Rationalist Society of St. Louis

PITTSBURGH — The estate of a man allegedly abused by a priest in the 1980s is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, alleging he committed suicide this year after the diocese stopped paying for his mental health treatments following two other suicide attempts.

Michael Unglo, 39, formerly of Etna in suburban Pittsburgh, committed suicide in May at a center in Stockbridge, Mass., according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press. He alleged he was molested in the early 1980s while an altar boy, by a priest who was convicted of molesting another boy and later resigned.

The diocese decided to stop paying for Unglo’s treatment even though the diocese continued to pay for the priest’s health insurance and paid the priest an unspecified monthly stipend, Alan Perer, attorney for Unglo’s estate, said Thursday at a news conference.

“There was money to fund a convicted, pedophile, defrocked priest and yet not enough money to continue to provide for the victim of that priest who ultimately killed himself,” Perer said.

Read the full article here.

From the BBC

Under Irans strict interpretation of Islamic law, sex before marriage is punishable by 100 lashes, but married offenders are sentenced to death by stoning. The stones used must be large enough to cause the condemned pain, but not sufficient to kill immediately.

And this is compatible with civilized society how?

The Pope publicly denounces one of its own for speaking opening about rapist priests. The Pope thinks he should be the one to speak about abuse even though he covered-up past abuses and blocked taking action against abusers.

The Vatican on Monday issued an unprecedented rebuke of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups.

The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children.

From Beliefnet:

For some clergy, it is the problem that dare not speak its name.

Affected pastors say they cannot be themselves among their congregations or colleagues, sometimes even with their own families.

It’s a huge and burdensome secret with the potential to destroy their careers, they say. They think they’re not the only ones, but feel terribly lonely.

No, it’s not some kind of sexual secret — it’s loss of faith.

Daniel C. Dennett, co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University outside Boston, and Linda LaScola, a Washington-based clinical social worker, researcher and psychotherapist, are the authors of a recent study entitled “Preachers Who Are Not Believers” in the journal Evolutionary Psychology.

Read the full article here.

From Today Tonight from Australia:

Ten years ago authorities in Britain told the Church of Scientology it would have to pay tax, that it was not a charity. To avoid paying tax in the UK it’s alleged they made the entire Church of Scientology in Britain a member of a tiny little association incorporated here in South Australia.

From its non-existent offices in Adelaide the tiny incorporated association boasts as its members, not people, but Churches of Scientology from the United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, France, Holland, Germany and Sweden. They have a member in South Africa too.

Today Tonight discovered a global multinational corporation boasting more members in Canada, including Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and British Columbia.

They operate under a company called the Church of Scientology Religious Education College Incorporated, or COSRECI.

Tonight Today has a ten minute news report as well.

This suburban home in Adelaide, Australia, is the corporate headquarters for Scientology for the UK, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, and many others.

Via Twitter:

Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man’s efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle.

This raises so many questions.

–Why didn’t God listen to the prayers people made over the last three months?

–Is BP wasting its time and money to stop the spill?

–Is God not helping for a reason?

–If the spill doesn’t stop, then does God want it to continue?

–Why not pray for a solution to our energy problems instead of just over this one spill?

–If God didn’t answer previous prayers because he works in mysterious ways and the spill stops after the new prayers, how do we know God acted?

–Why does God want a dipsht to be president of his favorite country?

The South African Times reports from Vietnam:

Three men who spent nearly a decade in prison on rape charges were freed after an acupuncturist determined that they were virgins, a police official says.

How can she determine this?

She said examination of a pressure point beneath the convict’s ear showed a small capillary was unbroken, which Vietnamese traditional medicine holds to mean that he was a virgin. Hong then examined the other two men.

“I recognised these three men had never had sex with women,” Hong said.

She claimed to see those capillaries with her unaided eyes. That can happen only if she put acupuncture needles in her eyes to allow her to see those MICROSCOPIC capillaries.

Femonomics makes an interesting point by contrasting America’s “pro-family” stance with its anti-family maternity and paternity leave policy.

Many Americans would describe Sweden as “Socialist!!” (a big, bad, scary word these days), and they’d be right. But Swedish policies are also much more pro-family than those of the more free-market Capitalist US. At least if we consider parents spending time with their children to be pro-family (I do!). For all of the political rhetoric around our “traditional family values,” US society does not really have a commitment to strengthening the family. Right-wing groups may stand strong against gay marriage and abortions, but where are the rallies for family leave, subsidized childcare, and living wages? The top three results in a Google Search of “Pro Family Advocacy” are homophobic organizations protesting gay marriage. Do Americans just not get it?

The New York Times has an interesting article on paternity leave in Sweden.

Now it’s the Jesuits in Germany.

Reuters) – A Jesuit investigation cited 205 allegations of sexual abuse against priests at its schools in Germany on Thursday, revealing decades of systematic abuse and attempts of a cover-up by the Roman Catholic order.

The new allegations threaten to further undermine the German Roman Catholic Church, already accused of hushing up hundreds of sexual and physical abuse allegations in Church-run schools that have come to light recently.

Read the full article.