I should pause here for a sec, as I will say Catholic throughout this talk, I of course mean Roman Catholic. I know now that lots of other churches sign on to the Nicene creed and call themselves "One holy Catholic and apostolic church" and the term "Roman Catholic" is the way they are differentiated, but Catholics are very insular and think as all religions do that they have the monopoly on truth, so they are the only Catholics, the rest mere protestants. To talk like a real Catholic you also need to say protestant as though you have a bit of phlegm in your mouth to show your disdain, and also emphasise PROTEST in the word, to make them seem like they are just whinging children who didn't get their own way in how the church was run. Of course not getting their own way was the reason they split off not the sale of indulgences or anything like that. Now on to the body of the talk.
First here is some humour to set the mood of this talk;
Transubstantiation, quite a mouthful really but the doctrinal belief that all Catholics, if they wish to call themselves that have to adhere to. The belief that during the ceremony of the Catholic mass the wafer and the wine becomes the literal body and blood of Christ, without changing appearance. As Rodney Dangerfield once said after he tried the Blood of Christ at a Catholic church "wow this guy must have been loaded 24-7".They take that it has become the literal body and blood of Christ due to the words Jesus supposedly said at the last supper; "Take this and eat, it is my body, it has been given up to you", and Paul's 1st letter the Corinthians, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?"10:16.
But they have had to make some caveats to this belief. Introduction of the sin of Host desecration, and the investigation of Jews mainly for this as hey they might be trying to crucify and torture Christ again. Question is how small does the whip and crown of thorns have have to be to torture a small wafer, and how do you crucify a cracker, with matchsticks?
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration
This goes on to the next abhorrent and crazy fact about Catholicism. They tortured ohh so many during the inquisition, under the guise to discover heretics, witches, consorts with the devil and the aforementioned host desecrater's. The real reason of course for this was to gain money, power and land, and the good old fear of the unknown.One of the interesting and disgusting stories, was of a poor Jewish born but converted woman who owned a fair amount of land, after several Saturday's of her neighbours noticing that she had no smoke coming from her chimney and thus no fire they dobbed her into the church. The church knew this woman had a lot of land and if she was a heretic it was theirs, they unleashed Tomas de Torquemada a Dominican Friar who began the inquisition as he was the Churches head inquisitor in Spain at the time. He used a technique he himself had devised, he called it the "water cure" we now know it by its other name water boarding. Torquemada used this technique on his most hated of heretics the Jew who had converted to Catholicism only publicly to save from being killed, he would tie these people to a ladder then tip them down so their head was below their body, plug up their nose and force open their mouth, placing a cloth over there mouth he would pour water onto their face. The church and Torquemada had strict rules, a physician had to be present to ensure the accused was of right mind during their confession and that the inquisitor didn't over torture causing death. Torquemada's rule was no more than 8 jugs of water to be used per session as not drown the accused. So now you know, that the church has also among other things given us water boarding and Torquemada is responsible for writings that possibly inspired Hitler with its vigorous anti-Semitism.
References: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/torquemada/index.html
Little known fact, Catholic Priests are allowed to be married, and have been before. At present this is due to a loophole. The loophole goes like this; if you are a Priest in another Christian denomination, usually Church Of England aka Anglican here in Australia and Episcopalian in the USA, and you Marry someone, you decide to convert the, Catholic church will allow you to become a Catholic Priest and remain married, removing the bit about abstinence much to the either happiness or chagrin of your partner. I wonder if you found an Anglican church that allowed Gay marriage, took orders to be a Pastor, married to your same sex yet partner then converted if the loophole would still apply, this would be the long con but it would be almost worth it.References: http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/MARPRIE.htm
On Catholic Priests previously allowing marriage, not until the First Council of the Lateran of 1123 did they make it canon law that a Priest or other person that had taken holy orders could not marry or have a concubine, funnily enough the same Council where they banned incestuous marriages... so it took them 1000 years to work out that incest was bad and seemingly lumped it in the same boat as a married priest.
Of course Pope Siricius who left his wife and children to become pope issued a decree in 385 that priests should stop living with their wives... A lot of popes even managed to have on record children that then became popes themselves.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_the_Lateran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes
The Catholic church also possibly allowed gay marriage, not to mention gay Popes in the list previous. The church only denounced Gays in 314 in the 16th Canon of the Council of Ancyra and prior to that and after they had Adelphopoiesis, the rite of brotherhood, similar to a marriage rite but between two men. This rite, now defunct has been argued by the late John Boswell to be a rite of marriage between a homosexual couple.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelphopoiesis
Of course now the Catholic church says that Homosexual marriage is a threat to peace, just like I am sure interracial marriage was described as unnatural and a threat to nations at one stage. The Catholics have stated that they are not just about embracing fashionable cultural standpoints. I don't think this is just fashionable, there is some popularity that is gleaned from supporting gay marriage, but I would like to think that, that is because it is right. Just because something is fashionable doesn't make it incorrect.
The Pope even said that everyone is born with an identity, which I agree with and there is nothing they can do to change that. Just like Gay/Bi/Straight priests who attempt to suppress this identity, and end up raping little children, other clergy or the laity.
References: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/vatican-gay-couples-different-reality-same-sex-marriage-utopia_n_2331391.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/pope-denounces-gay-marriage-annual-xmas-message-article-1.1225960
The ineffable Christopher Hitchens talking homosexuality and the church;
The pope has since tweeted, most of them fairly vacuous, some almost humourous though you would laugh at him not with him. What was more interesting was looking at the hashtag that started (#askpontifex) prior to his tweet, most of it was calling the Catholic church and the pope out on their failings, or making fun of the whole institution.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility
https://twitter.com/Pontifex
Here is an interesting one, the Vatican is not that large in area, how many rooms do you think the Papal palace has? 100, 200, 1000? If you said any of them you are wrong, ok we don't know how many rooms exactly, but it has 12,000 windows, yep someone counted, over 1000 halls and possibly anywhere up to 11,000 rooms. Not a bad little place really.
Did I mention that Pope Benedict has rooms filled with Gold treasure, interestingly to quote one of the previous popes; "this morning, I flushed my toilet with a solid gold lever edged with diamonds and at this very moment, bishops and cardinals are using a bathroom on the second floor of the papal palace which trappings, I am told, would draw more than fifty million dollars at auction . . . Believe me, one day, we who live in opulence, while so many are dying because they have nothing, will have to answer to Jesus as to why we have not carried out His instruction, ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ We, the clergy of the Church together with our congregations, who substitute gold and pomp and ceremony in place of Christ’s instruction, who judge our masquerade of singing His praises to be more precious than human life, will have the most to explain.” -Pope John Paul the 1st.But this is not how Ratzinger does it, he has gold cloth hats and robes, gold chairs and a newly refurbished million dollar pope mobile as well as the need for extra leg room;
References: http://www.catholicarrogance.org/Catholic/Vaticanpalace.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lJqZcgGXS8 Taken down unfortunately.
Father Bob, who most Australians will know is surprisingly a Catholic priest from Melbourne's got in trouble back in 2009 for get this, spending too much of the churches money and only keeping it afloat by selling off $3million in church assets, the money outgoing was being funnelled into the poor... so basically a catholic priest who is a top bloke and makes me almost wish I could believe the tripe almost got fired for doing one of the things Jesus supposedly said.
Did I mention he reakons there should be a separation of church and state and that the Catholic church should be ashamed of hiding child molesting Priests and that these Priest should come out publicly and tell the world what they have done to seek forgiveness.References: http://www.theage.com.au/national/father-bob-has-spent-too-much-20090912-fljp.html
http://www.thecourier.com.au/news/local/news/general/call-clergy-to-account-says-father-bob/2579682.aspx
Oh and he is a bit of a larrikin; http://www.news.com.au/national/your-sins-forgiven-on-the-run/story-e6frfkvr-1226031706893
Yep the Church has exorcists, lots of them. Technically speaking they are supposed to have one for every diocese, including the head exorcist for the Vatican. You kind of wonder if they have Fairy whisperers and dragon wranglers as well. The theory goes that only Catholics get possessed, and when it isn't some mental illness it is a demon, this says about God's omnipotence leaves something to be desired. Some like the one from the Vatican said he would do a hundred exorcisms a year, and made extraordinary claims such as displays of super-human strength and telekinesis, yet he has no other evidence other than his appeal to authority. These demons must hate science more than they hate priests cause one of these possessed people has never been studied to see how they achieve these results, and I can bet you the US military would literally kill to get their hands on superhuman strength and telekinesis. This makes me think of that Richard Pryor quote:
References: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harry-potter/8915691/Harry-Potter-and-yoga-are-evil-says-Catholic-Church-exorcist.html
A little serious section here;
Number killed during the papacy; So in 1400 years, just through inquisitions and witch hunts alone and estimated 50 million people have been killed (about 48,000 per year)
Not to mention genocide of the South American indians, conservatively estimated at 15million, and between 7 and 12million during the thirty years’ war.
Here is something the catholic church can be proud of, during WWII, in Germany about 30% of the population was Catholic, almost 70% Lutheran. Have a guess how many objected to the Nazi's policies openly from the Catholics, 0 Clergy and 7 laity, 7. If this isn't and indictment on the Catholic church I don't know what is.
References: http://webwitness.org.au/estimates.html
http://www.catholicarrogance.org/Catholic/RC_scandal-2.html#clergynazisupport
Pope is a liar and tries to re-write history;
The Vatican helped Jews during WW2; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8464453.stm
The Vatican turned all the church's birth registers over to the Nazis so they could filter people of Jewish origin out of the population.
The Vatican never once criticised events in the concentration camps, even when they became publicly known in 1942.
After the war, the Vatican issued passports and travel tickets to high-ranking Nazis to aid their escape to South America, among other places. They received a letter of thanks and praise from Eichmann, who was so grateful that he converted to Catholicism.Not one of the Nazis who had cast all of Europe into an extensive bloody war and annihilated millions of innocent people was ever excommunicated. Hitler was and remained to his death a Catholic in good standing.
The current Pope, Benedict, plans to sanctify the wartime Pope, Pius XII, who maintained such chummy relations to the Third Reich at the time.
Lots of illuminating supporting material here: http://markhumphrys.com/christianity.ww2.html
Condoms cause aids;
In March 2009, on the Popes flight to Cameroon (where 540,000 people have HIV), Pope Benedict XVI explained that Aids is a tragedy "that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems"
Christopher Hitchens in his book "God is not Great" mentioned one Cardinal Alfonso Lopez De Trukillo, stated in 2009 that condoms have tiny holes in them that let the AIDS virus through, but somehow don't let the sperm through. Also he fails to show basic knowledge that AIDS is not caught, but caused by an immune system beset by HIV.
The Pope has thankfully since changed this decision, he mustn't have being talking with infallibility previously. Now the Pope says that condoms can be used as long as it is only to stem the spread of HIV, oddly current research shows that 82% of Catholics think birth control is acceptable and I would say a fair percentage of that use birth control, so they are either all hypocrites or there is some medical reason all of them need to use birth control. As medical reasons have been allowed by the church.
References: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/11/bad-science-pope-anti-condom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/09/aids
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/20/pope-says-condoms-may-be-ok-in-some-circumstances/
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/23/489006/82-percent-of-catholics-birth-control/?mobile=nc
Our ex-Vatican exorcist is at it exposing happenings again, this time saying a very famous missing girl in Italy was the result of regular kidnappings by the Vatican police and subsequent sex parties. Once the Vatican police where done with the girl they disposed of her: http://www.rt.com/news/girl-vatican-sex-priest-975/
Child sex scandal has been going on for a long time in the church. This video explains its history better than I can.
A good overview of Catholic Child Sex abuse by the ABC's Hungry Beast;
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/03/the_great_catholic_coverup.html
The Pope's own advisor on the problem of paedophilia even got arrested for guess what, paedophilia http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072613,00.html?xid=rss-world.
In Australia we even have a problem as well with every month new information about a priest or clergy going up on http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au
There was a special on 4 corners about the Ballarat sexual abuse issues, dozens of boys abused by only a couple of priests. Many, many suicides have happened and countless Australian lives destroyed by these monsters. The argument from the church I have heard before and again when a North Sydney priest copied it at the talk with Peter Fitzsimons a few weeks ago, that equal percentages of Laity (non-priests) as Priests are child-molesters, and my response to that horrible argument is the same now as then; the difference is the non-priests don't get moved around and their victims silenced. The non-religious child molester usually goes to gaol.
Even if the priests were going to gaol, why doesn't their God assist his servants to uphold their charge with children and their vow of celibacy?
Belgium is an interesting case as it currently seems like every single church there has had a serious allegation made against it, or has already gone to court.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/7994705/No-Belgian-church-escaped-sex-abuse-finds-investigation.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases#Belgium
In the USA they do things with a bit less class and more money, a Cardinal recently it was discovered paid off Priests that had raped and molested children, anywhere up to half a million dollars for them to just disappear; http://new.exchristian.net/2012/06/by-valerie-tarico-t-imothy-dolan.html
Louis CK investigates the Catholic church;
Now onto some lighter stuff.
Rupert Murdoch, while not a Catholic but married to one. He also does consider himself a not very intense Christian. Now this not very intense Anglican goes to church occasionally, most of the time with his wife to a Catholic church. So when LA's diocese education fund was a bit light, they got some cash of Rupert, then when their cathedral was being rebuilt, he dropped $10million to assist in the rebuild.
For all of this he got the order of St Gregory, basically a Knighthood, from the Pope, then there was talk of them stripping it from him, this after they haven't defrocked a single child molesting priest, excommunicated Hitler or almost any Nazi.
Ah well he probably gave the money over to the LA church as that would easily be what he would make in a year off of "Zondervan", a company he owns that makes bibles and which has the exclusive publishing rights with NIV (New international version), one of the 7 Catholic Bibles .
As a little aside, how many inerrant works of the omnipotent creator do they need? They have 7 from my count, at the moment; Jerusalem Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible, the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and the New Revised Standard Version (NSRV), the New American Bible (NAB), the aforementioned NIV, The Good News Bible (there is a catholic edition). You think God could have got the message right the first time for everyone on the planet to understand.
Galileo Was Wrong! Yep there is a group of conservative Catholics that go that extra step from just being creationists, even the infamous creationist Ken Ham said the Bible is silent on geocentrism.
“There’s a big difference between looking at the origin of the planets, the solar system and the universe and looking at presently how they move and how they are interrelated,” Ham said. “The Bible is neither geocentric or heliocentric. It does not give any specific information about the structure of the solar system.”
This is an interesting standpoint for them as the Pope and by extension the Catholic church accepts the Big Bang and evolution, although the current Pope did allude to evolution being atheistic and not to cling to it with religious fervour... whatever that means.
References: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-04/news/ct-met-galileo-was-wrong-20110704_1_modern-church-universe-splinter-group
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/07/04/group-of-catholics-galileo-was-wrong/
So that was an example of a division within Catholicism but it is not, I found out the only one. Not to be outdone by those dirty protestants and their ~30,000 denominations, There are heaps of catholic divisions as well, if it is not holy orders like, Dominicans, Franciscans, Salesians (Father foxes order), or Jesuits it is one of almost 40 other orders, then it is all out throwbacks who think the common person shouldn't understand the word of the supposed creator and still say the mass in Latin, still with their back to the people.
So Lent is a pretty silly tradition. It all starts with an ashen cross on your forehead and ends with kissing the feet of some s&m statue. I remember how much I both enjoyed and hated the Pancakes we would have on Shrove aka Pancake Tuesday the day before Ash Wednesday as it was a sign of the end. No softdrink, no movies, no chocolate, no lollies, no cakes or sweets. Then easter would finally roll around after what seemed like an eternity of this and what would I get subpar chocolate or worse carob.If it is not admonishing women for getting an abortion (40 days of life), it is reclassifying Beavers, as fish because hey they swim in water, and their tails kind of look like a fish fillet.
Speaking about fish fillet, Jesus really wanted to push some business the way of his friends so there is no meat on Fridays for Catholics, although most have relaxed this of late. But it is still the reason the fillet-o-fish from MacDonalds exists, and the reason they have tried other fish based meals to get that Catholic dollar. Cause sure you can't have sweets but you can have fatty fish on a 20% sugar bun.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filet-O-Fish
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate/2012/02/mcdonalds_releases_fish_mcbite.php
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=635154
Opus Dei are just nuts, not albino psycho monk nuts, but nuts all the same. I don't know if I have ever had any dealings with them in my previous life as a Catholic but I suspect some of my family of being at least associated, that's why I looked into it. I am now pretty sure they are actually members. The sect holds that its members must remain secretive and are not allowed to reveal they are a member of Opus Dei usually to anyone without permission from their superiors, and definitely not to the general public. If they are single and female they are to live in a commune controlled by the higher ups, their mail is opened and their lives fully controlled, and they are supposed to practise self-flagellation, whipping themselves. These single Opus Dei members are forced to labour for the other members and clergy, usually 10 hours a day seven days a week, and any money they are paid is donated to the community or church.They even perform a cult technique called love bombing, where they shower a new initiate with praise and effect ion to win them over. Yet the Pope still thinks Opus Dei are a-ok, the previous Pope even acknowledged them and the work they do, the current has assigned them to tasks he wishes to complete.
Let's look at what an average day holds for them;
First thing in the morning;
Heroic minute, waking up punctually and saying "Serviam!" (Latin for I will serve)
Morning offering, fixing one's intentions to do everything for the glory of God
Throughout the day;
Spiritual reading and reading the New Testament, a practise recommended by St. Paul and other saints
Mental prayer, conversation with God
Mass, Communion and Thanksgiving after Communion
Visit to the Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic practise of greeting Jesus in the Eucharist
Rosary
The Preces (the common prayer of Opus Dei)
Angelus prayer
Memorare prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary offered for the Opus Dei member in most need at that exact moment
Short, spontaneous prayers throughout the day, offering up to God one's work, sufferings etc.
End of the day;
Examination of conscience at the end of the day
Three Hail Marys before bed to pray for the virtue of purity
You thought the Muslims had to pray a lot, they have nothing on Opus Dei. Let's look at one of those prayers, the Angelus prayer, where they 4 hail Mary's interspersed with some bullshit about God becoming man. Or the obligatory rosary that is in there, which should take you around 15minutes if you don't rush not to mention the almost hour wasted at Mass every single day, and the other monthly and yearly tasks such as honouring Mary every year by making a pilgrimage in May and at the pilgrimage site saying 3 rosaries, Yikes.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus
http://ncronline.org/blogs/young-voices/real-scandal-opus-dei-and-church
http://www.odan.org/
Here is an interesting little tidbit, the Vatican has an age of consent, it is 14 years of age. Something that most of us in the west would be a little disgusted with. But it isn't there fault they just copied the laws of the rest of Italy. So really not that crazy, though surely most residents of Vatican city have taken a vow of celibacy, except the Vatican police we talked about earlier and the Vatican guard, but really there is no age of consent for gays and all those police and guards are men... so really the age of consent must be for the one hotel in Vatican city, but surely the church would prefer that this sex was only done on the chance of conceiving so maybe just remove the age of consent and outlaw it in your crazy little city.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe#Vatican_State
Dan Savage on sex in the Vatican
Now supposedly due to Pope Joan or at least the possibility of her, the Sedes Stercoraria came into existence. A chair designed to allow the Bishops of Rome to ensure that the pope was both Male and an undamaged Male at that. The bible also says that a male with damaged genitals may not enter into the house of the lord, (Deuteronomy 23:1). So on to this chair, it has a hole in it, and it was either held aloft as the cardinals in Rome where to check out the pope so to speak, the other reported method was that the chair had a hole in both the seat and the front so that the Cardinals could check by feel. There is some reports, though none verified or admitted by the Holy See that this goes on, to this day.http://popes-and-papacy.com/wordpress/?p=249
Prophesy, something almost all religions claim. The church is basically and end of the world cult gone crazy. With Jesus in the bible claiming the end would come before some of the apostles present would taste death (Matthew16:28), then Paul seemed to say the end was very nigh, saying not even to bother marrying (1 Corinthians 7:29). Then the papacy continued this tradition. Pope Sylvester the 2nd was convinced (as were others) that the end would come in the year 1000; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennialism
Then Pope Innocent the 3rd predicted that the world would end 666 years after the rise of Islam in 1284, though this may have been to get support for his crusade he was waging, regardless it did end for him though a lot earlier as he died in 1216.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
I have been attacking the Pope and head of the church a bit, and I guess rightly so. If he acts crazy and adheres to crazy doctrines, then the whole institution is corrupt and should be shunned.
Finally an incredibly hilarious rap song by a young comedian about the Roman Catholic church;
Sorry this post was a long one, I hope it was funny and informative. I will post the video of my talk on the Sydney Atheists youtube page as soon as I can.
If I missed any references above, or I am wrong on any of this I don't mind being corrected, as long as you have references and evidence to back it up. Obviously some of this is my opinion and but it is based on the research I have done thus far and the life I have lived, happy to change my mind if presented with new evidence.
Slide deck (though I have added it into the post now) used during this talk is here.
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