It's been responsible for so much torture, murder, war-mongering, terror, homophobia ... for centuries.

It collaborated with the Nazis in the second world war.

It's Vatican bank has been laundering money for the mafia.

Now we know that it has also been a haven for child molesters.

It has no moral authority whatsoever, but claims sole moral authority, with maximal pomposity.

All in the name of the gentle, creative, and forgiving soul of Jesus Christ!

Jesus deserved a lot better!

and the magdalene laundries, just for starters). and knowing that it is a haven for child molesters is nothing new, we have known this for many years now.

... and let's not forget that it promotes a paranoid vision of a 24/7 stalking God that spies on even your innermost thoughts, who requires total submission (worship, even) and who will send you to be TORTURED for ETERNITY (not for 1 year, not 10 years, not 100 years, not a 1000 years, not a million years, but eternity) if you break one of his rules.

Just think of the impact on mental health!

How could people ever develop, spiritually, under such crushing, oppressive, terror?

Murderous celibates.

I use to do Children and Youth work, and you would be surprise how much of pedophilia occurs. Such acts tend NOT to be punished foe the simple reason, how can you punish the perpetrator worse then the victim in most such cases? In most cases the only way is to put the perpetrator on probation.

You may find that objectionable, but how would you handle the typical pedophilia case? A male relative (often the father) is the perpetrator. If you throw the father in jail, you end up with a child whose mother will lose her home and he will have to move. The child will see a lost on income and maybe even homelessness. On the other hand the father gets "Three hots and a cot".

Thus most such perpetrator walk, so they can go find a job and support the victim. It is a constant headache. The main reason you do not hear of such cases is such hearings are closed the public. In many ways I object to such closing for in most cases no one wants to really protect the victim, they want to protect everyone else who should have stepped in and prevented the abuse.

We hear of the Catholic Church for lawyers have sued them for the harm done by their priests. Unlike other perpetrators (for example Public School Teachers) the local Catholic Church has assets and those assets can be attached by the victims once they have a judgement. In the case of Public School Teachers, the school claims "Sovereign Immunity" and the victim can get a judgement against the teacher, the victim can NOT go after the assets of the school. For this reasons no one sues Public School Teachers (they do not have the money to pay damages) but they go after Catholic Priests for the Local Catholic Diocese has assets the victims can go after.

As to the

As to Witch Burnings I remember the comments in my parent's bible about such Witch Burnings, they did NOT occur in Catholic Countries, they were a Protestant church concern. I then thought, yes, the Catholic Church did not burn witches, why have a witch trial when you had the Inquisition. Then I remember the Inquisition demanded facts and rejected "spiritual evidence" i.e. evidence when the person claiming to be be witched was being "attacked" by the accused while they were in the court room. Such evidence was the key to the Salem Witch Trials. Thus if you were accused of some sort of religious crime, it was better to be in front of the Inquisition then a Witch Trial for the Inquisition demanded hard evidence of the religious crime.

Now, Salem Witch Trials also rejected the traditional Catholic Test of dunking women in water to see if the water would reject her. If she floated the water rejected her for she was an un-forgiven follower of Satan. Now, that sounds like an evil test, till you hear that 95-99% of people subjected to the test were "Accepted" by the waters. i.e. if the water test was used you had a better then 95% chance of living. Add some weight to the woman and that chance of being "Accepted" by the water increased. Once you realized the above, if you have someone accused of being a witch (and the tit test did not satisfy the mob), the dunking test was seen as a sure fire way to convince the mob that someone was NOT a witch.

Tit Test: The phase "As cold as a witch's tit" is from that test. A woman, in league with the devil had to voluntary give up her role as a mother to others, thus her Breasts became cold as ice when touched. Thus if a woman had breast that did not freeze off a man's hand she could not be a witch. Another test invented to show that someone was NOT a witch, to an uneducated mob who believed in witches and witchcraft even through medieval Christian Teachings rejected those concepts.

As to the Magdalene Laundries, you have a problem. Were these State or Church institutions? Like most welfare programs they came out of the policy of most governments to reduce costs. Having orphans and others during laundry made the cost of keeping such orphans and other women with problems off the streets at the lowest costs to the State. These started under British rule and continued after Irish independence. We not like them today, but we had similar organizations in the states (except they were NOT run by the Churches, the State sold these orphans to businesses who wanted them to do work for them).

As the Magdalene Laundries the I wrote the following in February 2013:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014390691#post36

We have to remember that, while these were run by the Catholic Church, they were always viewed as being STATE organizations. Thus who was responsible to who was sent they (almost always the State), how long people stayed (almost always the State), and what the women were suppose to do in those institution (Also determined by the state). The Church role was the day to day operation (In the Case of Sinéad O'Connor they threaten her with being sent to the next door nursing home:

When Physical Punishment was the norm (even in the US, which was the case till the 1970s through schools started to drop physical punishment in the 1960s) it seems to have been the norm in Ireland. Thus who should pay for any injury to these women? The State that set them up and determined how they were to be run, or the Church that actually ran them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum

Please note, these institution were to be financially independent, i.e. what the girls did had to pay for they upkeep.

Since 2001, the Irish government has acknowledged that women in the Magdalene laundries were abuse victims. However, the Irish government has resisted calls for investigation and proposals for compensation; the government maintains that the laundries were privately run, therefore abuses at the laundries are outside of the government's remit. In contrast to these claims, evidence exists that Irish courts routinely sent women convicted of petty crimes to the laundries, the government awarded lucrative contracts to the laundries without any insistence on protection and fair treatment of its workers, and Irish state employees helped to keep laundry facilities stocked with workers by bringing women to the laundries and returning escaped workers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum

Just pointing out, this is larger then the Catholic Church and why Irish Government would like this whole problem to go away.

You should read the actual report. It has many different stories of various women. Some were in for decades, others just for a few days. Except those sent to the laundries as part of their Criminal Sentence, they could leave at any time. Once in, rules were strict, but many women came and went.

The actual report:
http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/MagdalenRpt2013

The focus and purpose of these early institutions was closely tied to women in prostitution or women regarded as in danger of falling into prostitution, including unmarried mothers. This purpose, however, appears to have changed over time and based on the records it identified, the Committee found that the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland, after 1922, was not associated in the same strong way with prostitution or unmarried mothers.

Analysis by historians of the records of Magdalen Laundries until 1900 has also suggested that, until that point, it was common for women to enter or exit those institutions at their own request. Part II of this Report addresses the entries and exits of women to the Magdalen Laundries after 1922.



Most women agreed to be in the laundries:





Only one woman said she was sexually abused, and that by woman, not a nun, who had decided to stay at the laundry for life



Most did NOT suffer any PHYSICAL ABUSE:



Now, the women did report crudity, nasty comments by the nuns and others, but the reports of any physical punishment were rare (and mostly tied in with where the women had been physically punished BEFORE being at the Laundry, not at the Laundry

Hair was cut, but never for punishment at the Laundries (but was done elsewhere for punishment):



As you read the report, you get a feeling it is more about what was acceptable or non-acceptable punishment in the 1950s (and again today) as opposed to actual Religious Dogma.

commitments" does NOT deal with this horrendous crime. nor does allowingencouraging churches to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying the judgments.

All of these thugs did the 11s to avoid paying for Rape and Sodomy of Children some as young as 4 years old

Dioceses and Religious Orders
That Have Filed for Bankruptcy Protection

• Archdiocese of Portland OR (filed 7/6/04)
• Diocese of Tucson AZ (9/20/04)
• Diocese of Spokane WA (12/6/04)
• Diocese of Davenport IA (10/10/06)
• Diocese of San Diego CA (2/27/07)
• Diocese of Fairbanks AK (3/1/08)
• Oregon Province of the Jesuits (2/17/09)
• Diocese of Wilmington DE & MD (10/18/09)
• Archdiocese of Milwaukee WI (1/4/11)
• Congregation of the Christian Brothers (4/28/11)

There are also others recently

Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy protection
Matt Volz, Associated Press 12:15 p.m. EST January 31, 2014


HELENA, Montana (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena planned to file for bankruptcy protection Friday as part of a proposed settlement of $15 million for hundreds of victims who say clergy members sexually abused them over decades while the church covered it up.

Diocese spokesman Dan Bartleson said the bankruptcy reorganization plan comes after confidential mediation sessions with the plaintiffs' attorneys and insurers, resulting in the deals to resolve the abuse claims.

An earlier U.N. report declared denial of women's reproductive health care services as torture. Yes, it is a lifetime of torture to have no say in the most intimate part of one's life. That is true for all of us, not matter who we are.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022595766

http://www.democraticunderground.com/125519521

I think about areas where the catholic hospital is the only medical facility around--so not only do they torture their own, they torture non-believers as well, women with no other options than their restricted level of "health care".

Here is the 2008 report that set up the "Special Rapporteur" who issued the subsequent reports:

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/laws_that_discriminate_against_women.pdf

Here is the report by the Special Rapporteur on Torture and abortion:

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf

The quote is from paragraph 46 of the above report:

46. International and regional human rights bodies have begun to recognize that abuse
and mistreatment of women seeking reproductive health services can cause tremendous and
lasting physical and emotional suffering, inflicted on the basis of gender.32 Examples of such violations include abusive treatment and humiliation in institutional settings;33 involuntary sterilization; denial of legally available health services 34 such as abortion and post-abortion care; forced abortions and sterilizations;35 female genital mutilation; 36 violations of medical secrecy and confidentiality in health-care settings, such as denunciations of women by medical personnel when evidence of illegal abortion is found; and the practice of attempting to obtain confessions as a condition of potentially life-saving medical treatment after abortion. 37

Footnote 32 of the above report refers the following: "Reproductive Rights Violations as Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: A Critical Human Rights Analysis:"

http://reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/TCIDT.pdf

One good thing about this report is the Vatican did ratify the Convention on the rights of Children and thus agreed to be subject to this report, but that is NOT true of the United States and Somali (The only two countries that have NOT ratified this treaty, Please note South Sudan has not signed or ratified these treaties, but since it is only recently independent it is still subject to this treaty for the Sudan when it included South Sudan, signed and ratified the treaties):

Ratification of treaty dates:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CRC&Lang=en

List of reports released on January 31, 2014:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=851&Lang=en

Here is the actual report:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/VAT/CRC_C_VAT_CO_2_16302_E.pdf

The optional report on child abuse (an addition to the above report):

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC-OP-SC/Shared%20Documents/VAT/CRC_C_OPSC_VAT_CO_1_16307_E.pdf

They even criticized the Vatican for NOT making it a crime to recruit SOLDIERS in the Vatican if they are below 18 years of age:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC-OP-AC/Shared%20Documents/VAT/CRC_C_OPAC_VAT_CO_1_16311_E.pdf

Here is a list of Documents the Committee relied on:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en