[karajorma]

I really don't care where the debate about the pope/sex scandal thing goes but this is really not the way to answer it.

Pope Benedict's personal preacher has compared criticism of the pontiff and Church over child abuse to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews.

The Rev Raniero Cantalamessa was speaking at Good Friday prayers in St Peter's Basilica, attended by the Pope.

In his sermon, he quoted a Jewish friend as saying the accusations reminded him of the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism".

His comments angered Jewish groups and those representing abuse victims.

Seriously? Who that that was a good idea? The Jews are notoriously thin-skinned about this sort of thing (and in most of those cases, quite rightly so), anyone with half a brain should know that the only thing you compare to the suffering they've had to deal with throughout history is other cases of genocide. 

Personally though I think they should have kept quiet a little while to see if they could get him to publicly Godwin himself.

[Blue Lion]

Did he just equate Jews with kiddy diddlers?

[Kosh]

No, he said that the catholic church is basically being persecuted in the same way the Jews have historically been. Total BS, but at this point I would expect anything from them.

[karajorma]

To be fair, the rest of the Catholic Church also seem to be having a WTF moment about what he said so let's not assume that they all agree with him.

[BloodEagle]

Did anyone else catch the latest South Park?   

[MP-Ryan]

I run an irregular blog called O' Ryan's belt and dedicated to virtually belting people for their stupidity.  The Rev. Cantalamessa was today's beltee.

[Mongoose]

As someone who will have spent several hours in a Catholic church over these two or three days, I'll fully agree that was a really friggin' stupid statement to make.

[karajorma]

Yeah. I'm not posting this to have a go at Catholics. Pretty much most of them agree that this comment was incredibly insensitive.

On one hand you have a minority who have been persecuted for no real reason for thousands of years. On the other hand you have a small group of people who are suspected of basically being accessories after the fact in cases of child abuse.

Pretty stupid to try to equate the two.

[mister J]

yeah. basically a case of a bad metaphor.

Climb Pulpit. Open Mouth. Insert Foot.

see, at the "Climb Pulpit. Open Mouth. Insert..." part I was wondering if the title referenced instructions to altar boys.

 

p.s. I apologize in advance 

[karajorma]

Climb Pulpit. Open Mouth. Insert Foot.

see, at the "Climb Pulpit. Open Mouth. Insert..." part I was wondering if the title referenced instructions to altar boys.

 

http://www.theonion.com/articles/everyone-outraged-catholic-priest-did-that-thing-e,17184/

[TESLA]

As someone who will have spent several hours in a Catholic church over these two or three days, I'll fully agree that was a really friggin' stupid statement to make.

Yeah, our local Priest went mad over this during mass. He was rightly pissed off!