Eideard

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Street artist Banksy has installed a vandalised sculpture of a priest in a gallery in Liverpool.

Cardinal Sin is a bust with its face sawn off and replaced by blank tiles, designed as a response to the child abuse scandal in the Catholic church.

In a statement, Banksy said: “I’m never sure who deserves to be put on a pedestal or crushed under one.”

The sculpture was unveiled at the Walker Art Gallery, where it is sitting alongside 17th Century religious art. The bathroom tiles have been put in place of the priest’s face to create a pixelated effect…

“The statue? I guess you could call it a Christmas present. At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse…”

This is only the second time that the secretive artist, known for his subversive images on street walls, has created work for a gallery…

Cardinal Sin has been loaned indefinitely by the artist to the Walker Gallery.

As much as I dislike graffiti, I love Banksy.

Ireland stepped up its battle with the Roman Catholic Church over child abuse Sunday, with Justice Minister Alan Shatter vowing to pass a law requiring priests to report suspicions of child abuse, even if they learn about them in confession.

The Catholic Church regards information learned in confession as completely confidential. But under the law proposed by Shatter, priests could be prosecuted for failing to tell the police about crimes disclosed in the confession box.

Shatter said in a statement through a spokesman last week that priests’ failure to report what they learn in confession “has led sexual predators into believing that they have impunity and facilitated pedophiles preying on children and destroying their lives.”

The minister’s comment to a local radio station Sunday comes after the Vatican rejected Irish accusations that church leaders sought to cover up extensive abuse of young people by priests in Ireland…

“In a spirit of humility, the Holy See, while rejecting unfounded accusations, welcomes all objective and helpful observations and suggestions to combat with determination the appalling crime of sexual abuse of minors,” the statement says…

Released July 13, the 421-page report into the handling of abuses in the diocese of Cloyne demolished claims by the Catholic Church in Ireland that policies it put in place in 1996 had enabled it to get a handle on the problem.

It also accused Bishop John Magee, who was responsible for policing abuse in his diocese, of not backing the policies himself and failing to take action against abusers.

Time is long past for churches to be removed as a law unto themselves, superseding the law of sovereign nations. And, yes, that includes the question of paying taxes like any other corporate body.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A year after his resignation plunged Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church into a crisis, the former bishop of Bruges provoked almost universal condemnation on Friday, this time by admitting that he had abused a second nephew – and insisting that he was not a pedophile.

In a television interview late Thursday that reopened deep wounds, the bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, 74, recounted with apparent lack of contrition events leading up to his resignation as bishop of Bruges last year, when it emerged that nearly 25 years ago he had abused a boy who was later revealed to be one of his nephews.

Those revelations prompted hundreds of people to come forward, claiming that they, too, had been victims of priests, and forced Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church into its deepest crisis of recent times.

In a broadcast from a location in France, Bishop Vangheluwe, dressed in an open-neck shirt, suggested that the 13-year relationship revealed last year had not been opposed by his nephew, and, in an unexpected new twist, he admitted having abused a second nephew for a much shorter period…

Bishop Vangheluwe is not facing criminal charges because of Belgium’s 10-year statute of limitations, and the Vatican says he is receiving “spiritual and psychological treatment” outside Belgium…

During the interview, to which Bishop Vangheluwe had agreed only on the condition that it would be broadcast live, he denied that he had been driven by sexual motives…the abuse had been restricted to the touching of genitals…

Um, the Pope said – well, the Pope said nothing. When the abuse became public he condemned the police for searching church property and took the Bishop’s fate into his own hands. Since then – well, the Pope said nothing.

Administering methadone to a 4-week-old infant

As prescription drug abuse ravages communities across the country, doctors are confronting an emerging challenge: newborns dependent on painkillers…Infants…have to stay in the hospital for weeks while they are weaned off the drugs, taxing neonatal units and driving the cost of their medical care into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Like the cocaine-exposed babies of the 1980s, those born dependent on prescription opiates — narcotics that contain opium or its derivatives — are entering a world in which little is known about the long-term effects on their development. Few doctors are even willing to treat pregnant opiate addicts, and there is no universally accepted standard of care for their babies, partly because of the difficulty of conducting research on pregnant women and newborns.

Those who do treat pregnant addicts face a jarring ethical quandary: they must weigh whether the harm inflicted by exposing a fetus to powerful drugs, albeit under medical supervision, is justifiable.

“I’ve had pharmacies that have just called back and said: ‘This lady’s pregnant. Why do you want me to fill this scrip? I can’t do that,’ ” said Dr. Craig Smith, a family practitioner in Bridgton, Me. “But when you stop and think about what actually happens during withdrawal and how violent it can be, that would certainly be not in the baby’s best interest…”

There are no national figures that document the extent of the problem, but interviews with doctors, researchers, social workers and women who abused painkillers while pregnant suggest that it has grown rapidly, especially in rural regions, where officials say such abuse is most common…

RTFA. Please. This is an addictive disaster that is not slowing down in the least.

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John Morse – the worst offender

A US Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166.1 million to compensate nearly 500 victims of decades-long “horrific” sexual and psychological abuse by priests in five US states…

The US Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Society of Jesus agreed to the payout — which lawyers said is the biggest by a religious organization in the United States — as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Most of those abused by priests from the Oregon Province — the Jesuit order which covers the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana — were Native Americans at mission schools on Indian reservations.

“This settlement recognizes that the Jesuits betrayed the trust of hundreds of young children in their care, and inflicted terrible atrocities upon them,” said lawyer Blaine Tamaki.

“These religious figures should have been responsible for protecting children, but instead raped and molested them,” he added…

Forty-nine of the victims represented by Tamaki were sexually abused when they were eight or younger.

The settlement also asks the Jesuits to provide a written apology to the victims, and share documents of importance to victims, such as their personal medical records, he said.

The abuse took place from the 1940s and continued through to the 1990s…

The Jesuit Chapter is in bankruptcy court – claiming the Catholic order can’t afford to compensate the victims of their priests.

Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, a special commission said…

”Reality is worse than what we present here today because not everyone shares such things automatically in a first contact with the commission,” he told reporters.

Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who has worked with trauma victims for 23 years, said nothing had prepared him for the stories of abuse that blighted the lives of victims.

”We don’t just talk about touching. We are talking about oral and anal abuse, forced masturbation and mutual masturbation. We talk about people who have gone through serious abuse,” Adriaenssens said…

Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard said he would react on Monday to the report. The Vatican had no immediate comment.

But Tournai Bishop Guy Harpigny, who deals with the issue for the church, praised Adriaenssens’s work and told VRT television that ”now, the time has come to listen to the victims…”

Spend time considering the ethics of an institution which sets itself up as a leading judge of everyone’s morality – historically incapable of ethical standards in day-to-day behavior.

Friday’s report said 507 witnesses came forward with stories of molestation at the hands of clergy over the past decades. It says those abused included children who were two, four, five and six years old.

Family members or friends said 13 victims committed suicide that ”was related to sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said. Six other witnesses said they had attempted suicide…

The number of those coming forward with their stories and testimonies, however, could be only a fraction of those actually abused, Adriaenssens said.

RTFA. None of this should surprise a thinking, observant reader. But, the information is useful to anyone considering what their personal attitude should be towards so-called organized religion. A misnomer if there ever was one.

Marijuana is thought by some to be a gateway drug among young people who eventually go on to try stronger substances. But that may be the exception rather than the rule, a new study finds.

Researchers from the University of New Hampshire looked at data from a random group of 1,286 children, teens and young adults who were in Miami-Dade public schools in the 1990s. Among the study participants, 26% were African American, 44% were Hispanic, and 30% were non-Hispanic white…

Education played a role in use of other substances–those more likely to have used marijuana as teens and other drugs as young adults didn’t graduate from high school or go to college. Employment factored in as well, since those who smoked pot as teens and were out of work after high school were more apt to use other drugs.

Researchers also discovered that if young adults became involved with other substances after using marijuana as teens, that link didn’t hold once the sources of stress, such as not working, went away.

Age was yet another issue. Researchers discovered that after the age of 21, the gateway effect seemed to disappear.

“Employment in young adulthood can protect people by ‘closing’ the marijuana gateway,” said lead author Karen Van Gundy, in a news release, “so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities.”

No kidding.

Not that this will mean much of anything to politicians and other professional moralists. Don’t let facts get in the way of your beliefs.

An Australian Catholic priest has been jailed for almost 20 years for “sadistic” sex attacks on young boys that spanned more than 18 years.

John Sidney Denham, 67, was sentenced to 19 years and 10 months after pleading guilty to a range of charges, including multiple counts of indecent assault against boys aged five to 16.

Denham was found guilty of abusing 39 boys at schools in Sydney and elsewhere in New South Wales between 1968 and 1986.

In sentencing, judge Helen Syme said that the abuse had been ignored by school authorities for many years, allowing it to continue.

“The indecent assaults involved multiple children, often significant planning, were frequently sadistic and overall persistent, objectively serious, criminal courses of conduct,” Judge Syme said. “The offender’s actions contributed to a culture of fear and depravity, especially at the school, which allowed these disturbing offences to occur and then remain unpunished for years.”

The public gallery applauded when the sentenced was announced.

Throw away the key!

A secret Vatican file on a disgraced Roman Catholic German bishop alleges he is a “severely alcoholic man” who sexually preyed on young priests.

The dossier was seen by Pope Benedict XVI before he accepted the resignation of Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg last month.

Documents, compiled after Vatican investigators questioned members of Bishop Mixa’s inner circle, have detailed a litany of alleged alcoholism and sexual abuse.

The new allegations have come to light following his demands last week that the Vatican review his case. He has accused Germany’s Archbishop Robert Zollitsch and Bavaria’s Archbishop Reinhard Marx of not behaving a “brotherly” manner and pressuring him to resign.

In the dossier, witnesses described the bishop as an alcoholic who had to drink wine and spirits throughout the course of his day to feed his addiction to alcohol.

Others accused him of carrying out sex attacks on young priests during his time as a parish priest. Following an sexual incident, Bishop Mixa would then “go to confession the next morning before he celebrated mass“…

The Bishop of Augsberg’s resignation in early May followed accusations that he beat children at a Catholic orphanage in the 1970s and later misused Church money.

Bishop Mixa has since moved back into his Church mansion, and says he will demand the decision to accept his resignation is reversed next month. He claims the Pontiff was pressured to accept his resignation due to the unproven allegations of sexual abuse.

And all that other stuff ain’t especially important either, right? As far as day-to-day management of the Catholic Corporation Church is concerned.

A firm affiliated with the former Blackwater security company has been awarded a contract to provide protection to U.S. consulates and diplomats in the Afghan cities of Herat and Mazar-e Sharif, a U.S. State Department official has confirmed.

The official said U.S. Training Center got the contract on Friday. It is part of Xe, the new name of Blackwater Worldwide.

Blackwater became the target of widespread outrage in Iraq after its contractors were involved in the September 2007 shooting at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square that left 17 civilians dead and 24 wounded, straining relations between Iraq and the United States.

The deal is a one-year contract with an option to extend up to 18 months. If the contract is fulfilled for that entire period, it would be more than $120 million.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, said on Saturday she was “extremely disappointed” over the deal and that the former Blackwater shouldn’t be receiving more U.S. contracts.

“This is a company whose cowboy-like behavior has not only resulted in civilian deaths; it has also jeopardized our mission and the safety of U.S. troops and diplomatic personnel worldwide. Instead of punishing Blackwater for its extensive history of serious abuses the State Department is rewarding the company with up to $120 million in taxpayer funds,” she said in a statement.

The congresswoman has introduced legislation that would phase out the use of private security contractors.

“Though the name Blackwater has become synonymous with the worst of contractor abuses, the bigger problem is our dangerous reliance on such companies for the business of waging war.”

Sooner or later, the easy rationale for the Obama Administration – things at the departmental level are still being run by Bush leftovers – will have to run out.

Responsibility for stupidity like this will have sit alongside Obama and Hillary at one of their press conferences. Presuming someone from the Washington Press Corps will ask the question.