[gmc]

Originally Posted by spot

Can you provide a reference for this please, I'd like to follow it up. I've googled in various fashions and I can't find anything relating to it.

Ah. I've found out why. There's no Bill Mahr, that's why.

During his April 11, 2008 live broadcast, Maher said of the Catholic Church:

In fact, whenever a cult leader sets himself up as God's infallible wingman here on earth, lock away the kids. Which is why I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even LARGER child-abusing religious cult. Its leader ALSO has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats! That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week, and ladies: he's single!

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Bill, you can't be saying the Catholic church is no better than this creepy Texas cult. For one thing, altar boys can't even GET pregnant!" But really, what tripped up the little cult on the prairie was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands all over the world. "Cults" get raided; "religions" get parades. How DOES the Catholic church get away with all of their buggery? Volume, volume, volume! If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a "cult leader." If you have a billion, they call you "Pope." It's like, if you can't pay your mortgage, they call you a "deadbeat," but if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're "Bear Sterns" and we bail you out.

And that's who the Catholic church is. The "Bear Sterns of organized pedophilia." When the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job, as John Paul's Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the statute of limitations ran out. And that's the church's attitude: "We're here, we're queer, get used to it."

Which is fine -- far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: if the Pope was, instead of a religious figure, merely the CEO of a nation-wide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say, "Who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005...hildprotection discusses the letter in slightly more analytical language.

I always think it's more to do with the fact that in the UK anything criticising the catholic church very rapidly takes on a sectarian tinge. Just imagine the outcry if prince William starts going out with a catholic-or if Tony Blair had converted while in office. The scabs over sectarian hatred are pretty thin. People tread carefully It may seem irrational but when it comes to religion rationality goes right out the window.