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

DEFENDERS of Cornwall’s new faith secondary school have hit back at critics’ “orchestrated attack to undermine” it.

Supporters and representatives argued there was a need for St Michael’s Catholic free school as a place to teach moral values.

Wallace Simmons, the grandfather of a former student, called a meeting with governor Joyce Sanderson, Father Chris Findlay, priest at the church associated with the school at Camborne, and the West Briton in response to criticism over its funding from the Government as it prepares to open next week.

Formerly St Michael’s Catholic Small School in Truro, it is now the UK’s first Catholic free secondary, funded directly from the Government, rather than through the local education authority.

The school was dubbed an “ideological gimmick” by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and local politicians and a head teacher criticised the £4.5 million being spent to extend it, despite 600 available places at secondaries in the Camborne, Pool and Redruth area.

This week Mr Wallace called the criticism an “orchestrated attack to undermine the school”.

“The whole population is taught that homosexuality is fine and children should accept they can have two mums or dads but they should not be taught that nonsense. It is not right,” Mr Simmons said.

“Schools are not teaching basic family values and that mum and dad are the heads of the family and that’s how it should be.

“There are so many problems in schools today where basic family values are not taught and it is OK for Jack to marry Jack and not Jill.

“The morals of this country should not be dragged down.”

Mrs Sanderson was quick to reassure that the school would not discriminate over sexuality, but said those students from homosexual backgrounds were expected to respect Catholic values on family life.

“Gays would be welcome to this school,” she said, “but we would not encourage it.

“We want to know they (children) are happy to follow our teaching and that’s crucial. We do not wish to make children unhappy and refer to their home circumstances.

“I think those people who declare their views are entitled to express them as much as I am entitled to do so.

“The school follows the teaching of Catholic values and treatment (of children) is charitable.

“We lay down what you should try to follow but how people follow it is their business.”

The school also assured it had a good track record and something positive to offer to the community.

Father Findlay said Catholic education was not a gimmick but a “strong brand” and “something many people value”.

He added: “We have our own ethos and approach to school. We have a clear understanding about the human person and how a person fits into the society including everything from marriage, work- place, family life, self-discipline and clarity of moral values.”

thisiscornwall

Excuse me. Government funding. GOVERNMENT FUNDING. WTF. 

Also, fuck you, Catholicism. Fuck. You.

~Mooglets

TW: Description of forced sexual contact/penetration/sexual assault in 7th paragraph. 

A Virginia woman who claims a priest sexually abused her while performing an exorcism is suing a Catholic diocese and an anti-abortion group for $5.3 million in damages.

The woman claims the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer abused her between April 2008 and September 2010, according to the suit filed in Virginia’s Arlington County Circuit Court.

The suit names as defendants the Catholic Diocese of Arlington and its bishop, Paul Loverde, as well as the anti-abortion group Human Life International and HLI Endowment Inc.

Euteneuer had been transferred from the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, to serve as president of Human Life International and HLI Endowment in 2000. He resigned in August 2010.

The woman, identified in the suit as Jane Doe, said she signed an “agreement for spiritual help” with Euteneuer in February 2008 because “she believed she was in desperate need of the rite of exorcism,” the suit said.

Euteneuer repeatedly hugged, kissed and groped the woman, and said he was “blowing the Holy Spirit into her,” according to the suit, which was filed on June 19.

Euteneuer told the woman to undress on about six occasions, touched and kissed her body, and put his finger in her vagina, court documents said.

The suit alleges that Loverde and the Diocese of Arlington knew Euteneuer would perform an exorcism on the woman.

Asked about the suit, the Diocese of Arlington said Euteneuer had never been its employee. He worked for Human Life International, an independent company, subject to his bishop in Palm Beach, it said.

“Rev. Euteneuer was not authorized to perform an exorcism on the plaintiff,” it said in a statement, adding that the diocese had its own exorcist.

The woman’s attorney, Demetrios Pikrallidas, said Euteneuer was not named as a defendant because he had reached a private settlement with her.

Dianne Laubert, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Palm Beach, said Euteneuer had been recalled when the allegations surfaced. His “priestly faculties” were withdrawn and he can no longer celebrate Mass or administer sacraments, she said.

The woman is seeking $5 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

Euteneuer’s behavior “was never within the scope of his employment with” Human Life International, the anti-abortion group said in a statement. “We intend to vigorously defend HLI from the false accusations made against it.”

Reuters

One day, we as a human race, are actually going finally collectively have enough of  Catholicism’s bullshit and believers will stop giving their money to the Church. 

~Mooglets

A Catholic hospitalis being suedfor denial of HIV medication to a gay man “for going against God’s will.”

Trinitas Regional Medical Center, says Joao Simoes, admitted him last August but then denied him the medicine he needed and also would not let his sister see him.

Denial of access to medicine for people living with HIV/AIDS, even for short periods, can have serious consequences for long term survival because ofdrug resistance. This can result from missing as few as five doses — which Simoes says he missed.

The complaint says that after admittance he metDr. Susan V. Borga. She asked him how he had acquired HIV and “closed the plaintiff’s file, put it down and looked at plaintiff with disgust on her face and asked, coldly, ‘Is that from sex with men?’”

Three days later, he was finally permitted to ring his personal physician and learned that he had already told Borga about his medication, but he had not received any or been visited by any doctor.

Borga had allegedly told his physician: “You must be gay, too, if you’re his doctor.”

The complaint adds:

Additionally, apparently realizing that plaintiff’s doctor had an accent, Dr. Borga exclaimed, “What, do you need a translator?” to which plaintiff’s doctor had again responded that Dr. Borga needed to give plaintiff his HIV medication.

Dr. Borga responded to plaintiff’s doctor by stating, “This is what he gets for going against God’s will,” and hung up the phone on plaintiff’s doctor.

American Medical Association (AMA) policy is that“physicians can conscientiously object to the treatment of a patient only in non-emergent situations” and that they “must provide alternative(s) which include a prompt and appropriate referral.”

Principle I of the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics calls upon physicians to provide medical care with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights. Accordingly, physicians may not decline to accept patients based on their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or “any other basis that would constitute invidious discrimination”

You can sign a petition to Trinitas here.

Care2

That is some fucked up shit right there. 

~Mooglets

A Catholic cleric who hit out at the “madness” of the Government’s gay marriage plans has been condemned for “scaremongering”.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, accused the coalition of trying to “redefine reality” and claimed the proposals were a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right.”

But his comments were roundly criticised amid fears the outburst would fuel prejudice.

In an article for The Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal O’Brien wrote: “Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.

“Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father. Other dangers exist. If marriage can be redefined so that it no longer means a man and a woman but two men or two women, why stop there? Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage, if they pledge their fidelity to one another?”

Plans to introduce civil gay marriages have divided the Conservative party and put David Cameron on a collision course with a number of religious leaders. Cardinal O’Brien’s attack was the most outspoken attack to date.

But the Prime Minister is a “passionate” advocate of the change, telling his party two years ago he supported gay marriage “because I am a Conservative”.

Margot James, the first openly lesbian Conservative MP, criticised the “apocalyptic language” used by the Cardinal and accused him of “scaremongering”

“I think it is a completely unacceptable way for a prelate to talk,” she told BBC 1’s Andrew Marr Show. “I think that the Government is not trying to force Catholic churches to perform gay marriages at all. It is a purely civil matter.”

Labour’s Deputy Leader Harriet Harman said she hopes the comments would not end up “fuelling or legitimising prejudice”. “We have had prejudice, discrimination and homophobia for hundreds of years, that doesn’t make it right,” she told the show. “I don’t want anybody to feel that this is a licence for whipping up prejudice.”

The missing chapter of the Cloyne Report into Catholic child abuse inIreland, and its subsequent cover up by the Catholic hierarchy, has now been published. The chapter was withheld from the original report so as not to prejudice a trial that was ongoing at the time.

Once more a catalogue of cover-up and lies is revealed at the very highest echelons of the Church. Its publication has prompted Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter to reassert that stricter laws are needed to protect children. He hopes to publish a reformed Criminal Justice Bill in the New Year that deals with withholding information on crimes against children and the vulnerable.

“The publication of the redacted portions of the Cloyne Report yet again details the failure of the Church to comply with its own child abuse guidelines and its failure to ensure that allegations of abuse when first received were brought to the notice of [the police],” said Mr Shatter. “The litany of allegations made and the failure to appropriately report cases of abuse reinforces the need to enact a statutory measure for the protection of children in the future.”

The newly-published chapter tells how former Bishop John Magee did not adequately deal with complaints in his Co Cork diocese against a cleric with the pseudonym of Fr Ronat. The earlier report had shown that Bishop Magee deliberately misled authorities and was failing to report abuse until as recently as three years ago.

Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, said she was deeply disturbed by the latest revelations. She said that there could be no exceptions and reporting child abuse allegations could not be discretionary. “All allegations must be reported so that the allegation itself is investigated and any potential risk to other children is assessed,” she said.

NSS