Heh. "The denial of objective truth". How ironic to say that when all his beliefs are, um, utterly subjective.

That's what JPII's long papacy wrought - a hierarchy stacked with these fools. The only non-conservative, non-asshat bishops and cardinals left are the ones like Francis - old guys who have been bishops since Paul VI's time.

The Catholic church still lacks introspection into it's own severe and criminal shortcomings while demonizing others. This prestidigitation may have worked when people were ignorant mind slaves. But only sheeple believe it now.

Meh, new pope's better at marketing himself, but as far as the whole 'having sex with children thing,' the new boss is the same as the old.

Dan Savage- enemy of family, integrity and healthy sexuality or a respected bishop of a church 2000 years in the making...

Sorry, Danny Boy, but it ain't even close.

The Bishop of Lincoln is just as bad. I took Mother Vel-DuRay and the Aunties to Mass in Ashland, Nebraska last year, and the priest had to read some stupid diocesan letter after communion (when everyone is itching to get out) about how Christian's rights are being taken away. I was so flabergasted by it that I actually said something to the priest after the service, and he told me that he agreed with me, but that the Bishop is quite hot on that idea.

As for the holy water article - When Mother Vel-DuRay had the Lymphoma I made frequent visits to the church to get her holy water. It's just tap water that they bless. No worse or better than regular water. The water in the fonts may be messed up, but it dries out so quickly that I can't see where it's much of a threat. (ex altar boy speaking here, so I know about these things)

But Dan dearest - the Washington Times? Really?

Oh Goody! Seattleblahs is now a defender of the faith!

When were you confirmed, Seattleblahs? Are you in the Knights of Columbus? Mr. Vel-DuRay was, and I always thought it would be something of a camp to do it - love those fancy hats, capes, and gloves they wear on special occassions - but they've gotten too reactionary in recent years. They used to just be a bunch of guys who got together on Saturday nights to drink beer and show up at confirmations, but then it started getting infiltrated by people like you.

@6 Even as a child I wondered about all those people dipping their fingers into the same bowl of water and touching their faces and clothes afterward. Disgusting.

That never bothered me - I've never been much of a germophobe - but the whole communal wine chalice thing was/is/always will be gross. I like the way the Protestants do it, with their little individual cups (even if it is just grape juice and not wine)

I don't believe in an Abrahamic god, but I've met plenty of people who do that are thinking, compassionate people. However, anyone I've ever met that believed in Satan [a malevolent being who is actively trying to contaminate your soul with Evil] was at least a little bit nuts.

Today, many evil forces have set their sights on the dissolution of marriage and the debasing of family life...

Shit like that is what allows people hate in the name of righteousness. Once one believes someone else's actions are being directed by Evil Incarnate...what measures could possibly be too extreme in stopping them?

@9...some of us baptists have taken to having pre-measured cups of juice and wafers that resemble coffee creamers. mt zion does this. confused the daylights out of my mom who was never sure when she was supposed to down the damn thing. and they've stopped using welch's too. i guess it just costs too danged much, so the stuff they're using is more like kool-aid. ( heathens will no doubt get the irony there ). but catholics...
a few months ago i went to a confirmation..( or some such thing. i couldn't figure out exactly what was happening because catholics have all these hoops you gotta jump through before you get added to the roster. we baptists ask a couple of questions and then take you to a lake or river, dunk you and you're done ) at st james and was startled to see all the hand sanitizers sprinkled throughout the service and the cathedral. but they're sill drinking from the same cup. but fecal matter in the holy water ? i blame it on the babies.
( baptists don't bless with water, we anoint with oil. good cheap olive oil because israel )

Pontiff dear, calm yourself. Granted, I come from a different time and place (farm country in the 60's and 70's) but if your example were the least hygenic thing any theoretical child of mine did in the course of the day, I'd probably be relieved. I really don't think my grade school (Asbestos Elementary) had been thoroughly cleaned since the Coolidge administration. And my Junior High (Radon Middle School) was even worse (until it was unfortunately burnt down by some wayward students).

How do you feel about total immersion Baptismal fonts?

@1 That was the first thing that jumped out at me, too. That man and his ilk wouldn't recognize "objective truth" if God in the guise of a fucking burning bush appeared in his bedroom in the middle of the night and branded it on his forehead backwards, so he could read it in the mirror.

Clever of you to reference Gandhi's attitude toward Xians.

The germiest thing anywhere: the handle of a blue mailbox, which --like holy water -- is never cleaned.

@5: to paraphrase Terry Pratchett, just because someone's very old doesn't make them wise. It might just mean they've been stupid for a really long time.

I never was one, but young relatives of mine were altar-boys and -girls. A perk of the job was getting to guzzle the leftover wine in the chalice after service.

An unpleasant part of the task was ignoring all the floating bits of soggy partly-chewed Jesus-wafers in the wine.

Oh, and Seattleblues? Good to know you're proudly defending child rapists now.

So how does that work, by the way? How many children are you okay with having been raped? What avout your own children? How many of them would you tolerate being raped by the priesthood, as a price you just have to pay for all that morality the church provides you? Only one? All of them?

Hopefully, the bishops will follow Pope Francis's more moderate line with regard to people's private sex lives and his more strict line with regard to rooting out corruption.

Mom use to bake the communion bread for our church. After the service, we'd take home the left over blessed loaves. Those Jesus sandwiches were the best.

@20 Wow, really? They are not supposed to let that happen.

There's a beauty to the whole ritual that I really love. Like Dan Savage, I occasionally drop in to St. James just to see it again. And there are rituals and rules for the behind-the-scenes stuff, including disposing of uneaten host. Letting folks just take it home isn't kosher. So to speak.

@11 Well said.

The longer I think about it, the more I have to conclude that those Christians who can't fucking stop talking about Satan this and Satan that, are in effect Satan-worshipers, creating Satan-the-god with power over their lives, contaminating whatever good might otherwise reside in the practice of their supposed monotheistic belief in a loving God.

5, What church are you talking about. It's pretty clear that you know nothing about the history of the Catholic church. Google the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Martin Luther's 95 Theses, The Burning Times, Catholic Nazi collaboration, etc. It's been corrupt for almost all of it's existence.

@10 Ever used a door knob? Who knows what was on the last few hands to touch it! The wetness doesn't make a fuck-ton of difference.

For once, the leader of the Catholic Church is more enlightened and tolerant than its middle management. Of course, Seattleblues thinks of this as problematic.

25, people don't ingest doorknobs, and should wash their hands before meals.

Guess you really can't take the Church of the altarboy.

Meet the new pope, same as the old pope.

@21: I assume @20 is from a protestant denomination, where "communion" is a symbolic recreation of the Last Supper and not the actual taking into oneself of the body and blood of Christ. No transubstantiation, no foul.

My sister-in-law once described protestant communion as "having lunch with God"; I replied that Catholic communion was more "having God for lunch".

@21 Different denominations have different rules. Tuna salad with lettuce and tomato between two slices of freshly baked Saviour, yum.

As for those rituals and rules for the "behind the scenes stuff", I grew up behind the scenes, know lots of PKs from different denominations, what really happens behind the scenes might surprise you.

Btw, with a few toppings those bland communion wafers can make a decent snack when stoned. Communion wine, that stuff is pretty nasty. Churches that use "real" wine buy really cheap shit. They just dump it in nice decanters.

Oops, my bad. I assumed since we started with the Catholic communion service that the heathens would stay out of it.

@31'.. who you calling a heathen you demon eyed weasel ... HUUUP.. GLO-RAY !?'
- aunt esther

@23: That's the sort of thing that worries me, really. By setting up a being of supreme evil, they avoid difficult questions of responsibility by blaming it all on the Devil. (In earlier Judaic theology, "Satan", literally "adversary", is a title given to any angel serving as a prosecuting attorney in a heavenly court.)

Goodness! Who are these Satanic enemies of traditional marriage? Newt Gingrich (three marriages so far)? Rush Limbaugh (four)?

What's a little fecal matter to people who practice cannibalism when they go to church? The FDA has allowances for turd consumption so why not the Vatican? May they eat more shit and less altar boy.

Well that does it. No dog of mine is ever going to drink out of that font again.

@31 LOL Catholic priests tell the worst jokes, Nuns are a bawdy bunch, and the scene behind the staging of the Mass is no different then any other theatre.

BTW a Priest and a Rabbi trading jokes while drunk at a party is well worth the price. Lol

Sounds like your typical self-loathing closet type, dunnit?

We in the Great Frozen North have been listening to anti-Christian Niendstedt for years; he and Chris Kluwe got into it over the proposed anti-marriage amendment that we as a state firmly rejected.