Wow:

In 2002, at the height of the outcry over the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests, the Archbishop of New York, Edward M. Egan, issued a letter to be read at Mass. In it, he offered an apology about the church’s handling of sex-abuse cases in New York and in Bridgeport, Conn., where he was previously posted.

“It is clear that today we have a much better understanding of this problem,” he wrote. “If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

Now, 10 years later and in retirement, Cardinal Egan has taken back his apology. In a interview with Connecticut magazine published on the magazine’s Web site last week, a surprisingly frank Cardinal Egan said of the apology, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

I think that's what the pope means. That and legal gay marriage will turn all straight women into carpet munching golf pros. Otherwise I don't see how allowing same-sex couples to marry—the civil right, not the religious rite—presents a threat to the "the future of humanity itself." The entire world population is not going to suddenly go gay and forget which hole shits babies if gays and lesbians and bisexuals are allowed to legally marry the same-sex partners we already have.

And this threat to the future of humanity stuff? Previous popes said the exact same thing about Lutheranism, democracy, equal rights for women, birth control, divorce, masturbation, abortion, etc., etc., etc. Just, you know, for the record and shit.

John Shore diagnoses what ails—and so thoroughly warps—many Christian priests and pastors:

A great many men go into the profession of spiritual leader because—and to whatever degree they’re aware of it—they are at war with their sexuality. They enroll in seminary at least partly because they are convinced that the closer they get to God, the further they’ll get from their genitals. God will save them from their evil thoughts. God will vanquish their craven desires. Once and for all will God, by the healing power of His merciful glory, deliver them from their dicks.

Which, of course, never, ever, ever works.

John is addressing one particular pastor in his post—a man who told a teenage girl who had just been violently raped that she should've fought back and died because "at least" she would've "died a virgin"—but that pastor isn't the only one out there who damages others while waging a futile and losing war on his own dick. Go read the whole thing.

Making the virtual rounds, and delightful. (Audio NSFW!)

Either masturbation is gay and yoga is satanic.... or your pastor is a raving nutjob.

Catholic nuns and priests conspired with Spain's fascist government to steal babies from "undesirables"—and the thefts went on for decades:

In 1971 Manoli, who was 23 at the time and not long married, gave birth to what she was told was a healthy baby boy, but he was immediately taken away for what were called routine tests. Nine interminable hours passed. "Then, a nun, who was also a nurse, coldly informed me that my baby had died," she says. They would not let her have her son's body, nor would they tell her when the funeral would be. Did she not think to question the hospital staff?

"Doctors, nuns?" she says, almost in horror. "I couldn't accuse them of lying. This was Franco's Spain. A dictatorship. Even now we Spaniards tend not to question authority."

The scale of the baby trafficking was unknown until this year, when two men—Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno, childhood friends from a seaside town near Barcelona—discovered that they had been bought from a nun.

...by the little girls we make cry.

When Latisha Pennington and Dondi Morse of Haltom City took their 7-year-old daughter to the Texas State Fair last weekend, they just wanted to have a fun day seeing the animals and trying out the fair’s famed array of fried treats. But the women said this week their plans were ruined when one vendor verbally gay-bashed them in front of their daughter, leaving the little girl in tears and forcing the family to cut their outing short.

Worth clicking through to read the whole thing.