be by throwing 12/12/12 parties, updating their Facebook status or getting married. (I celebrated by hitting snooze 3 times and eating oatmeal.) Even Benedict XVI, the pope himself, is excited. Why else would he use today to send out…
Since the General Synod voted against allowing women to become bishops last week, the decision has become the biggest crisis faced by the Church of England for decades, alleges a piece on the post-vote fallout in UK periodical The Telegraph. Many of the present bishops (notably, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who cited…
When the Irish government announced its plans for an investigative probe into the death of Savita Halappanavar—the 31-year-old Galway woman who died painfully and senselessly after being denied an abortion by Catholic hospital administrators—Halappanavar's husband was less than satisfied. The original seven-member…
Nowadays, you can't swing an IUD around without it smacking a pro-life evangelical Christian right in the bloody fetus protest sign. But did you know that all of these eternal Biblical truths religious conservatives trot out in making their argument that life begins at conception are actually at odds with much more…
Usually, when the Supreme Court upholds a law, that's it; the law is constitutional. If you want to keep on challenging that ruling, you basically have to make an entirely new law that mandates the opposite of the upheld law and then wait for it to be challenged all the way back to the Supreme Court, and then the…
Every time perpetually apoplectic Catholic League President Bill Donohue does something batshit like send a hilariously impotent comic book villianesque letter to, say, Kraft foods urging them to stop advertising on The Daily Show because Bill Donohue is personally mad about a graphic that appeared in the background…
