Damned Catholics

[Ravenshire]

Two Catholic priests in Ohio have practically kidnapped a baby from its parents and are trying to legally adopt him because the parents can't afford lawyers

A piece of the Steubenville family has been missing for over a year now — a 2-year-old boy who is in the temporary legal custody of two priests at the nearby St. Peter Catholic Church in the midst of an unusual and ongoing court battle for custodial rights.

The case — which began after the Pauleys sought assistance from the church to care for their son — has had a profound impact on all sides involved.

For their part, the priests — Father Timothy Huffman, the pastor of St. Peter, and Father Bradley Greer, chancellor of the Steubenville diocese and a vicar at St. Peter — claimed in court when filing for custody in December 2022 that it was in the best interest of the child to stay with them.

Meanwhile, the case has dragged on for more than 18 months.

Allegations made by Father Huffman and Father Greer in their court filings include claims that the couple watered down the baby’s formula and fed him cantaloupe and chocolate, and that Ms. Pauley “has referred to the child as a ‘little bastard’ and ‘spawn of Satan.’”

In court records, the priests also said they had spent at least $1,400 at Walmart and Walgreens on groceries and other items for the couple, and said the child was in the rectory under their care an average of four to five nights a week between the end of July and November 2022.

A judge granted temporary custody to the priests about two weeks later, specifying the child would live in the church rectory during the duration of the case.

It’s been more than a year and a half since, and the drama continues to play out in court.

Neither the Steubenville police nor the Jefferson County Department of Job and Family Services has substantiated any of the claims made in the priest's legal filings, according to court documents and JCDJFS documents.

Instead, the Jefferson County Department of Job and Family Services, which administers children services in the area, cleared the couple of having safety threats in their home and even lauded the couple as having “many strengths” in a letter from the agency dated November 2023.


The couple, who say they cannot afford an attorney, have represented themselves in court and said they plan to keep fighting for custody of the boy in what they claim is a case of religious leaders overstepping when they should have been helping.

“It's disgusting what they’ve done,” Ms. Pauley said. “It’s a disgrace to the Bible. It’s a disgrace that the bishop or anyone else would accept this … nobody warned us about these guys.”

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/faith-...2408110082

(my bold)

Lady, people have been warning you of these assholes for decades. You just weren't listening. But, I hope you get your kid back.

[Fake Messiah]

Pope Francis condemns Ukraine's ban of Russian-linked Orthodox Church

Pope Francis on Sunday condemned the Ukraine government's ban of the Russian-linked Orthodox Church.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday signed a law barring religious groups with ties to Russia.

Zelensky said: "Ukrainian orthodoxy today is taking a step toward liberation from the devils of Moscow."

Mykyta Poturaiev, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who sponsored the bill, said: The Moscow Patriarchate is not an inspiration but a participant in the war."

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/...724598208/

[Fake Messiah]

Cillian Murphy has made a movie to warn us how evil the Catholic church is (in Ireland)

Oscar winner Cillian Murphy plays a coal merchant and father haunted by secret abuses in a local convent sanctioned by the Catholic Church in the trailer for Small Things Like These from Lionsgate ahead of a Nov. 8 theatrical release.

Delivering coal to the convent, Bill Furlong (Murphy) witnesses a mother forcing her young daughter inside and against her will. “Mommy, please! Stop it! No please! I’m not going in there,” she screams as a silent Furlong looks on in the short teaser.

Set in 1985 just ahead of Christmas, Furlong, as he makes further deliveries to the convent, is forced to confront his own unspoken grief and childhood trauma, which leads him into making a moral choice. “You want to watch what you say, about what’s there,” Furlong is warned in the trailer as he sees first-hand the atrocities taking place in the local convent.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies...236004821/

[Fake Messiah]

Catholic Church is pedophilic, racist, and phony.

Would we want our Black Catholic child to be a priest? Probably not.

One of the proudest moments I have had as a Black Catholic parent is when my two boys received the sacrament of baptism.

Yet, due to the global sexual abuse scandal, lukewarm approaches to racism and combating anti-Black racial injustices in the Church, hyper-partisan focus among many bishops and priests, and our own general displeasure for the hierarchy, my wife and I would have many reasons to withhold our children from being in the divinely grandiose yet painful Catholic Church altogether.

When it comes to Catholic sexual abuse and African Americans, we are even more concerned. The abominable global crisis in the Church has crippled its public image, and there is overwhelming agreement that clerical abuse is an ongoing reality.

The Black Catholic struggle in this regard is hardly at the forefront of the debate. Because the Church doesn't have a system that logs the demographic information of abuse victims, the actual number of Black Catholic victims is untold. Couple this with decades of faithful Black Catholics going abused, traumatized, and largely unseen and you can understand why the issue is even more wounding for my wife and I.

It concerns us that if our children were ever sexually victimized by Church staff or clergy, who would be there to “say their name” when the hierarchy protects its unyielding power and influence against credible allegations, shuffling dangerous priests and hushing victims? We can’t fathom our precious and innocent children becoming a statistic with little to ensure their dignity and sacredness are protected. If we’re supposed to trust the Church elders with our children’s souls but they are assaulted, it would only create further distrust.

When it comes to anti-Black injustice in the Catholic world stateside and abroad, my wife and I have little confidence that the Church can be a leader for our racial, economic, political, environmental, and religious needs. When many high-ranking members dismiss the call to recognize the importance of human dignity and ensure equitable participation in society, it distresses us to see them go against our welfare.

Further, if one of our children were to become a priest, they could end up standing shoulder to shoulder with someone that sees them as undeserving of the vocation. That’s difficult to process for us because we know how it is to receive initial reception in Christian spaces only to be encountered later with disingenuity and a false embrace.

Our child’s potential vocation as a priest would likely result in an assignment to a predominantly non-Black parish, which would likely mean confrontation with implicit bias and stereotypes. It could be a shattering blow to their ministry, just as Venerable Augustus Tolton encountered and Fr Bryan Massingale has also recounted. Even so, perseverance can be achieved. The willingness of faithful Black priests to stick to their upward calling despite hostility is a remarkable testament to the Holy Spirit working in them.

When we see figures like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, who withdrew from the seminary because of White Catholic racism in the late 1960s, and so many more examples of Black Catholic men and women with a thwarted vocation, spiritual fortitude is not easy.

https://www.blackcatholicmessenger.org/b...onfidence/

[Fake Messiah]

We Need to Have a Talk About Leonard Leo

A new book investigates a secretive Catholic sect that appears to have an outsized influence on U.S. courts and the law. British financial journalist Gareth Gore has shown that the group remains active and prominent. Gore’s new book, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church, traces the group from its origins in Franco’s Spain to its rising influence in Washington, D.C., where it has focused on capturing the federal judiciary and shifting it far to the right.

Leonard Leo controls more money than both political parties right now in the United States! He’s one of the most powerful people in the country, arguably in the history of the country, when it comes to influencing the judiciary, and increasingly, political races. And yet anytime anybody criticizes him or his vast dark-money network, he claims the mantle of victimhood. He waves the flag of victimhood and alleges that anybody who would dare to say a cross word about him or his operation is in fact an anti-Catholic bigot. He also referred to his opponents as the modern Ku Klux Klan, which is a deeply offensive comparison. He suggests that his critics are wounded people who have been taken advantage of by the devil, by Satan himself, in order to stop his “noble” work to restore traditional values to America.

He is promoting conservative Catholic values that frequently infringe upon the freedom of others. These are values that prohibit women from obtaining an abortion, even in the case of rape, even if it is necessary to preserve her health or even spare her from death. He has made it clear he believes that same-sex relationships should be unlawful, same-sex marriages should be nullified, abolished. He believes that much of modern secular society is under the control of the devil. So he uses his authority, and specifically his money, to try to restrict other people’s rights and to try to impose these reactionary values. But he also insists his work, his values, are above all criticism—that vigorous public debate and allowing for vigorous public criticism of this work is off the table because he claims it’s anti-Catholic bigotry.

This is one of the best-funded projects to change American life and restrict American freedoms that we’ve ever seen in this country, and if we can’t talk about it, then they just win automatically.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024...icism.html


How Opus Dei Conquered D.C.

Opus Dei (Latin for “the Work of God”), is not focused on ministering to the masses (and if it were, it would be failing spectacularly, as more Americans are leaving the Catholic Church than joining it, by as much as four to one). Instead, it is focused on marshaling the people who have various forms of authority over the masses (Opus Dei reportedly calls them the “intellectuals”) to its various revanchist causes. The group targets, and attracts, people like Donald Trump’s current running mate, J.D. Vance, a convert to conservative Catholicism by way of Opus Dei–connected clergy and influencers.

The CIC, which doubles as the Opus Dei office in Washington, and the national network of wealthy and powerful right-wing Catholics affiliated with it are among the most effective forces in MAGA world and the American Christian-nationalist movement. It is allied with Protestant Evangelicals in many of its goals but is more hierarchical and often more institutionally organized. Opus Dei can marshal centuries of intellectual heft of the Church behind it.

The now-infamous Project 2025 was cooked up under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation’s conservative Catholic and Opus Dei–connected president, Kevin Roberts. All three of the Trump-appointed Roe-wrecking Supreme Court justices (two of whom are Catholic) got there thanks in part to the tireless dark-money-funded efforts of the right-wing Catholic Leonard Leo, a major CIC donor who has also become the go-to conservative disburser of anonymously donated big bucks to political causes. The three other justices in the Dobbs majority are hard-right Catholics. Beyond the high court, current and former Washington power lawyers and influencers have Opus Dei connections.

Numerary priests, affiliated converts, and their allies have worked in the courts and in league with non-Catholic “faith-based” politicians to crush reproductive rights, oppose gay marriage, and bash down the wall between church and state through Congress and at the Supreme Court. The conservative Catholic convert community in Washington includes some power players in this long game: One is Ginni Thomas, who converted in 2002, not long after Opus Dei associate Leonard Leo shepherded her husband, Clarence, through contentious nomination hearings and Anita Hill’s sexual-harassment allegations. Ginni Thomas has credited the Opus Dei–affiliated Scalias — Maureen Scalia, wife of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia, has been spiritually directed at Opus Dei — for bringing Thomas back to the church. “Both Nino and Maureen [Scalia] really loved and prayed Clarence back to the Church,” Ginni Thomas has said. Clarence had grown up Catholic, and even considered becoming a priest, but had fallen away.

During his research, Gore learned the organization keeps detailed records on priests and numeraries to gauge how serious a potential convert or member’s Catholicism is, who is in their networks and families, and how much money they’ve got — information even gleaned sometimes, he said, from Confession, which officially is under seal of confidentiality.

“Opus Dei has more in common with the KGB or the Stasi than it does with other parts of the Catholic Church,” Gore said. “It has this meticulous recordkeeping. I spoke to one prominent D.C. conservative who said he had incontrovertible evidence that McCloskey had collected deeply personal and compromising information about him during Confession and then passed it on to senior members of Opus Dei.”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/...vance.html

[Fake Messiah]

Catholic Belgian university ‘deplores’ comments by Pope Francis moments after speech

Professors and students at UCLouvain, where the 87-year-old pontiff had made a speech on Saturday afternoon, said they wanted to express their “incomprehension and disapproval” about the pope’s views.

“UCLouvain deplores the conservative positions expressed by Pope Francis on the role of women in society,” said the statement, in extraordinary language from a Catholic university about a pope.

Francis went to the university on Saturday to celebrate its upcoming 600th anniversary as part of a weekend trip he is making to Belgium.

The university statement called the pope’s position on women’s roles in society “deterministic and reductive”.

“We are really shocked,” said Valentine Hendrix, a 22-year-old student. “He reduces us to a role of childbearer, mother, wife, everything we want to emancipate ourselves from.”

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a climatologist at UCLouvain university, said Francis had “failed to rise to the occasion.”

“To reply that the Church is a woman is really missing the point of the question – about the Church’s respect for women and their role in the institution and in society,” he said.

Earlier the pope visited the tomb of Belgium’s King Baudouin who in 1990 famously refused to sign a law lifting penalties against abortion, citing personal convictions.

Francis described the legislation – passed after the king temporarily renounced his functions to avoid having to endorse it – as “a murderous law”.

Francis has faced criticism during events throughout his trip to Belgium. The country’s king and prime minister called on the pope to take more concrete actions to help survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy, and a rector at a different Catholic university asked him to reconsider the Catholic church’s ban on ordaining women as priests.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/s...ter-speech

[Fake Messiah]

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is chastising Harris for skipping his stupid dinner while praising Trump for attending it, and also letting Trump proclaim that Harris hates Catholics. Catholic "intellectual" Brian Browne even said that this is an insult to Catholic voters, while Trump said that Catholic voters who support her “should have their head examined.”

But what is not an insult to Catholic voters is when Trump accuses Catholics of eating cats and dogs, or how they're coming from Mexico to rape and drug people or when he goes nuts about Venezuela which is also predominantly Catholic.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said on Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to skip the Al Smith dinner, a prominent Catholic charity event in New York, wasn’t a wise political move.

While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Harris’ decision to skip the dinner reveals her “anti-Catholic” sentiments, Dolan, who leads the Archdiocese of New York, blamed bad advice.

“We were looking forward to giving both candidates an enthusiastic welcome, which we always do,” Dolan said. “It’s not supposed to be a campaign, it’s kind of an evening of patriotism, joy, friendship, and unity. Well, those are values she’s been talking about, and this evening is supposed to showcase that, so we’re kind of doubly disappointed that she’s not coming.”

Trump, meanwhile, has confirmed that he will be attending the dinner.

Dolan praised Trump’s commitment to the event, saying he has been “extraordinarily good,” participating in the event every election year since 2016.

Brian Browne, an adjunct professor of political science at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, told CNA that while Harris’ decision likely won’t make much of a difference to the average Catholic voter, more engaged Catholic voters “could perceive this as a misstep or insult.”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/...ity-dinner

[Fake Messiah]

Catholic hospital in California illegally denied emergency abortion

California’s attorney general is suing a Catholic hospital, saying that Providence St. Joseph Hospital illegally denied emergency abortion care to a woman whose pregnancy was no longer viable after her water broke 15 weeks into carrying twins.

Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit Monday, which was filed that day in Humboldt County Superior Court and details the case of Anna Nusslock. In February, Nusslock was 15 weeks into her pregnancy when her water broke and she was rushed to Providence in Eureka, where she lives.

According to the complaint, Nusslock was told by the doctor at the hospital that they could not provide an abortion “so long as one of Anna’s twins had detectable heart tones, unless Anna’s life was sufficiently at risk.” The doctor recommended she take a helicopter to the University of California, San Francisco for emergency services. But she doubted her insurance would cover the $40,000 cost of the ride.

She asked if she could drive to UCSF, and the doctor advised that if she drove 270 miles (435 kilometers) south, which is about five hours, to San Francisco she would “hemorrhage and die,” according to the complaint. Nussbaum was discharged to Mad River Community Hospital 12 miles (19 kilometers) away, where she received the abortion at a labor and delivery unit that is scheduled to close this month, according to Bonta’s office.

https://apnews.com/article/california-at...0269bd1bc0

[Fake Messiah]

Cardinal Dolan applauding an adjudicated rapist who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol which resulted in death.

Are you surprised?

[Mister Agenda]

If it was Micky Dolenz I'd be surprised, but not surprised about the Cardinal at all.