Vatican Representative: Abortion Is an 'Illegitimate Response' to the Zika Virus
Pope Francis did not bring up the Zika virus during his six-day visit in Central America, but that didn’t stop the Vatican from weighing in.
The Pope Would Thank You to Put Your Damn Phone Away at the Dinner Table
Pope Francis says put down your smartphone for five goddamn minutes and please join your family at the dinner table. No, he doesn’t care that Quantico is on and it’s leftover meatloaf, anyway.
Chill Pope and Vatican Set to Do Battle With Ghostly Bosnian Virgin Mary
A spiritual battle is simmering between the Vatican and a popular shrine to the Virgin Mary in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the New York Times reports. The Vatican is investigating the shrine’s main claim to fame: that the Virgin Mary makes regular, in-person appearances. They are skeptical.
Hippie Pope to Gun Makers: You Can't Sit With Us
Another day, another statement from the Pope to make right wing-types tear out their last, sparse remaining hairs: at a rally in Turin, Italy, the pope condemned weapons manufacturers, suggesting they can’t consider themselves Christians.
Chill Vatican Thinks You Ladies Are Beautiful Without Plastic Surgery
A new Vatican document has denounced plastic surgery, calling it "aggressive" and saying it threatens "the feminine identity, showing a refusal of the body." The same document also lumps in abortion with female genital mutilation and rape as things that harm women, just in case you were worried the Vatican was…
Vatican Releases Femen Activist Who Stole Baby Jesus While Topless
Hark! The heretic angels sing!
Pope Francis Got a 'Mass Tango' for His Birthday
Pope Francis just turned 78. In celebration, a bunch of followers sang happy birthday in several languages and also danced the tango en masse. Just a chill birthday for the chill pope.
Vatican Official: Brittany Maynard's Death Was "Reprehensible"
The Vatican might have that cool new Pope, but the rest of the operation is business as usual: a Vatican official told an Italian news agency that 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, the terminally ill 29-year-old who died by assisted suicide over the weekend, committed a "reprehensible" act.
Vatican Asks What Makes Marriage Last; Elderly Couple Says SEX, Duh
On Monday, #chillpope kicked off a big two-week Vatican summit about the Catholic family. Popping by to speak to the gathering were Ron and Mavis Pirola, an Australian couple with 55 years of marriage under their belts, who informed the assembled celibates that, yeah, sex matters. A lot.
Vatican Takes Hard Line on Wayward American Nuns
In the latest play in the Vatican's strict two-year crackdown on those American rebel brutes known as nuns, the Cardinal Ludwig Müller (who I will just assume vaguely resembles George Mueller, from Boardwalk Empire) has taken a rather frank stance with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the…
The Secrets of the Secret Gays of the Vatican
The new issue of Vanity Fair features a story called "The Secret Gay Life of the Vatican: Inside a Hidden Netherworld of the Catholic Church." While the full piece is not online, there's an excerpt on the VF website with two really great quotes.
Pope Says You'll Get into Heaven Faster if You Follow Him on Twitter
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…
Irish Priest May Publicly Defy the Vatican About Advocating for Female Priests and Questioning Church Authority
If you're monitoring your news feed today, you might get to watch Rev. Tony Flannery, a 66-year-old Irish Catholic priest with no threshold for doctrinal bullshit, throw down a serious gauntlet against the Vatican when he defies orders from Vatican authorities not to speak out about his advocacy for a more open-minded…
Italy’s Vanity Fair Cover Story Is All About How Handsome the Pope’s Secretary Is
The beautiful mug of the most handsome Jesus wizard in the Vatican, Georg Ganswein, has graced the cover of Italy's Vanity Fair, proof either that the Catholic Church is trying to glamour Italians into becoming more religious, or that good-looking people really do have a professional leg-up on the rest of us uggos.
Bare Breasts Fail to Stir the Pope’s Cold, Lifeless Heart
Women go topless to protest the Vatican's opposition to gay marriage in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2013. Police quickly took the women away, and the Pope appeared not to have been disturbed as he delivered his traditional prayer from his studio window overlooking the piazza. On their bare…
Guess What, Everyone? The Vatican Haaaated J.K. Rowling’s New Book
I think we'd all like to believe that, sitting next to a reading lamp and swaddled in his Holy Snuggie somewhere deep inside the Vatican's intestinal labyrinths, Pope Benedict Palpatine Vader XVI read The Casual Vacancy with a mounting sense of disappointment that Harry Potter didn't make at least a cameo appearance.…
The Catholic Church Makes Kateri Tekakwitha the First Native American Saint Amid Some Rejoicing
During an elaborate open-air ceremony at the Vatican's Saint Peter's Square this morning that involved a lot of fancy costumes, bejeweled bibles, Latin liturgies, and probably some bored, sleep-weary children, clandestine Sith lord Pope Benedict XVI canonized Kateri Tekakwitha (along with six others), making her the…
Vatican Newspaper Wonders Why Bald Barbie Isn’t Actually in Any Stores
The Vatican's daily newspaper has called for Mattel to start selling its recently-introduced line of bald Barbies, which were introduced earlier this year following a prolonged Facebook campaign started by the mother of a young girl who underwent chemotherapy. Mattel currently donates the bald doll to hospitals, but…
Rebel Nuns Sass Pope, Don Leather Jackets, Cruise Away Loudly on Motorcycles
American nuns, fed up with the Vatican's dissent-squelching bullshit, have fired back at the Pope and his cronies, arguing that cracking down on holy ladies who question the teachings of the Church undermines the entire purpose of Catholicism as an evolving, living faith. Okay — those last two details in the headline…
Women Who Disagree With Catholic Church Now Accused of Radical Feminism Instead of Witchcraft
Change has come to the Catholic Church. After centuries of accusing women who disagree with them of witchcraft, they've abandoned their antiquated ways and embraced a more modern way of thinking — accusing women who disagree with them of "radical feminism." And you say the Church isn't progressive!
