Atheism, fuck yeah!
Welcome atheists, skeptics, freethinkers all,
to this little corner of godlessness.
~Mooglets

A South African cardinal has rejected accusations that he is homophobic, saying it is impossible because he knows no gay people.

The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, was among the 115 cardinals whoelected Pope Francis as head of the Roman Catholic Church in March.

“I can’t be accused of homophobia,” Cardinal Napier told theSouth African Mail & Guardiannewspaper on Friday, “because I don’t know any homosexuals”.

He also described the promotion of gay rights by the US as “a new kind of slavery”.

“With the same-sex marriages, we are carrying out someone else’s agenda, it’s a new kind of slavery, with America saying you won’t get aid unless you distribute condoms, legalise homosexuality,” the cardinal said.

South Africa is the only African nation to have legalised equal marriage.

Last month, Cardinal Napier was forced to apologise for describing paedophilia as a sickness and not a crime.

“Paedophilia is actually an illness – it is not a criminal condition,” he told the BBC’s Stephen Nolan .

The 72-year-old cardinal has since apologised to victims of child abuse, saying paedophilia was a medical condition and sexual abuse of children was a crime.

PinkNews

“I can’t be accused of homophobia because I don’t know any homosexuals”

“I can’t be accused of homophobia because I don’t know any homosexuals”

“I can’t be accused of homophobia because I don’t know any homosexuals”

Pontiff, 85, who has arthritis, says he will step down on 28 February after nearly eight years as head of Catholic church

Pope Benedict XVIsurprised the world and left the Catholic church stunned when he said on Monday thathe would resign– the first pope to do so since the middle ages.

The move, announced without warning, will take place on 28 February and leave the papacy vacant until a successor is chosen.

AVaticanspokesman said Benedict’s aides were “incredulous” when he told them he would step down because he was too weak to fulfil his duties. He summoned a meeting of cardinals to tell them of “a decision of great importance for the life of the church”.

One of those called to hear the announcement, the Mexican prelate Monsignor Oscar Sanchez, said none of the cardinals had expected it. “The pope took a sheet of paper and read from it. He just said that he was resigning and that he would be finishing on February 28,” he said.

“The cardinals were just looking at one another. Then the pope got to his feet, gave his benediction and left. It was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable. Extraordinary. Nobody expected it. Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.”

His successor is expected to be elected by the end of March and possibly for the beginning of holy week on 24 March. Benedict will honour public commitments and engagements until the date of his resignation, after which he will move to a summer residence near Rome and then to a former monastery within Vatican territory.

He will take no part in the process to elect a successor. Cardinals will meet and vote on nominees in a series of ballots until a new pope is chosen.

Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said Benedict, 85, had resigned not because of “difficulties in the papacy” or a specific illness but instead a progressive decline in his strength.

“In the last few months he has seen a decline in vigour, both of the body and spirit,” Lombardi told reporters. “It was his personal decision taken with full freedom, which deserves maximum respect.”

In a statement, Benedict said: “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

“For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of bishop of Rome, successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new supreme pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”

Benedict, who became the 265th pope in 2005, has arthritis, particularly in his knees, hips and ankles. He had been due to travel to Brazil, the largest Catholic country in the world, in July for a youth festival, but concerns had been raised among Vatican observers about whether he was well enough.

A voluntary papal resignation is rare – certainly in recent centuries. Pope Celestine V exercised his right to abdicate in 1294.

Guardian

Certainly makes you wonder if there’s a lot more to it than just age and ill health, considering all the shite that’s come out over the past few years.

~Mooglets

A leading German Catholic bishop has spoken of the “perfidiousness” of the way Catholic priests had used their power and authority to groom children for sexual abuse.

Bishop Stephen Ackermann of Trier, the German bishops’ spokesman on matters of clerical sexual abuse, said he was “shattered” by a report into calls to a special hotline set up in 2010. He presented the report last week and said he was deeply ashamed about what it contained.

He said he had been particularly repelled by the way the perpetrators had built up their victims’ confidence in them in a calculating way before abusing them.

“I was particularly shaken by the fact that priests had disgracefully abused the confidence of children who were probably seeking their help in a difficult situation.”

The wickedness was compounded, he said, “since priests already have a higher credit of trust. It is truly abhorrent when they then abuse that trust in this way”. Nothing at all could “whitewash” the findings, he said, which would be taken into account in the development of abuse prevention strategies.

The hotline was called by 8,500 people in the two years it was open. The overwhelming majority of victims (90 per cent) were male, Andreas Zimmermann, the expert responsible for analysing the results, told the Catholic news agency KNA.

The abuse by priests, he said, had certain “specifically Catholic” characteristics. Thus priests had used their moral authority and the psychological effect of rites like confession or prayer in order to gain power over children, even to the point of telling them that the assaults were an expression of “God’s special love” for them.

(Source: secularism.org.uk)

The Vatican is taking issue with the fight for marriage equality in Europe and around the world, saying that same-sex couples live in a “different reality” and continue to chase the “utopia” of equality.

L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See, printed a front-page editorial on Monday titled “Marriage Is Not a Contract,” claiming, according to a Google translation of the text, that same-sex couples live in some sort of “different reality” where they believe the foundations of society will not quake if an “utopia” of equality, which “caused such damage in the twentieth century,” is achieved.

Via Think Progress: 

Saying that marriage between a woman and a man is equal to that between two homosexuals is, in fact, a denial of the truth that affects one of the basic structures of human society, the family. We cannot base a society on these foundations without then paying a very high price as happened in the past when there was an attempt to achieve total economic and social equality. Why repeat the same mistake and chase after an unattainable utopia?

The Vatican’s editorial condemns same-sex couples adopting children, stating that this will only lead to “new forms of exploitation” in science, according to a Google translation.

The article also criticizes a piece that appeared in the French Catholic weekly Temoignage Chretien, which endorsed the country’s controversial gay marriage bill, according to Queerty. The Vatican says the French article seeks to only promote what is trendy, reports The Hindu Business Line. “Being Catholic is about much more than embracing fashionable cultural standpoints,” writes the Vatican.

The editorial follows Pope Benedict XVI’s declaration that same-sex marriage goes against nature and threatens justice and peace.

“There is…a need to acknowledge and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types of union,” he said during his World Day of Peace 2013 address Friday. “Such attempts actually harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role in society. These principles are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to reason and thus common to all humanity.”

On Sunday, gay rights activists peacefully picketed in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City during the pope’s weekly prayers to proest his anti-gay comments. An online campaign featuring photos of LGBT people with the phrase “I am a threat to peace” was also launched in Italy and has already posted thousands of images to its Facebook page.

HuffPo

I had an extremely surreal day today.

One of the schools that came today was a Catholic school. So there was a Nun. In full Habit. And she sat in on the classes.

It was surreal 8l 

Just a random thing about my day, today.

~Mooglets