What does evil look like? Two crimes in Poland

[BurtWorm]

Powerful post from defender of the faithless PZ Myers:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/03/now_thats_what_atheists_look_l.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29

Now that's what atheists look like



I have something in common with these guys. That's the Polish death metal band Behemoth, and you can see that they look like real atheists: cadaverous, lots of black leather and spikes, with nice metal jewelry in odd places on their clothing.

Uh, none of that is at all like me.

Here they are in performance. I rather like it, but be warned: it's loud and harsh. See if you can spot the resemblance now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrvv0HRKgqg


Get it?

OK, I'll explain, since I guess it isn' quite so obvious. At the beginning of that clip, the lead singer, Nergal, is tearing up a Bible and throwing the pages out to the audience. Hey, I've done that in some of my talks!

Remind me, though, never to do that in Poland. Poland has a law on the books making it a crime to insult the Roman Catholic Church. Offend a Catholic priest, and they can throw you in jail for two years. It's an even vaguer version of a blasphemy law, and it's actually being used to silence a marginal and slightly weird critic of the church.

Oh, sure, Nergal looks scary and fits a certain stereotype. But he's nowhere near as horrifying as this fellow:




That's Marcial Maciel, good buddy to Pope John Paul II and Pope Ratzi, leader of an obscenely rich conservative organization called the Legion of Christ, serial pedophile, and vile monster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHyhdaTQCS4&feature=player_embedded

Nergal has been charged with insulting the Catholic church and faces a trial that could put him away in jail for a few years. If he dodges that, or when he gets out, I think he should change his act for safety's sake. Instead of dressing like a refugee from hell and tearing up Bibles, he ought to put on a priest's cassock and clerical collar and rape a child on stage. Not only would it be more frightening, but it's behavior the Church does not find offensive. Unless you're caught, of course.

[brendan120678]

1. I don't quite get what Marcial Maciel has to do with this...

he's been dead for over two years. And he was a Mexican priest, not Polish.

Edited to add: also, if I recall Benedict had him removed from his leadership position. Not exactly a "friend".
And also, Poland's law makes it a crime to blaspheme any Religion, not just Roman Catholicism.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. His 'Legion of Christ' is in the news

No, it's not Poland. A mistake by the thread starter, I think. By PZ Myers linked to this:

International Probe Targets Secretive Catholic Group

"Maciel was a sexual criminal of epic proportions who gained the trust of John Paul II and created a movement that is as close to a cult as anything we've seen in the church," said author Jason Berry, one of two reporters who broke the Maciel story in 1997 and who directed a 2008 documentary about the priest called "Vows of Silence."

"But he got away with it for years and still in a sense he's getting away with it."

The Vatican ordered a worldwide investigation into the Legion, founded in Mexico in 1941, last year. But its response to decades of allegations involving Maciel has been as slow and often reluctant as its reaction to the long-festering sex abuse scandals now erupting in Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

In 1997, nine former high-ranking seminarians accused Maciel, who died in 2008, of sexually abusing them when they were boys training for the priesthood. Last year, it was discovered Maciel had an illegitimate daughter born in 1986 in Spain. Two Mexican men who say they are Maciel's sons claim he also sexually abused them as children.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/secretive-catholic-order-founded-by-accused-pedophile-under-fire/19398262

The thing is, those 1997 accusations were blocked by Ratzinger himself. From an archive of a 2002 ABC 20/20 report:

Then, four years ago, some of the men tried a last ditch effort, taking the unusual step of filing a lawsuit in the Vatican's secretive court, seeking Maciel's excommunication.

Once again they laid out their evidence, but it was another futile effort — an effort the men say was blocked by one of the most powerful cardinals in the Vatican.

The accusers say Vatican-based Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican office to safeguard the faith and the morals of the church, quietly made the lawsuit go away and shelved it. There was no investigation and the accusers weren't asked a single question or asked for a statement.
...
"Cardinal Ratzinger is sheltering Maciel, protecting him," said Berry, who expressed concerns that no response was being given to the allegations against the man charged with sex abuse. "These men knelt and kissed the ring of Cardinal Ratzinger when they filed the case in Rome. And a year-and-a-half later, he takes those accusations and aborts them, just stuffs them."

http://web.archive.org/web/20020607141945/http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/DailyNews/2020_Vatican_coverup_020426.html

So, Ratzinger acted as a damn good friend to Maciel back in the late 90s.

And this is interesting - from the AOL story:

Two of the most visible priests in America are Father Thomas Williams, a movie-star-handsome CBS News analyst, and Father Jonathan Morris, who is sometimes referred to as "Father Knows Best" on the Fox News Channel. They belong to the Legion of Christ but rarely identify themselves as such on camera.

[iris27]

4. It's two separate things -- the face of "evil" scary-looking non-religious people vs. the face

of actual child-raping evil. A creepily-made-up atheist rock singer is facing charges in Poland just for tearing up a Bible, but a molesting priest can have a then-cardinal, now-pope cover his ass.

Basically it's a "they're arresting people for jaywalking while armed robbers walk the streets" post.

[RagAss]

3. Any place that would throw you in jail for 2 years for insulting a priest...

Is one fucked-up, backward assed place I would never spend a minute in !