Christ Weary of Catholics (Abuse Excuse Edition):
There's times in this life when, no matter how intensely you believe something, you just need to shut the fuck up. Sometimes the decision is easy. Once, the Rude Pundit, in a room with two members of the Israeli military and their anti-Palestinian wristband-wearing American hosts at a party, chose not to bring up a recent missile strike on Gaza. See? Easy decision so he could leave the place with his face and limbs intact. But if you're Bill "Dental Care Sucked in the 1950s" Donohue of the Catholic League (motto: "Bill plus one equals an organization"), you can't help yourself. And when the recent Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse report was released in Ireland, detailing decades of physical and psychological abuse of thousands of Irish children placed in the care of the Catholic Church, well, for Donohue, it was like a leprechaun yanked on his asshole hair.

Donohue released a statement this week, and, truly, it is one of the most breathtakingly vicious things the Rude Pundit's come across in a while. It's rare when you have proof of how ignorant and willfully blind to reality someone is, but why describe when you can have the pure essence of Donohue, a stink so rank that fields of shit dry up when it wafts across them.

First, in his rebuttal to the report, titled "Hysteria Over Irish Clergy Abuse," Donohue blames the victims: "More than 30,000 children, most of them delinquents, passed through one or more of Ireland’s Catholic-run institutions from the 1920s through the 1980s." You get that? Dehumanize the little fuckers, all the better to make 'em ripe for the caning. (No, really, lots of caning naked kids.)

You know, there's really no way to do this other than to just quote most of the goddamn thing. Here's what it sounds like when someone's blowing the Pope while tickling his own prostate with a bloody crucifix:

"Reuters is reporting that 'Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children,' yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes 'being kicked'; neglect includes 'inadequate heating'; and emotional abuse includes 'lack of attachment and affection.' Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82 percent of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, 'many of them [are] now more than 70 years old.' And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.

"Regarding sexual abuse, 'kissing,' and 'non-contact including voyeurism' (e.g., what it labels as 'inappropriate sexual talk') make the grade as constituting sexual abuse. Moreover, one-third of the cases involved 'inappropriate fondling and contact.' None of this is defensible, but none of it qualifies as rape. Rape, on the other hand, constituted 12 percent of the cases. As for the charge that 'Irish Priests' were responsible, some of the abuse was carried out by lay persons, much of it was done by Brothers, and about 12 percent of the abusers were priests (most of whom were not rapists).

"The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower. They think about rape."

Depressed yet? Then Donohue ends with one of those "No, really I'm rational" statements that's like a kick in the taint: "By cheapening rape, the report demeans the big victims. But, of course, there is a huge market for such distortions, especially when the accused is the Catholic Church." Because, you know, we wouldn't want to distort the endless history of Catholic clergy raping and assaulting children around the world and then having those incidents covered up by the Church leadership. Yeah, you wouldn't want to make that sound bad. And all those school and church figures who groped, force kissed, and beat the kids, you wouldn't want them to feel down because you're lumping them in with rapists.

But, hey, fuck, let's take rape out of the equation just for a moment. It's only 128 girls that happened to. Instead, let's check out some of the other, more quaint treatments of the "miscreants": From Volume III, Chapter 9.40 (interesting how the numbering has a biblical feel), "Forty one (41) witnesses reported being forced to eat, frequently by having their heads held and mouths prised open. Seven (7) witnesses reported being beaten for refusing to eat and eight others reported being physically forced to eat regurgitated food." However harsh people may have been to children pre-1970, the Rude Pundit's pretty sure that forcing a child to eat vomit would have still been frowned upon.

And as for the delightful section where Donohue belittles any sexual abuse that's not rape, "Seventeen (17) witnesses described the manner in which they were made to stand in line without clothes waiting for a bath while being observed by staff and co-residents as sexually abusive. This practice was reported consistently from four Schools for both pre- and post-pubertal residents." (From III.9.82) For more examples, check out Pharyngula.

To add some balance, here's what the British Catholic leader, Rev. Vincent Nichols said: ""It's very distressing and very disturbing and my heart goes out today first of all to those people who will find that their stories are now told in public... Secondly, I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past which instinctively and quite naturally they'd rather not look at. That takes courage, and also we shouldn't forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did." There, Bill, was that so hard?

What a disgusting human being is this old man, this festering boil, this gluttonous, pride-filled, kneejerk apologist, this fame-craving beggar, this Bill Donohue. There are times you shut the fuck up. And if you're too fucking stupid to know when, then you deserve all the scorn and hate that can be heaped upon you. And every time he appears on some loathsome news network craving someone spewing shit all over the screens of America, remember that this is the man who sought to mitigate the crimes of his church, which, one can say without doubt, is par for the course for Catholicism.