Religion in the News March 27

More public servants could join detox regimen Taxpayer dollars going to pay for Scientology treatments of LEOs exposed to methamphetamine.
U.S. courts allow sex abuse cases against Vatican to proceed in rare legal move We can only hope.
Catholic Order Admits Its Founder Abused Boys Over Decades This is obscene.

Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a sword fight

Usually I post pretty grim stuff here. But this is just so funny I have to share:

While preaching is not allowed in Australian public schools, it is apparently fine to replace school counsellors with 'Christian Volunteers' such as Darryl.

A few years ago, the government realised that they could hand over school counselling roles to a willing Christian church without having to pay for the privilege. Now almost half of Australian public schools have a Christian volunteer as a full time member of the school community with parents having no direct control of how much their children are exposed to.

Read more . . .

Be sure to read all of the emails, they are hysterical.

Watch: survivors of abuse point the finger of blame directly at Benedict

The victims are not going to be silenced; it's a house of cards collapsing. Statement by David Clohessy, executive director, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, on the NYT expose of Benedict's involvement in the cover up of pedophile predator priests.

Read more at Pam's Houseblend . . .

We need a world court that can try these people and lock them away forever. The Pope is NOT above the law. If you subscribe to the collection of myths called the Bible, both Christ and Paul are clear that EVERYONE is answerable to secular law while alive. It's in situations like this that I wish religion were real and these baby f***ers would roast in a hell of their own making for eternity.

Church Meeting Sparks Controversy

BARABOO, Wis. -- A church meeting where women weren't allowed to speak is drawing controversy in Baraboo.

Women from St. John's Lutheran Church said they want basic rights and that the lack of those rights is what led to the firing of the school's principal.

The Lutheran school's principal, John Hartwig, was fired on Sunday, mainly because of his beliefs that women should be respected more in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Church, WISC-TV reported.

Read more . . .

Voodoo practitioners shrug off blame for Haitian quake

"Kaaaa! Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka," she screams and stutters, her right arm bent in front of her.

Around her, the other Voodoo worshippers look on, unsurprised but expectant as their ceremony reaches its climactic mid-point. Someone ties a red cloth to her arm, which stops shaking.

In their eyes, she is possessed by a spirit of the dead - one of the 220,000 estimated to have perished in Haiti's January quake perhaps - and is thus, in a way, blessed.

When she picks up a rusty knife and swings clockwise around the room, gulping from a bottle of cherry-flavored alcohol, they do not draw away.

Instead they embrace her, even kiss her. And in that way they are blessed, too.

But for all the fervor and favor being shared in this back-alley corner of Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum that was badly smashed in the quake, the practitioners of Voodoo are feeling under seige.

Read more . . .