The Pope Is Preaching To The Wrong Choir.

I guess if I were a Christian, I'd be wondering just who the hell the freaky creep in the flowing robes was telling to "repent," as it seems to me he's known whose hands have been up the altar boys' robes all along...

From the AP/Los Angeles Times:

Pope Benedict XVI referred Thursday to "attacks" on the church stemming from the clerical sexual abuse scandal and said "we Christians" must repent for sins and recognize mistakes, news reports said.
Benedict made the off-the-cuff comments during his homily at a Mass inside the Vatican for members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the ANSA news agency reported.
Victims of clerical abuse have long demanded that Benedict take more personal responsibility for clerical abuse. Those demands have intensified in recent weeks as the Vatican and Benedict himself have been accused of negligence in handling some cases.
"I must say, we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'repent,' which seemed too tough," ANSA quoted Benedict as saying. "But now under attack from the world, which has been telling us about our sins … we realize that it's necessary to repent, in other words, recognize what is wrong in our lives."

The Catholic Church is "under attack?" Are you f#cking kidding me? Just who is attacking whom?

This guy's been going 'round in circles in the Popemobile way too long...

Crazed Catholic Apologist Bill Donohue Gives The "All Clear" To His Boy's Club.

H/T: Gawker.

Don't Call A Plumber For Policy Advice & Don't Get Sex Education From The Pope.

From the UK's Timesonline:

The Pope courted further controversy on his first trip to Africa today by declaring that condoms were not a solution to the AIDS epidemic – but were instead part of the problem.

In his first public comments on condom use, the pontiff told reporters en route to Cameroon that AIDS "is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".

Pope Benedict has previously stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.

He said the "traditional teaching of the Church" on chastity outside marriage and fidelity within it had proved to be "the only sure way of preventing the spread of HIV and Aids".

Strangely, the Pope didn't cite the classic abstinence parable of the chaste priest and his captive flock of intimidated altar boys in his latest fictional morality tale.