VATICAN CITY—Calling forgiveness “one of the highest virtues taught to us by Jesus,” Pope John Paul II issued a papal decree Monday absolving priest-molested children of all sin.
“Though grave and terrible sins have been committed, our Lord teaches us to turn the other cheek and forgive those who sin against us,” said the pope, reading a prepared statement from a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square. “That is why, despite the terrible wrongs they have committed, the church must move on and forgive these children for their misdeeds.”
“As Jesus said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’” the pope continued. “We must send a clear message to these hundreds—perhaps thousands—of children whose sinful ways have tempted so many of the church’s servants into lustful violation of their holy vows of celibacy. The church forgives them for their transgressions and looks upon them not with intolerance, but compassion.” [...]
“The pope has shown great love and compassion, much as Jesus did when he ministered to tax collectors and whores,” said Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston. “Despite all they have done to jeopardize the careers of so many priests—to say nothing of imperiling the priests’ immortal souls—the church embraces these underaged seducers and tempters with open arms. The pope’s words and actions prove that the church is willing to put an end to the suffering and let the healing begin.”
This would be a lot funnier if there hadn’t been that guy who apologized for being shot in the face by Cheney. Now it seems like an also-ran.
Holy Crap! I didn’t catch the “From The Onion” and started reading this as if it were real news. I got halfway through and about half irate before I realized my mistake.
Although, it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for this to actually happen.
I did the same thing…
same thing happened to me. My husband wants to print it out to give to his very Catholic mother. I’m tempted because it may just give her a heart attack….
Bloody hells, same here. It’s way too believable, really.
IT’S FROM THE ONION? I just thought, ‘Oh, the pope is being his insane Catholic self again.’ It makes slightly more sense now.
fooled me, too!
My first thought was, “Why the hell is he forgiving the VICTIMS? They didn’t do anything wrong…”
Aaand come to find out, it’s from The Onion.
That’s good satire for ya.
I very cynically believed this story, until I clicked through from Google Reader and saw the Onion byline.
The problem is, there are many “actual” news stories nowadays that could have been written by the Onion.
.
Ditto, missed “from the Onion.” lol
Me too! What does that say about the catholic church (or any church) – that we expect something like that to come from their leadership???
That’s big of him.
hehe. i was fooled too.
the sad thing is that, had it been real i would not have been surprised at all.
It would be funnier if it were not so true about attitudes toward rape.
You have to have heard it implied (or outright said) that it was the woman’s fault. The Onion could do another spoof similar to something I once read, about a family that had their house broken into and expensive televisions and belongings stolen. The cops and the courts were saying things like, “Weren’t you kind of asking for it, and setting yourself up? You had an attractive, expensive television set. Are you sure you weren’t leading the thief on?”
I wonder if the church will forgive those who broke their vow of silence (on pain of excommunication, no less!) and talked to the authorities about having been a victim of or witness to abuse.
So The Onion is proving Poe’s Law now? From the headline alone, I also thought it was a real story.
It isn’t so far off. His actual statement was that the best thing the church could do to resolve the ongoing abuse scandals is to pray about it and think of the victims. He didn’t even hint at recommending that something should actually be done, let alone changes taking place. It’s bewildering that anyone still clings to the garments of these ridiculous carnival shamans.
Yes, this is my favorite part:
I pray that, by drawing nearer to Christ and by participating in the life of his Church – a Church purified by penance and renewed in pastoral charity – you will come to rediscover Christ’s infinite love for each one of you.
“Had a horrible, traumatizing experience with a Catholic pervert that scarred you for life? You can fix it by coming back to church!”
Did you see the Huffpost article about the victims who forgave the pope and returned to church? Sick….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/19/pope-receives-unusual-sup_n_543333.html?page=5&show_comment_id=45109380#comment_45109380
The only reason I realized that it was a joke is because the name was of the past pope.
Bastards! I thought that was real and started a rant. Then I saw “The Onion”!
I nearly wasted a perfectly good tirade against the Church.
Scarily believable.
It’s this kind of false reporting that makes it really hard for us to distiguish truth from fact. I was ready to start blogging the hell out of this. I’m sure the xtians would have really enjoyed my embarrassment when I realized my mistake. Perhaps a little blurb at the beginning of this would have been a good idea. “The following is how The Onion believes Pope John Paul II would handle an address to the public regarding the attrocities committed by the Catholic Church”. Problem solved.
The first three words of the post are “From the Onion:”.
Which is fine and dandy….if you assume that everyone knows what that means. This is the first I’ve heard of The Onion. Further clarification would have been helpful. It’s a good thing that I don’t just blindly C&P things that I find on the internet. Not everyone is smart enough to actually check their facts before sharing the “news”.
Anyone who is in so much of a rush probably deserves the embarrassment. Always read the thing first! And welcome to 14 years ago.
Um…ok then. I wasn’t looking for an argument. I was simply pointing out that if someone didn’t notice the Onion tag, and something like this got blown out of proportion, it could be more harmful to our collective “cause”. Xtians are always looking for excuses to tear apart the side of reason.
If I followed every popular website out there from the time it originated…I would have no life…and never sleep…or eat…or work. Kind of unneccesary sarcasm. But thanks for coming out.
You don’t have to follow a well-known website since it started to know what it is or to find out, catch on, get with it. Do you spend the day on youtube? You still know what it is, I assume? Do you know what a lolcat is? Amazon, eBay, wikipedia? I’m not in favor of dumbing down the internet for anyone because something “might” get blown out of proportion or embarrass someone who falls for a satiric article and takes it seriously enough to re-post such a thing in a mood of outrage. The internet is dumb enough already. Except for The Onion. They always win.
I’m not disputing the fact that people need to check their facts (which I did, which is why I came to realize it was parody). I agree that people who blindly post are idiots. If I had read this directly from The Onion’s website…different story. But this article has popped up on my google reader several times today, with people reposting it sans credit. I enjoyed the article…and I think the Onion is fantastically clever and funny (I’ve been browsing through articles for the last hour or so). I’m merely suggesting that the stupidity of others may actually be hurting the case of reason, much to the enjoyment of insecure fundies who jump all over those opportunities to make us ALL look bad. That’s all.
Well as long as you did the right thing… we can’t hold everyone’s hand. Not everything is as well known to most people as the Onion either, so keep doing it right and don’t worry so much if someone jumps to the wrong conclusion. That’s how they learn. Hopefully. Sorry if I sounded like a biatch, not usually up this early, but I’m not in favor of excessive cautionary notice, and I’m not worried about people misplacing their anger too prematurely as hurting anyone’s causes. I don’t want to weep for humanity anymore. I hope people who are reasonable are also the same kind who take a second to to double check whether they should laugh or scream about something before they go posting to the internet. It just seems to go hand in hand, but some people make mistakes, oh well.
Welcome to the best day of your life!
HAHAHA! I’ve been sitting here for an hour now, just browsing through Onion articles. Hilarious stuff! I’m shocked that I haven’t stumbled across this before now.
I missed the part that said it was from the Onion and I read it and was thinking, “WTF!!?? Is this for real? It can’t be!” Then I checked again. Phew!
The Onion would better serve the people if it were a factual news source. If I am not mistaken, it is against the commandments to lie……..mmmmmm. And I don’t think God ranks them in importance, so their lies are just as bad as the sins of anyone who takes advantage of children, let them be in the Church, or the Boy Scouts, or just plain pedophilias who live down the street. Are THEY casting the first stone??? Then get out of the business of spreading lies.
If you think The Onion is a Christian based website…I think you’ve missed the point. Until there is a law against lying, there is no possible way you can compare lying to abusing children. If you believe that God will punish me for telling that guy in highschool that I had to wash my hair, the same way he will punish a man who inappropriately touches a 5 year old…..you’ve only strengthened my disbelief.
LOL – it’s called “satire”. Join the human race.
This website on baptist leaders going down for rape & pedophilia is well worth looking at:
http://stopbaptistpredators.org/index.htm
Never heard of the onion before today…but I have to say, if that is what they take for humor they are sadly mistaken….it is very poor humor, you do NOT joke about children being molested.
Is there anything else we aren’t allowed to joke about?
Oreos. And Famous Amos. In fact, just leave cookies alone entirely.
I’ll add those to the list. Me, I’m a Hydrox partisan, I think that Oreos are an abomination compared to the real thing. Not a laughing matter!
I have discovered the greatness of Newman’s brand Oreo ripoff cookies.
Much, much better. Actually chocolatey tasting.